Almost fifty years ago, Mercedes Sosa drafted together with other young artists, the so-called "Manifesto del Nuevo Cancionero" (The New songbook Manifesto). Apart from the millions of records she sold, the thousands of concerts she made all over the world, her countless fans and detractors, Mercedes Sosa left behind an indelible legacy. This film is a deep intimate journey into Mercedes Sosa's world, not only as an artist but as human being. An autobiography through her own voice, with never seen before archive and several international artists giving their testimony about Mercedes's.
The story of Alice Herz-Sommer, a German-speaking Jewish pianist from Prague who was, at her death, the world's oldest Holocaust survivor. She discusses the importance of music, laughter, and how to have an optimistic outlook on life.
Professor Irwin Corey is now 101 years old and he is a well known comedian, entertainer and political satirist. Fran is 95 and his wife of 71 years. Dick Gregory shares Irwin's contribution and family friend Susan Sarandon narrates.
During World War II, a hand-picked group of American GI's undertook a bizarre mission: create a traveling road show of deception on the battlefields of Europe, with the German Army as their audience. The 23rd Headquarters Special Troops used inflatable rubber tanks, sound trucks, and dazzling performance art to bluff the enemy again and again, often right along the front lines. Many of the men picked to carry out these dangerous deception missions were artists. Some went on to become famous, including fashion designer Bill Blass. In their spare time, they painted and sketched their way across Europe, creating a unique and moving visual record of their war. Their secret mission was kept hushed up for nearly 50 years after the war's end.
A new uranium mill -- the first in the U.S. in 30 years -- would re-connect the economically devastated rural mining community of Naturita, Colorado, to its proud history supplying the material for the first atomic bomb. Some view it as a greener energy source freeing America from its dependence on foreign oil, while others worry about the severe health and environmental consequences of the last uranium boom.
Misrepresented, maligned and on the verge of extinction, the great white shark is an iconic predator: the creature we love to fear. Great White Shark will explore the great white's place in our imaginations, in our fears and in the reality of its role at the top of the oceanic food chain. The film will concentrate on key aggregation points around the world: Mexico, South Africa, Los Angeles and New Zealand. Key figures in the history of shark research, people whose lives have been changed by contact with the great white, will tell us of their experiences, culminating in a direct encounter between man and shark.
We re-trace the steps of Holocaust survivor Israel Arbeiter as he returns to Poland and Germany for the final time to look for items buried in 1939 in the basement of his old home in Plock, Poland as the German army advanced. We also travel with "Izzy" to Treblinka death camp where his parents and younger brother were murdered and to other camps, most notably Auschwitz-Birkenau, where "Izzy" used the motivation of his father's final words to him to stay alive.
10 Buildings that Changed America presents 10 trend-setting works of architecture that have shaped and inspired our American landscape. These aren’t just historic structures by famous architects. These buildings have dramatically influenced our built environment in many ways – and in one case, for over two centuries.
An extraordinary story of murder, love and political conspiracy triggered when a video of a murdered Guatemalan lawyer surfaced on Youtube in which he foretold his own death and named the culprits.
Krishna Das is on a journey to India to discover legendary spiritual teacher Neem Karoli Baba, through drug addiction and depression, to his eventual emergence as a world-famous Kirtan singer.
Set in Taiwan and HawaiĘ»i, territories where languages of the Austronesian family are spoken, this documentary focuses on the questions, desires and challenges of young indigenous peoples to learn the languages of their forebears— languages that are endangered or facing extinction.
A Newark, New Jersey high school teacher struggles to prepare her students with autism to survive in the brutal world that awaits them once they graduate.
Brain scientist Professor Richard Davidson sets up his mind to conduct an unusual experiment: He will teach American war veterans and children meditation and yoga. Can veterans through meditation and yoga ease their pain and nervous system, find happiness and be more peaceful and get back to a life more like the one they had before the war?
Timely and wise, this feature documentary explores the state of prostitution laws in Canada. Buying Sex captures the complexity of the issue by listening to the frequently conflicting voices of sex workers, policy-makers, lawyers and even the male buyers who make their claim for why prostitution is good for society. Examining the realities in Sweden and New Zealand, and respecting the differences of ideology as Canada works its way toward an uneasy consensus, the film challenges us to think for ourselves and offers a gripping and invaluable account of just what is at stake for all of us.
A feature documentary film set in Hollywood, examining a radical experiment in '70s utopian living. The Source Family were the darlings of the Sunset Strip until their communal living, outsider ideals and spiritual leader Father Yod's 13 wives became an issue with local authorities. They fled to Hawaii, leading to their dramatic demise.
In 1970, hundreds of hippies followed Stephen Gaskin on a journey from San Francisco to Tennessee, where they founded a legendary commune known as the Farm. Within this self-sustaining society based on non-violence, vegetarianism and respect for the earth, members willingly took a vow of poverty, lived in converted buses, grew their own food and home-delivered babies. Born and raised in this alternative community, filmmakers and sisters Rena and Nadine return for the first time since leaving in 1985. Finally ready to face the past after years of hiding their upbringing, they chart the rise and fall of America’s largest utopian socialist experiment and their own family tree. The nascent idealism of a community destroyed, in part, by its own success is reflected in the personal story of a family unit split apart by differences. American Commune finds inspiration in failure, humour in deprivation and, most surprisingly, that communal values are alive and well in the next generation.
Pug, a wisecracking 13 year old living on a dangerous Westside block, has one goal in mind: to join The Twelve O'Clock Boys; the notorious urban dirt-bike gang of Baltimore. Converging from all parts of the inner city, they invade the streets and clash with police, who are forbidden to chase the bikes for fear of endangering the public. When Pug's older brother dies suddenly, he looks to the pack for mentorship, spurred by their dangerous lifestyle. Pug's story is coupled with unprecedented, action-packed coverage of the riders in their element. The film presents the pivotal years of change in a boy's life growing up in one of the most dangerous and economically depressed cities in the US.