A towboat drifts down the Mississippi River, due for the port of New Orleans. The water, the banks, the bright lights of a port ahead; the lure of a coming paycheck and a home-cooked meal. This is the world of BARGE. A green deckhand following his father into the family business. A former convict working his way upward job by job, in the hopes of being First Mate. A thirty-eight year veteran engineer in no hurry to retire. An ancient waterway pulling a double shift as the backbone of a national economy; a tangle of thick steel cables, tied together just right. As long as the boat’s moving, they’re making money. An intimate portrait of the machinery of American ambitions.
The filmmaker tries to find out why was he always pushed away by his father from joining the family business of shoe material trading. In his quest he unravels the odyssey of the footwear industry in Agra, India and the journey of some of the men behind it.
Curtis Duffy, a teen who fought and stole for the thrill, discovered his place in the kitchen after a home economics teacher nurtured his talents. After an unimaginable tragedy involving his parents, Duffy doubled down on his cooking career. Soon, his intense drive earned him accolades as one of the country's most renowned chefs. But as he began building his dream restaurant in Chicago, called Grace, Duffy found himself in another point of personal crisis: His laser focus cost him his marriage and two young daughters. For Grace is a documentary about food, family, sacrifice, and the journey from concrete box to opening night of one of the world's most acclaimed restaurants.
Comic Russell Brand uses drugs, sex and fame in a quest for happiness, only to find it remains elusive. As he explores iconic figures such as Gandhi, Malcolm X, Che Guevara, and Jesus, he transforms himself into a political antagonist.
Voice of the Eagle: The Enigma of Robbie Basho is a journey into the heart of an artist's lifelong struggle - designed to illuminate and satiate existing fans while serving as a perfect starting point for the uninitiated. Featuring interviews with Basho's former students, contemporaries and few close friends (including Pete Townshend, William Ackerman, Henry Kaiser and Country Joe McDonald), the documentary integrates new information and anecdotes on Basho with previously uncovered archive material and photography of the natural phenomena and landscapes that informed his work.
Jimmy Santiago Baca was a petty thief and a drug dealer when he was sentenced to five years in Arizona State Prison, one of the deadliest prisons in America. Baca began his incarceration violent, angry and illiterate, yet taught himself how to read and write, discovering a passion for poetry that ultimately saved his life.
The story of the short life, and brutal gang rape and murder in Delhi in December 2012 of an exceptional and inspiring young woman. The rape of the 23 year old medical student by 6 men on a moving bus, and her death, sparked unprecedented protests and riots throughout India and led to the first glimmers of a change of mindset. Interwoven into the story line are the lives, values and mindsets of the rapists whom the film makers have had exclusive and unprecedented access to interview before they hang. The film examines the society and values which spawn such violent acts, and makes an optimistic and impassioned plea for change.
The story of the Black Panthers is often told in a scatter of repackaged parts, often depicting tragic, mythic accounts of violence and criminal activity; but this is an essential story, vibrant, human; a living and breathing chronicle of a pivotal movement that birthed a new revolutionary culture in America.
Once the thriving capital of Imperial China, the city of Datong now lies in near ruins. Not only is it the most polluted city in the country, it is also crippled by decrepit infrastructure and even shakier economic prospects. But Mayor Geng Tanbo plans to change all that, announcing a bold, new plan to return Datong to its former glory, the cultural haven it was some 1,600 years ago. Such declarations, however, come at a devastatingly high cost. Thousands of homes are to be bulldozed, and a half-million of its residents (30 percent of Datong’s total population) will be relocated under his watch. Whether he succeeds depends entirely on his ability to calm swarms of furious workers and an increasingly perturbed ruling elite. The Chinese Mayor captures, with remarkable access, a man and, by extension, a country leaping frantically into an increasingly unstable future.
Dr. David Suzuki explains how antibiotics have been over prescribed for decades and it has led to the fact that now there are bacterial infections that are resistant to them, and people are dying by the thousands.
An astronaut sends her young son a video message from outer space. In Mexico, a stripper dances night after night to keep a roof over her child’s head. In Canada, a woman becomes a mother for the first time after enduring seven miscarriages. Finnish filmmaker Joonas Berghäll has travelled to South African settlements, Nepalese terraced fields and Russia’s metropolis Moscow to investigate an unshakable and almost magical connection: the bond between mother and child. MOTHER‘S WISH portrays 10 women from the most varied of cultural and social backgrounds who all tell of the beauty and difficulty of being a mother. These are not only stories of love and pride – but also of disappointed hopes and the most precarious of life circumstances. Above all else, however, the protagonists tell of their determination – regardless of their current living conditions – to fight for a better future.
A New Understanding explores the treatment of end-of-life anxiety in terminally ill cancer patients using psilocybin, a psychoactive compound found in some mushrooms, to facilitate deeply spiritual experiences. The documentary explores the confluence of science and spirituality in the first psychedelic research studies since the 1970s with terminally ill patients. As a society we devote a great deal of attention to treating cancer, but very little to treating the human being who is dying of cancer.
Graffiti is variegated. As much variety as the styles does have the people doing it. Still one thing connects them all – the love of their art. From illegal street and train graffiti over classical style writing and time-consuming Murals till events, exhibitions, photography and media. Through 15 short profiles you will be introduced to some of the greatest and most outstanding players of the German scene. They give insights into their work and talk about their motivation. Every part represents an important aspect of the scene, while every protagonist was chosen because of its special history, orientation, technique and style. LIFE uses climbing equipment to reach places nobody else can reach.
A documentary film about Mungo and the way he began living when he was forced ashore after his boat had rudder problems and consequently sank at Folkestone Warren. He built a small cottage from driftwood and salvaged items and through his ingenuity and skill created an alternative lifestyle free from the burden and control of the utility companies and authorities. But this is so much more than a story of someone living an alternative lifestyle; it's a story of family, friendship, love, compassion and struggle. Mungo became a 'Local Hero', an advisor, he brought people together from all walks of life, he became a destination. The authorities didn't have the same view however, and Network Rail started legal proceedings to have him removed.