Qallunaat! Why White People Are Funny is an irreverent look at Western Civilization through Inuit eyes. Inspired by the satirical essays of Zebedee Nungak, the film turns the tables on generations of anthropologists, teachers, adventurers and administrators who went North to pursue their Arctic Dreams. Now it’s their turn to be poked, prodded, examined and explained. A new generation of Inuit is ready to take on the Qallunaat at their own game. Grounded in their own traditions but educated in the South, they have a unique perspective on the culture that has come to dominate the planet. And they are not afraid to speak their minds.
Because jazz is the miraculous product of the horror of slavery, Youssou N'Dour returned to the slave route and the music they created, in search of new inspiration. Accompanied by the blind Swiss pianist Moncef Genoud and the Director of the Gorée House of Slaves Museum, Joseph N'Diaye, the Senegalese singer wrote new songs during this initiatory voyage which took him to the USA then to Europe. At Gorée, an island just off the Senegalese coast and symbol of the slave trade, his memorable concert marked the end of this quest and the start of a new challenge: making today's generation aware of the tragedy of slavery, the importance of not forgetting and the need for reconciliation.
The true-life story of a Harlem's notorious Nicky Barnes, a junkie turned multimillionaire drug-lord. Follow his life story from his rough childhood to the last days of his life.
In Yakoutia, a forgotten province of Siberia, an anthropologist Eric Crubezy has unearthed a strange tomb containing the body of a woman with her eyes covered and clothed in a garment of pearls. Who was she? Why were her sleeves sewn closed at the ends? Princess or shaman? Set up like a detective film, this film documents the scientific investigation into this mysterious woman's identity.
Scholars debate whether the Star of Bethlehem is a legend created by the early church or a miracle that marked the advent of Christ. Is it possible that the star was a real, astronomical event? From Producer Stephen McEveety (The Passion of the Christ) comes an amazing documentary on the Star of Bethlehem.
"While Ceausescu was alive, we knew who was good (the West and the United States) and who was evil. Since then, things have become more complicated." Filmmaker Alexandru Solomon believes the story of this propaganda war can help us discern the shades of grey in contemporary conflicts. "Look at our Radio Free Europe editors: you could be fighting on the right side and still be part of a dirty game."
Civil rights activist Hu Jia was held under house arrest from 2004 to 2008 in the upscale eastern suburbs of Beijing. One day Hu picked up a video camera and began to document things outside the window: his watchers, shepherds tending their flocks, spiders in the rain, and his fellow activist and wife, Zeng Jinyan, going to and from work under the unnervingly close watch of plainclothes police.
Filmed in roughly one month between the end of October and the beginning of December 2005, the film is an honest portrayal of Jac Currie’s life after Katrina and one of his first trips back to the Gulf Coast after being stranded in New York. It shows Defend New Orleans’ transition to a valid social aid project and documents some of the destruction in New Orleans and on the Mississippi Gulf Coast.
Directed by Peter Bogdanovich and packed with rare concert footage and home movies, this documentary explores the history of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, including Petty's famous collaborations and notorious clashes with the record industry. Interviews with musical luminaries including Jackson Browne, George Harrison, Eddie Vedder, Roger McGuinn, Jeff Lynne, Dave Stewart and Petty himself shed some revelatory vision.
An epic story of adventure, starring some of the most magnificent and courageous creatures alive, awaits you in EARTH. Disneynature brings you a remarkable story of three animal families on a journey across our planet – polar bears, elephants and humpback whales.
Ten years after the policy-changing and award-winning film, The Dying Rooms, the same team returns to a very different China where the infamous One Child Policy has had the horrific side effect of a boom in stolen children. With extraordinary access to devastated parents desperately searching for their stolen son; a man who brokers the deals and has sold his own offspring; and prospective parents grappling with giving up their soon-to-be-born daughter through lack of options, we are brought face to face with the crisis that such a stringent government policy has created among China's poorest people.
An exploration of the intersection between religion and homosexuality in the U.S. and how the religious right has used its interpretation of the Bible to stigmatize the gay community.
Using interviews, animation, old family footage, and voice mail, Vancouver filmmaker Gwen Haworth documents her gender transition partially through the voices of her anxious but loving family, best friend, and wife. Calling for a new era of DIY transgender self-representation, Haworth's feature debut is a comic, heartbreaking, and uplifting autobiography that breaks away from the marginalized depictions of trans people that populate mainstream media and focuses on the interpersonal relationships of a family who unexpectedly find their bonds strengthening as they overcome their preconceptions of gender and sexuality.
An intimate and moving meditation on the late musician and artist Kurt Cobain, based on more than 25 hours of previously unheard audiotaped interviews conducted with Cobain by noted music journalist Michael Azerrad for his book "Come As You Are: The Story of Nirvana." In the film, Kurt Cobain recounts his own life - from his childhood and adolescence to his days of musical discovery and later dealings with explosive fame - and offers often piercing insights into his life, music, and times. The conversations heard in the film have never before been made public, and they reveal a highly personal portrait of an artist much discussed but not particularly well understood.
A filmmaker returns to Normandy thirty years after a working on a movie based on a local homicide and tries to find the actors who worked on the project.
A luxury cruise boat motors up the Yangtze - navigating the mythic waterway known in China simply as "The River." The Yangtze is about to be transformed by the biggest hydroelectric dam in history. At the river's edge - a young woman says goodbye to her family as the floodwaters rise towards their small homestead. The Three Gorges Dam - contested symbol of the Chinese economic miracle - provides the epic backdrop for Up the Yangtze, a dramatic feature documentary on life inside modern China.
This documentary captures the sounds and images of a nearly forgotten era in film history when African American filmmakers and studios created “race movies” exclusively for black audiences. The best of these films attempted to counter the demeaning stereotypes of black Americans prevalent in the popular culture of the day. About 500 films were produced, yet only about 100 still exist. Filmmaking pioneers like Oscar Micheaux, the Noble brothers, and Spencer Williams, Jr. left a lasting influence on black filmmakers, and inspired generations of audiences who finally saw their own lives reflected on the silver screen.