How can emotion come to light on the opera set? Does it come from singing, acting or music? How can someone become the incarnation of Verdi's masterpiece? Following world famous French soprano Natalie Dessay from the first repetitions until the premiere under the direction of Jean-François Sivadier, we meet a very special woman, a piece of art, a myth: LA TRAVIATA.
It's the greatest mystery of all time; who wrote the works of Shakespeare? DEREK JACOBI leads an impressive cast on a quest to uncover the truth behind the world's most elusive author and discovers a forgotten nobleman whose story could rewrite history.
WHEN THE IRON BIRD FLIES takes us on an up-close and personal journey, exploring the complex interactions between contemporary Tibetan Buddhism and western culture. The film goes in-depth to portray the experiences and insights of both teachers and practitioners in the US and around the world. Along the way, it illuminates the wide ranging dialogs taking place between Buddhist teachings and science, psychology, gender theory and the arts. The film creates a vivid and entertaining portrait of the world of Tibetan Buddhism, as it is manifesting in the West and asks the vital question - 'In these increasingly chaotic modern times, can these age old teachings help us to find genuine happiness and create a saner, more compassionate 21st century world?'
Conjoined twins Daisy and Violet Hilton were once the cream of the sideshow crop. Taught to sing and dance at an early age, the winsome duo ascended through the early 20th-century vaudeville circuit as a side attraction (working alongside Bob Hope and Charlie Chaplin as well as a memorable turn in the Tod Browning classic "Freaks") before a cascade of unscrupulous management and harsh mistreatment brought their careers (and lives) tumbling down. This engrossing glimpse into a bygone era is filled with fascinating interviews and rare archival footage.
Doc Pomus’ dramatic life is one of American music’s great untold stories. Paralyzed with polio as a child, Brooklyn-born Jerome Felder reinvented himself as a blues singer, renaming himself Doc Pomus, then emerged as one of the most brilliant songwriters of the early rock and roll era, writing “Save the Last Dance for Me,” “This Magic Moment,” “A Teenager in Love,” “Viva Las Vegas,” and dozens of other hits. Spearheaded and co-produced by his daughter, Sharyn Felder, and packed with incomparable music and rare archival imagery, this documentary features interviews with collaborators and friends including Dr. John, Ben E. King, Joan Osborne, Shawn Colvin, Dion, Leiber and Stoller, and B.B. King, as well as passages from Doc’s private journals read by his close friend Lou Reed.
Brooklyn Castle is a documentary about I.S. 318 – an inner-city school where more than 65 percent of students are from homes with incomes below the federal poverty level – that also happens to have the best, most winning junior high school chess team in the country. (If Albert Einstein, who was rated 1800, were to join the team, he’d only rank fifth best.) Chess has transformed the school from one cited in 2003 as a “school in need of improvement” to one of New York City’s best. But a series of recession-driven public school budget cuts now threaten to undermine those hard-won successes.
A popular sensation in medieval Europe, bestiaries were catalogs of beasts featuring exotic animal illustrations, zoological wisdom, and ancient legends. The documentary unfolds like a filmic picture book where both humans and animals are on display. As we observe them, they also observe us and one another, invoking the Hindu idea of “darshan”: a mutual beholding that initiates a shift in consciousness.
Yoga was brought to the west from India by a lineage of male teachers. Now there's a generation of women who are leading the way and they're radically changing people's lives. From the busy streets of Manhattan to the dusty slums of Kenya, from the golden beaches of Australia YOGAWOMAN uncovers a global phenomenon that has changed the face of yoga forever.
Narrator Damian Lewis tells the story of the building and dedication of the Richard D. Winters Leadership monument in Normandy, France in June of 2012. The film focuses on the leader of World War II's "Band of Brothers" and the leadership skills he possessed. A never before seen interview with the late Major Winters is utilized, as well as interviews with the "Band of Brothers" who are still alive.
As artists and visual architects, husband and wife Massimo and Lella Vignelli have been producing unique and groundbreaking work as brand designers. This up-close documentary reveals their major influence in reshaping our visual environment.
Smithsonian Magazine once asked the rhetorical question, 'Can a weekly paper in rural New Mexico raise enough hell to keep its readers hungry for more, week after week?' The Rio Grande Sun, published in Espanola, New Mexico is considered one of the best weekly newspapers in the country. The Sun is known for its investigative reporting. It broke the story that its own rural community had the highest per capita heroin overdose rate in the country. It has led the fight for open records and open meetings in a county where political shenanigans are the rule. The film follows the Sun's reporters and editors as they write about the news, the sports, the art and culture of a large rural county. John Burnett, an NPR correspondent, reports on the Sun's Police Blotter--'the best in the country.' Tony Hillerman, the celebrated author and newspaper editor, speaks eloquently about the value of community newspapers. The Sun Never Sets is narrated by Bob Edwards, Peabody Award winning news anchor.
Alanis Obomsawin’s documentary The People of the Kattawapiskak River exposes the housing crisis faced by 1,700 Cree in Northern Ontario, a situation that led Attawapiskat’s band chief, Theresa Spence, to ask the Canadian Red Cross for help. With the Idle No More movement making front page headlines, this film provides background and context for one aspect of the growing crisis.
Pablo blends documentary and animation elements to tell the saga of "famous unknown" Pablo Ferro, a man with a personal journey that spans from Havana, during the pre-Cuban revolution to his current home, in the garage behind his son's house.
The film shows the lives of four foreign musicians from different backgrounds and musical genres that after visiting the City of Rio de Janeiro, ended up falling in love with the city, choosing it to live in and becoming typical cariocas.
In the historically most famous ancestral house of the matrilineal Amis tribe in Taiwan, the carved pillars tell legends, such as the great flood, the glowing girl, the descending shaman sent by the Mother Sun, and the father-killing headhunting event. After a strong typhoon toppled the house 40 years ago, the pillars were moved to the Institute of Ethnology Museum. Recently young villagers, with assistance from female shamans, pushed the descendants and village representatives to communicate with ancestors in the pillars. They eventually brought the ancestral souls rather than the pillars back and began reconstructing the house.
Voices of the Transition is an enthusiastic documentary on farmers- and community-led responses to food insecurity in a scenario of climate change and peak oil.
Paris, 5,000 years of History: an exclusive journey through time. Discover Paris as you've never imagined it through the stories of men and women caught up in its stormy fate, through the events that shaped this age-old city along with the daily life that filled it. Paris, The Great Saga lets you relive theses adventures through fictional reenactments and CGI effects made by Dassault Systemes.
On the oldest Roman road in the capital, filmmaker Marc Isaacs weaves together numerous poignant stories of loss and the search for belonging into a tapestry of the human experience. Keelta a young Irish woman leaves home to build a new life for herself on the road where Billy, the old Irish labourer is struggling to find a meaning to his life. Peggy, a 95 year old Jewish refugee from Vienna and Brigitte, a German born former air hostess, have both suffered bad husbands, whilst Iqbal, an unassuming Indian hotel concierge, awaits the arrival of his wife from Kashmir. A film that forces you to recognise the struggles and preoccupations of its characters as our own.