Throughout Hong Kong’s history, Hongkongers have fought for freedom and democracy but have yet to succeed. In 2019, a controversial extradition bill was introduced that would allow Hongkongers to be tried in mainland China. This decision spurred massive protests, riots, and resistance against heavy-handed Chinese rule over the City-State. Award-winning director Kiwi Chow documents the events to tell the story of the movement, with both a macro view of its historical context and footage and interviews from protestors on the front lines.
Nalujuk Night is an up close look at an exhilarating, and sometimes terrifying, Labrador Inuit tradition. Every January 6th from the dark of the Nunatsiavut night, the Nalujuit appear on the sea ice. They walk on two legs, yet their faces are animalistic, skeletal, and otherworldly. Snow crunches underfoot as they approach their destination: the Inuit community of Nain. Despite the frights, Nalujuk Night is a beloved annual event, showing that sometimes it can be fun to be scared. Rarely witnessed outside of Nunatsiavut, this annual event is an exciting chance for Inuit, young and old, to prove their courage and come together as a community to celebrate culture and tradition. Inuk filmmaker Jennie Williams brings audiences directly into the action in this bone-chilling black and white short documentary about a winter night like no other.
This documentary, hosted by actor Burgess Meredith, explores the life and career of movie director Otto Preminger, whose body of work includes such memorable films as Anatomy of a Murder, Exodus, Laura, Forever Amber, Advise and Consent, In Harm's Way, The Moon Is Blue, The Man with the Golden Arm, and many other movies made from the '30s through the '70s. Interviews with actors Frank Sinatra, Vincent Price, James Stewart, Michael Caine, and others who worked with the flamboyant and sometimes control-obsessed director add information and insight to the story.
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.
After the atomic obliteration of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, over 36,000 Australian men and women, part of the British Commonwealth Occupation Force (BCOF), marched onto Japanese soil. They were assigned the toughest and most dangerous area of Japan: Hiroshima Prefecture, which included the atom-bombed city. The Forgotten Force tells for the first time the story of Australia's role in Japan. Rare archival and private footage, photographs and eyewitness accounts from both sides vividly recreate the atmosphere of post-war Japan - the horror of Hiroshima and its aftermath; the struggle to build a new "democratic" society while under the heel of military rule; the growth from suspicion and fear to friendship and trust between foes.
After the fall of the military dictatorship in 1983, successive democratic governments launched a series of reforms purporting to turn Argentina into the world's most liberal and prosperous economy. Less than twenty years later, the Argentinians have lost literally everything: major national companies have been sold well below value to foreign corporations; the proceeds of privatizations have been diverted into the pockets of corrupt officials; revised labour laws have taken away all rights from employees; in a country that is traditionally an important exporter of foodstuffs, malnutrition is widespread; millions of people are unemployed and sinking into poverty; and their savings have disappeared in a final banking collapse. The film highlights numerous political, financial, social and judicial aspects that mark out Argentina's road to ruin.
For all intents and purposes, 2015 was seemingly a banner year for singer/songwriter Bobby Choy (aka Big Phony). His melodic and quiet songs had garnered him a following as he performs at SXSW while also starring in his first feature film. However, returning back to the States from living abroad in S. Korea - has he made the right decisions in life, professionally and personally? Is he his own worst enemy?
Historians examine the history of Queen Elizabeth II, England's longest running queen,including the untimely death of her father, her actions in England's ex-colonies and the current state of the royal family.
Diaries, audiotapes, videotapes and testimonials from friends and colleagues offer insight into the life and career of Gilda Radner -- the beloved comic and actress who became an icon on Saturday Night Live.
In the first decades of the 20th century, when life was being transformed by scientific innovations, researchers made a thrilling new claim: they could tell whether someone was lying by using a machine. Popularly known as the “lie detector,” the device transformed police work, seized headlines and was extolled in movies, TV and comics as an infallible crime-fighting tool. Husbands and wives tested each other’s fidelity. Corporations routinely tested employees’ honesty and government workers were tested for loyalty and “morals.” But the promise of the polygraph turned dark, and the lie detector too often became an apparatus of fear and intimidation. Written and directed by Rob Rapley and executive produced by Cameo George, The Lie Detector is a tale of good intentions, twisted morals and unintended consequences.
One year after the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy takes us to the heart of the combat through this war diary made during the second half of 2022. From Kharkiv and Bakhmut to Kherson, in the aftermath of the city’s liberation, this documentary bears witness to the ravages of war through the testimonies of soldiers, chronicles of the front and portraits of civilians, and shares with us the struggle of the Ukrainian people.
The first film in what would ultimately become Zilnik’s famed Kenedi trilogy follows street hustler Kenedi Hasani and his friend as they roam the streets of Serbia seeking Kenedi’s parents. Kenedi Goes Back Home is Zilnik’s account of the Roma people who were forced to flee from the war in the Balkans to Germany in the 1990s and who, ten years later, are forced against their will to return to Serbia. Zilnik shows the immigrants' lives in relation to the prevailing ideology shaped today by the borders between rich and poor and by the often-racist selection process that determines who will be accepted into Western Europe. In presenting the dilemmas and identifying the crises these people face, he appeals for a solution.