In the winter of 2002-'03, as the US was building its case to attack Iraq, people around the world responded with a series fo the largest peace protests in history. Shutdown: The Rise and Fall of Direct Action to Stop the War, is an action-packed documentary chronicling how DASW successfully organized to shut down a major US city and how they failed to effectively maintain the organization to fight the war machine and end the occupation of Iraq. Created by organizers involved with DASW, Shutdown combines detailed information on organizing for a mass action, critical interviews on organizing pitfalls, and the wisdom of hindsight. It is a must-see film for those engaged in the continuous struggle toward social justice.
In this film, which takes a critical look at the period when Saddam Hussein, the former leader of Iraq who was brutally executed in recent years, was in power, director Gani Rüzgar Şavata's message is: "If soldiers are not robots, if they have become pawns for the supporters of imperialism, Zionism, and fascism, if they do not even recognize the thin line between life and death for people searching for their own identity, then these are Saddam's Soldiers." It is the era of Saddam Hussein in northern Iraq. Many raids are carried out on Peshmerga villages, and torture and suffering are rampant. Despite everything, an unstoppable love quietly blossoms, grows, and strives to survive.
In 1913, little Mary Phagan is found dead at the National Pencil Factory in Atlanta. Police quickly decide that the Jewish Superintendent, Leo Frank, should be held responsible. The trial commences with both prosecution and defense lawyers using ad hominen as the base for their arguments. From 1913 to 1915, this murder, trial, and aftermath gained notoriety worldwide. And one hundred years later it has produced books, college and university discussions, a Hollywood-ized movie "They Won't Forget", a TV movie "The Murder of Mary Phagan", a Broadway musical "Parade", a bittersweet folk song "The Ballad of Mary Phagan", and racial controversy.
Slovakia, on the eve of the outbreak of World War II. The family of the young Jewish Martin Friedmann gathers to celebrate his bar mitzvah and make a solemn promise that they will all meet again a year later around the same table; but the storms of war and anti-Semitic fanaticism will lead each of them down very different paths.
The untold story about wild rabbits which lived between the Berlin Walls. For 28 years Death Zone was their safest home. Full of grass, no predators, guards protecting them from human disturbance. They were closed but happy. When their population grew up to thousands, guards started to remove them. But rabbits survived and stayed there. Unfortunately one day the wall fell down. Rabbits had to abandon comfortable system. They moved to West Berlin and have been living there in a few colonies since then. They are still learning how to live in the free world, same as we - the citizens of Eastern Europe.
The tombs of the grand lords of Moche civilization - one of Peru's most important pre-Hispanic civilizations -- are in constant danger from grave robbers, but archeologist Walter Alva has managed to find some priceless treasures and recreate the lives of this ancient people of northern Peru.
Garron, the young son of a nobleman, is left in charge of his family's estate when his father is summoned to war. After his mother's health worsens and his sister is abducted by raiders, Garron must make difficult choices to defend his family.
The first American documentary about Traditional (Non-Racist) Skinheads. Focuses on the 'cross of cultures' that came together to form the Skinhead identity: The origins of the Skinhead scene in England, its roots in Jamaican Reggae and Ska (mid-'60s) to its revival and global impact with 2 Tone, Punk, Oi, and Hardcore (late '70s to present day). Features interviews and live concert footage by current bands across these various musical genres in the United States, England and Germany; discussing their viewpoints on Skinhead, its Working Class values, and its continuing relevance around the world.
In 1937, during the height of the Second Sino-Japanese War, the Imperial Japanese Army has just captured Nanjing, then-capital of the Republic of China. What followed was known as the Nanking Massacre, or the Rape of Nanking, a six week period wherein tens of thousands of Chinese soldiers and civilians were killed.
Several years after leaving the orphanage, to which her father never returned for her, Gabrielle Chanel finds herself working in a provincial bar. She's both a seamstress for the performers and a singer, earning the nickname Coco from the song she sings nightly with her sister. A liaison with Baron Balsan gives her an entree into French society and a chance to develop her gift for designing.
Shula Cohen, the true story of a Jewish Lebanese woman living, in the 1940s, in Wadi Abu-Jmil, an area in Beirut that used to gather a big community of Lebanese Jews. In her late thirties, she was a total beauty, with great intelligence; and called: “The Pearl”.
This heartwarming and at times touching documentary chronicles the preparation, experience, and aftermath of the University of Nebraska at Omaha's Black Studies Department, students, and community persons as they embark upon the inauguration of President Barack Obama. A mixture of cinema verity and interview, this documentary provides an eyewitness accounting of the event through emerging primary stories representative of a broad array of cultural and occupational backgrounds. It is the cinematic documentation of the joy, the laughter, and the tears as 55 passengers board a bus and travel over 2,000 miles for an experience of a lifetime.
July 1936. Leon Blum's (Daniel Mesguich) left-wing coalition government is facing one of the hardest strikes paralyzing the whole country's economy. But one man alone is about to get the French people back to work, and peacefully: Roger Salengro (Bernard-Pierre Donnadieu).
The story is set in the Sengoku period. A rounin called Nanashi saves a young boy Kotarou at an abandoned temple. Kotarou has no family, is pursued by a mysterious militia organization from China and hires Nanashi as his bodyguard.
Even though bringing in cameras to the internment camps was prohibited, one man managed to smuggle in his own camera lens and build a camera to document life behind barbed wires, with the help of other craftsmen in the camp. That man was Toyo Miyatake, a successful issei (first generation immigrant) photographer and owner of a photo-shop in the Los Angeles Little Tokyo district, and of one of the many Americans who was interned with his family against his will. With his makeshift camera, Miyatake captured the dire conditions of life in the camps during World War II as well as the resilient spirit of his companions, many of whom were American citizens who went on to fight for their country overseas. Miyatake said, "It is my duty to record the facts, as a photographer, so that this kind of thing should never happen again."