This unique program tells the remarkable story of the search for the Tek Sing, a Chinese Junk which sank in 1822 on the Belvidere Reef in the South China Sea with the loss of nearly 2000 lives and its valuable cargo.
Valerie Goodloe, a LA-based professional photographer for a national magazine, thought that she and her family had it made. A recovering addict who has been sober for 25 years, Goodloe was confident that her children would grow up to be well-rounded, socially-responsible human beings. She imagined they would go to college, excel in their chosen careers and never have to worry about issues fueled by poverty, such as being on welfare, selling drugs or using food stamps. That dream, however, became a nightmare when Goodloe discovered that her troubled daughter Nafeesa had joined the Bloods, a notorious Los Angeles gang. After many sleepless nights and court appearances with her daughter, Goodloe determined that not only did she need answers to help explain how she found herself on this path with Nafeesa, but that she would take it upon herself to increase awareness about the huge numbers of girls and women involved in the gang lifestyle.
Banned in Cameroon, The Big Banana illustrates the poor working conditions in banana plantations and exposes the adverse impact on the people of a corporatocracy government that affords super profits for corporations at the expense of the local population. The Big Banana outlines land grabbing tactics by company Plantation du Haut Penja (PHP) and the ensuing devastation for communities: poverty, pollution, and sickness from pesticides. Bieleu, who spent two years filming residents in the remote countryside of Cameroon also features local cooperatives resisting the devastation through business alliances with fair trade organizations.
"Permanent Change" looks at the history and development of plastic within the architectural world. Capturing both a series of lectures and a panel with prominent names such as Steven Holl, Beatriz Colomina and Werner Sobek, this documentation observes detailed examples and lively debates regarding the popularization of plastic as a construction material. Addressing a number of contributing factors including design, engineering and form, the participants of the conference present a wide range of theories, analyses and predictions pertaining to plastics as an architectural material.
Soanin Kilangit is determined to unite the people and attract international tourism through the revival of culture on Baluan Island in the South Pacific. He organizes the largest cultural festival ever held on the island, but some traditional leaders argue that Baluan never had culture and that culture comes from the white man and is now destroying their old tradition. Others, however, take the festival as a welcome opportunity to revolt against '70 years of cultural oppression' by Christianity. A struggle to define the past, present and future of Baluan culture erupts to the sound of thundering log drum rhythms.
These film reels had vanished for decades and no one knew about the secret passion of Hitler's second man Hermann Goering. This footage from his private collection shows for the first time how he preferred to see himself: at the height of his power, acclaimed by the masses - as in the annexation of Austria in 1938, as Commander-in-Chief of the Luftwaffe.
Just a stone’s throw from downtown Montreal is the largest social housing complex in Quebec. Built in 1959 where the red-light district used to be, Les Habitations Jeanne-Mance have retained something of the area’s seedy reputation for poverty, prostitution, drugs and violence. But who really knows the projects and the people who live there? Delving beneath the prejudices and stereotypes, director Isabelle Longtin ventured inside the buildings and met the residents.
Seen through the eyes of activist, farmers and journalists, Waking the Green Tiger follows an extraordinary campaign to stop a huge dam project on the Upper Yangtze river in southwestern China. Featuring astonishing archival footage never seen outside China, and interviews with a government insider and witnesses, the documentary also tell the history of Chairman Mao's campaigns to conquer nature in the name of progress. An environmental movement takes root when a new environmental law is passed, and for the first time in China's history, ordinary citizens have the democratic right to speak out and take part in government decisions. Activist test this new freedom and save a river. The movement they trigger has the potential to transform China.
This is the first documentary film that tells the forgotten story of the annihilation of the Gypsies by the Nazis and their allies from one end to the other of Europe. With interviews of the survivors and archival footage never seen before the film points out the architects of this terrifying genocide and goes through all the territories where the extermination took place.
"No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear." CS Lewis - A Grief Observed Loss comes in many forms: The grief over the death of a loved one, the devastation of a physical or mental impairment, the pain of divorce or separation, or the distress of job loss and foreclosure.
Michael and others reveal their dark pasts - and their frantic fight for survival on the unforgiving streets of the City of Angels This vivid documentary casts an even darker shadow on the already harsh conditions of living homeless in Los Angeles.
This film traces the path Floyd took after the recording of the Animals album - an era when cracks in the band first started to show - and brings the strange story of the group and the intense relationship between Waters and Gilmour right up to date with the unexpected collaboration of these two maverick musicians at a 2010 charity event. Featuring numerous interviews.
Generation Baby Buster is a documentary feature that explores why so many women are just saying no to procreation. Armed with insight from those who write and think about the current state of affairs for mothers, the director confronts her own ambivalence towards children head on and offers up some baby food-for-thought to a new generation of women: the baby busters.
In a case of indigenism verses corporate greed, this compelling documentary chronicles the ongoing battle between the locals of Panama's Bocas del Toro and the commercial developers and migrating Americans who have seized upon the tropical paradise.
Eddie 'The Fat Man' Jackson and Courtney 'The Field Marshal' Brown were labeled 'Kingpins' in an era where their names reigned supreme in Detroit. Accumulating more than a million dollars a month in heroin sales.
URBAN ROOTS is a documentary that tells the story of the spontaneous emergence of urban farming in the city of Detroit. Detroit, once an industrial powerhouse of a lost American era, is a city devastated by the loss of half its population due to the collapse of manufacturing. By the looks of it, the city has died. But now, against all odds, in the empty lots, in the old factory yards, and in-between the sad, sagging blocks of company housing, seeds of change are taking root.