Doctors of the Dark Side is the first feature length documentary about the pivotal role of physicians and psychologists in detainee torture. The stories of four detainees and the doctors involved in their abuse demonstrate how US Army and CIA doctors implemented the Enhanced Interrogation Techniques and covered up signs of torture at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib. Interviews with medical, legal and intelligence experts and evidence from declassified government memos document what has been called the greatest scandal in American medical ethics. Based on four years of research by Producer/Director Martha Davis, written by Oscar winning Mark Jonathan Harris, and filmed in HD by Emmy winning DP Lisa Rinzler, the film shows how the torture of detainees could not continue without the assistance of the doctors.
'The Economics of Happiness' features a chorus of voices from six continents calling for systemic economic change. The documentary describes a world moving simultaneously in two opposing directions. On the one hand, government and big business continue to promote globalization and the consolidation of corporate power. At the same time, all around the world people are resisting those policies, demanding a re-regulation of trade and finance - and, far from the old institutions of power, they're starting to forge a very different future. Communities are coming together to re-build more human scale, ecological economies based on a new paradigm - an economics of localization.
It's been nine years since Liz Alderman's son Peter was murdered by terrorists. Every day since then she's faced the same two options; succumbing to the depths of despair or finding a way to survive. Esther Hyman knows about this choice. Her sister was killed when her bus was blown up, she too has had to continuously keep from being immobilized by sadness. And Ben Tullipan now lives minus two legs because of his encounter with a car bomb. Their lives, shattered by terrorists, are now on a new path and they're taking thousands of people along for the ride. 'Love Hate Love' follows these survivors as they search for honor, meaning and a new life's path.
Michele Gitlin has 700 sweaters. In touch with the pain as well as the pleasure of over-collecting, she calls Ron “Disaster Master” Alford for help. Ron, a de-cluttering expert who believes that “clutter begins in the head, and ends up on the floor,” determines that Michele is a hoarder with a rating of 8 (out of ten) on his “clutter index.” Ron also visits a retired Marine with 7,800 Beanie Babies and a home shopping addict whose purchases are literally burying him. Never Enough is a meditation on materialism, consumerism, mental illness and the social fabric of our lives.
Details the catastrophic effects globalization has wrought on the ship, truck and train industries. We visit displaced farmers and villagers in Holland and Belgium, underpaid truck drivers in Los Angeles, seafarers aboard mega-ships shuttling between Asia and Europe, and factory workers in China, whose low wages are the fragile key to the whole puzzle. At a moment when collective bargaining rights are under attack in the United States, and China continues to bow to foreign pressures to prevent such rights from being granted at all, this film asks: Is capitalism the Trojan horse that turns on its inventors?
Two Danish comedians join the director on a trip to North Korea, where they have been allowed access under the pretext of wanting to perform a vaudeville act.
A portrait of the writer and poet Steven J. Bernstein (aka Jesse Bernstein), one of Seattle's most celebrated and troubled voices. His angry, surprisingly fresh, lyrical writings are about sensitive souls, drifters and drug addicts, people alienated by a society that refuses to understand them. Bernstein was an integral part of the legendary Seattle rock scene of the late 80's and early 90s, and in 1991 was dubbed the 'Godfather of Grunge.'
“WHISKY: the Islay edition” yearns for a chesterfield and a glass of whisky as it transports the viewer to a sanctum of the Scottish gold. It doesn’t just inform us about whisky, it evokes the finesses of the liquor, the art of tasting, the craft of distillation, the history of the distilleries and the richness of the isle of Islay itself. The documentary takes us to a small Scottish island called Islay. It is the home of 8 world famous whisky distilleries. The complete process of making whisky is divided in 8 parts. The 8 distilleries represent each a part of this process, in order of appearance: Ardbeg, Kilchoman, Bowmore, Bunnahabhain, Caol Ila, Laphroaig, Lagavulin and Bruichladdich.
A Dutch family left Holland to transform a 400 year old monastery into a home, artist's workshop, and nature preserve. Filmed entirely in remote village in Portugal, Convento bends the rigid structure of documentary filmmaking, blurring the lines of information and surrealism Featuring the renowned kinetic artist Christiaan Zwanikken and his family.
Starting with the image of a tour bus warming its engine in the stillness of an empty lot, this haunting, personal portrait of music legend Levon Helm evokes the mood of a lifetime spent on the road. Jacob Hatley's extraordinarily intimate documentary finds Helm, a founding member of The Band, at home in Woodstock in the midst of creating his first studio album in 25 years. The ultimate survivor, he's overcome drugs, bankruptcy, the bitter breakup of The Band and a bout of throat cancer -but then, as the rueful title indicates, he wasn't in it for his health
A documentary about Basque inmigrants who went to USA looking for work and a better future. Basically, Amerikanuak talks about feeling homesick, about struggling in a different country to make a decent living and about being part of a comunity.
The eagerly awaited sequel to Patrick Keiller's London and Robinson in Space is a beautifully photographed cinematic essay on our current environmental and economic predicament, narrated by Vanessa Redgrave. Timely, provocative and studded with surreal humour, Robinson in Ruins reveals hidden histories and surprising visions (from the opium poppy fields of Oxfordshire to what seems to be a talking post box), making us consider the world around us afresh.
A look at how one investigator spent ten years trying to expose Bernie Madoff's massive Ponzi scheme that scammed an estimated $18 billion from investors.
This is the story of a rational, skeptical woman, a mother and wife, who does not remember her dreams. Except once, when she dreamed her horse was dying. She woke so scared she went outside in the night. She found him dead. The next dream told her she would die herself, when she was 48.
Interviews and archival footage profile the life of Dennis Banks, American Indian Movement leader who looks back at his early life and the rise of the Movement.
A docu-comedy feature film about a once-famous millionaire "business artist" forced to confront his own legendarily obnoxious behavior, while trying to find love through fame.
Along the roads of Australia travels a small film crew headed by filmmaker Phoebe Hart, who is determined to turn this on-the-road trip into a journey of self-discovery. Her hermaphroditism played a painful and significant role in her past: she has had to deal with it from her adolescence on, but now this conflict has happily been solved. Even her relationship with her parents was damaged by her condition: in her opinion they were to blame for having forced her to undergo a traumatic operation to remove her internal testicles. Along the road, she will connect with other intersex people, ready to open up to her about their common condition. Will Phoebe succeed in openly confronting her mother, who is reluctant to be interviewed, and to talk about an issue that is so important for her? Will she find the answers she is looking for? A journey of self-discovery that is difficult, but at the same time light, ironic and detached.
In a rough style, by way of unique footage, the brutal consequences of modern wars are exposed. The film also depicts the ability of women and children to handle their everyday life after a dramatic war experience. Many of them live in tents or in ruins without walls or roofs. They are all in need of money, food, water and electricity. Others have lost family members, or are left with seriously injured children. Can war solve conflicts or create peace? The film follows three children through the war and the period after the ceasefire.