Visual Acoustics celebrates the life and career of Julius Shulman, the world's greatest architectural photographer, whose images brought modern architecture to the American mainstream. Shulman, who passed away this year, captured the work of nearly every modern and progressive architect since the 1930s including Frank Lloyd Wright, Richard Neutra, John Lautner and Frank Gehry. His images epitomized the singular beauty of Southern California's modernist movement and brought its iconic structures to the attention of the general public. This unique film is both a testament to the evolution of modern architecture and a joyful portrait of the magnetic, whip-smart gentleman who chronicled it with his unforgettable images.
The notion that oil motivates America's military engagements in the Middle East is often disregarded as nonsense or mere conspiracy theory. In Blood and Oil, bestselling author and Nation magazine defense correspondent Michael T. Klare challenges this conventional wisdom and corrects the historical record. The film unearths declassified documents and highlights forgotten passages in prominent presidential doctrines to show how concerns about oil have been at the core of American foreign policy for more than 60 years -- rendering our contemporary energy and military policies virtually indistinguishable. In the end, Blood and Oil calls for a radical re-thinking of US energy policy, warning that unless we change direction, we stand to be drawn into one oil war after another as the global hunt for diminishing world petroleum supplies accelerates.
The story of a band of brothers who travel the world in search of the answers to the burning questions: Who am I? Who is Man? Why do we search for meaning? Their journey brings them into the middle of the lives of the homeless on the streets of New York City, the orphans and disabled children of Peru, and the abandoned lepers in the forests of Ghana, Africa. What the young men discover changes them forever. Through one on one interviews and real life encounters, the brothers are awakened to the beauty of the human person and the resilience of the human spirit.
Take to the sky in Washington the Beautiful and come face-to-face with Washington state’s majestic mountains, including one of the Pacific Northwest’s most well-known symbols: Mount Rainier. Celebrate the diversity of the state’s landscapes from the glittering Puget Sound in the west to the rolling Palouse in the east and everything in between — all in high definition to display brilliant detail. Continue the journey by foot in this spectacular film with cultural events, recreational activities, and everything that makes Washington state a Pacific Northwest treasure.
Mount Rushmore stands unrivaled in the world, a sky-high tribute to the heroes and ideals that shaped America. This stirring program features rare footage that chronicles its monumental construction. This iconic treasure is just one of the wonders to be found in the Black Hills, a region rich in history and majesty.
'He who wants water must be prepared to kill for it' an old Arab saying goes. At the beginning of the 21st century water, the ancient source of life, already is in short supply all over the world. From the heart of Africa to the Aral Sea in the Kazakh steppe the film portrays different people's lives and their struggle for water and survival.
Regularly using subjects which lie on the border of science and philosophy, Conrad Shawcross‘s structural and often mechanical sculptures question empirical, ontological and philosophical systems ubiquitous within our lives. While at first appearing rational and functional, his complex mechanised systems in the end deny all rational function and so the viewer is forced down philosophical and metaphysical avenues to deduce a ‘rasion d’etre’. From early works such as The Nervous System, 2002 – a monumental spinning machine that endlessly weaves a length of coloured rope into the form of a double helix, the shape of DNA – to his recent giant spiral work Continuum, 2004, the artist has attempted to visualize, among other things, the incomprehensible of human concerns, time.
SoleJourney shows how dedicated and courageous individuals, following in the footsteps of Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr., use non-violent resistance and acts of civil disobedience to confront anti-gay rhetoric as well as religious and political oppression. This powerful, inspiring documentary exposes James Dobson's Focus on the Family, a well-funded, politically powerful organization that assaults the civil rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people and their families. Interweaving stories of courage and commitment and interviews with movement leaders such as Mel White of Soulforce, Judy Shepard of the Matthew Shepard Foundation, and actor and activist Chad Allen, SoleJourney shows how a small group of individuals take action against a colossal adversary - including a six-day, 65 mile march from the Colorado State Capitol in Denver to the Focus on the Family's headquarters in Colorado Springs.
Depicts a cast of fine artists and eccentric scientists (from MIT and NASA) who have devoted their lives to the unlikely medium of modern origami. Through their determination to reinterpret the world in paper, they arouse a fascinating mix of sensibilities towards art, form, expressiveness, creativity and meaning
In America, we define ourselves in the superlative: we are the biggest, strongest, fastest country in the world. Is it any wonder that so many of our heroes are on performance enhancing drugs? Director Christopher Bell explores America's win-at-all-cost culture by examining how his two brothers became members of the steroid-subculture in an effort to realize their American dream.
The War of 33 is an intimate, personal and powerful telling of the story of the 2006 war in Lebanon. A series of letters written by Hanady Salman--a mother living through the war in Beirut--carve a narrative arc through the intense and haunting images of conflict. She tells the stories of her family and the people she lives the war with--the refugees, the wounded, and the everyday Lebanese, struggling to maintain their sanity and their humanity during a time of war.
The End of Poverty? asks if the true causes of poverty today stem from a deliberate orchestration since colonial times which has evolved into our modern system whereby wealthy nations exploit the poor. People living and fighting against poverty answer condemning colonialism and its consequences; land grab, exploitation of natural resources, debt, free markets, demand for corporate profits and the evolution of an economic system in in which 25% of the world's population consumes 85% of its wealth. Featuring Nobel Prize winner Amartya Sen and Joseph Stiglitz, authors/activist Susan George, Eric Toussaint, Bolivian Vice President Alvaro Garcia Linera and more.
The Douglas Mawson Antarctic Expedition of 1912 is considered one of the most amazing feats of endurance of all time. Although his two companions perished, Douglas Mawson survived, but how? In a bold historical experiment, scientist and adventurer Tim Jarvis is retracing the gruelling experience, with the same meagre rations, primitive clothing and equipment to uncover what happened to Mawson physically — and mentally — as a man hanging on the precipice of life and death.
After a long battle with depression, Queensland rare chicken breeder Mark Tully is now on a mission to protect the endangered chickens to which he owes his life.
The complex and beautiful hieroglyphic script of the ancient Maya was until recently one of the last great undeciphered writing systems. Based on the best-selling book by Michael Coe, called by the New York Times "one of the great stories of 20th century scientific discovery", Breaking the Maya Code traces the epic quest to unlock the secrets of the script across 200 years, nine countries and three continents.