Leon Trotsky is considered one of the most controversial revolutionary figures of his time. Was he a practical revolutionary or a naive idealist? On the practical side, he was the mastermind behind the Bolshevik seizure of power in 1917, and was totally ruthless during the ensuing Civil War. As an idealist, he was committed to the pursuit of international revolution, but created many political enemies. After Lenin's death, Trotsky lost in a power struggle with Stalin, and later was expelled from the Communist Party. Trotsky was exiled from the Soviet Union, eventually finding refuge in Mexico. In 1940, Stalin ordered his assassination, and Trotsky died after being struck in the head with an ice-pick. History records that Trotsky was a master theoretician, a skillful propagandist and a brilliant orator.
In the ’70s and ’80s, photographer William Yang captured Sydney’s emerging artistic, literary, theatrical and queer circles; as well as his friendships with artists, writers and fashion designers such as Brett Whiteley, Patrick White, Linda Jackson and Jenny Kee. With myriad images and his trademark candid narration, Yang leads us though this beguilingly decadent and creative era.
As a boy, Dawa was an illiterate Tibetan nomad whose life revolved around herding yaks. At 13, his life changed: through a series of visions, Dawa acquired the gift of telling the epic story of Tibet’s King Gesar. Now, at 35, Dawa receives a salary from the government as a guardian of national cultural heritage and is regarded as a holy man by his community. When an earthquake reduces his hometown to rubble, redevelopment of the region takes a giant leap forward. In the midst of such seismic shifts, Dawa seeks healing from King Gesar and other divine protectors of the land.
A feature length documentary film representing the 'B' side to the 2012 release 'Something from Nothing: The Art of Rap'. A hard hitting story of life and death in South Central Los Angeles. A struggle beyond the nearby Hollywood limelight among people for whom state intervention comes mostly with a siren attached. Amsterdam Film Festival Winner World Cinema Documentary Editing Award 2014.
Documentary - America's most popular and iconic seafood is really a cheap foreign import. Raising Shrimp paints the economic and medical perils of an outsourced food supply,and follows Ted, an engineer, and Andy, an ecologist, on a quest for a better shrimp. In Texas, they find fishermen pushed from riches to rags by imports. In Belize, they find shrimp farmers striving for a natural balance with jungles and lagoons, but again globalization takes its toll, and the best farm collapses. Back home in the U.S. pioneering farmers harness the power of bacteria to grow shrimp inside a darkened warehouse without any waste. Encouraged, Andy and Ted see that raising shrimp this way offers hope for all. - Andy Danylchuk, Ted Caplow
Captivated features insights from media experts as well as personal stories from individuals and families who have escaped media addiction and learned to make discerning and God-honoring choices about their use of media technology.
Who were they? What brought them to Wagner, and what brought him to them? These questions are at the heart of Hilan Warshaw's documentary "Wagner's Jews," the first film to focus on Wagner's complex personal relationships with Jews.
An entertaining, secular, and educational look at the benefits of mindful practice, 'The Mindfulness Movie' brings together an unprecedented group of the world's leading neuroscientists, psychiatrists, authors, and others to decode mindfulness. First, they help to define what mindfulness is and how the concept of neuroplasticity plays into the practice. Then, they walk you through eight practical, foundational mindful lessons--like managing stress and mindful eating. Finally, meet some heartwarming veterans and teens who are using mindfulness to overcome issues like PTSD, depression, bi-polar disorder, anxiety, and everyday life stresses. Everyone, regardless of belief system or background, has something to gain from watching ' The Mindfulness Movie.'
The documentary uses Graham Greene's own words from his books and recordings, as well as photographs and clips from his many films, to reveal the fascinating life of one of the great writers of the twentieth century.
There is one vibratory field that connects all things. It has been called Akasha, Logos, the primordial OM, the music of the spheres, the Higgs field, dark energy, and a thousand other names throughout history. The vibratory field is at the root of all true spiritual experience and scientific investigation. It is the same field of energy that saints, Buddhas, yogis, mystics, priests, shamans and seers, have observed by looking within themselves. Many of history's monumental thinkers, such a Pythagoras, Kepler, Leonardo DaVinci, Tesla, and Einstein, have come to the threshold of this great mystery. It is the common link between all religions, all sciences, and the link between our inner worlds and our outer worlds.
A documentary chronicling the rise of art as a response to political change that defined the 1980s. A mixed media documentary incorporating art, music, animation, and spoken work Let Fury Have the Hour is told through the voices of the artists of the day.
Working at the limits of what can easily be expressed, filmmaker Peter Mettler takes on the elusive subject of time, and once again turns his camera to filming the unfilmable. From the particle accelerator in Switzerland, where scientists seek to probe regions of time we cannot see, to lava flows in Hawaii which have overwhelmed all but one home on the south side of Big Island; from the disintegration of inner-city Detroit, to a Hindu funeral rite near the place of Buddha's enlightenment, Mettler explores our perception of time. He dares to dream the movie of the future while also immersing us in the wonder of the everyday. THE END OF TIME, at once personal, rigorous and visionary, Peter Mettler has crafted a film as compelling and magnificent as its subject.
Los Angeles' Skid Row is home to one of the largest homeless populations in the United States. And we found, inside that community, the remarkable and enormously moving stories of Olympic athletes, Harvard attorneys, accomplished musicians, scholars. We found poverty, drugs and mental illness, of course - but more importantly we found life, hope and incredibly powerful human journeys.
When an American filmmaker is commissioned to make a film for a Middle East Biennial on the theme of 'art as a subversive act,' his film is banned for blasphemy, he is asked to destroy every copy, and threatened with arrest.
A raw and candid dialogue about the life and craft of acting between longtime colleagues and friends Dabney Coleman, Peter Falk, Charles Grodin, Mark Rydell, Harry Dean Stanton and Sydney Pollack. Drago Sumonja's document takes us into the hearts, minds, and living rooms of some of America's greatest storytellers.
In the wings of the opera "Maraina", the film combines history and oral memory, to recount in music the first contacts between the natives in the Indian Ocean Islands and the Europians. The film follows the cast's fantastic journey to the place where it all began: Fort-Dauphin, in southern Madagascar.
Two differents versions of a moment in African history: one related by the French officers back in the mid-17th century, and the other one by the Malagasy people. The characters tell their own vision of a common past. There was war of course but there were also love stories between those young French soldiers and beautiful Malagasy princesses. A fascinating voyage through Madagascar today, at the heart of its beliefs.
Ginger Baker is known for playing in Cream and Blind Faith, but the world's greatest drummer didn’t hit his stride until 1972, when he arrived in Nigeria and discovered Fela Kuti's Afrobeat. After leaving Nigeria, Ginger returned to his pattern of drug-induced self-destruction, and countless groundbreaking musical works, eventually settling in South Africa, where the 73-year-old lives with his young bride and 39 polo ponies. This documentary includes interviews with Eric Clapton, Steve Winwood, Carlos Santana and more. Beware of Mr. Baker! With every smash of the drum is a man smashing his way through life.