The Great Pyramid of Giza is the last standing of the Ancient World’s Seven Wonders, but the Egyptians built over a hundred pyramids. Among them, seven particularly stand out. Pyramids capture the great power beheld by pharaohs, both on a political and on a spiritual scale. Researchers are still fascinated by the ancient, advanced techniques developed by this lost civilization.
Master Qi and the Monkey King explores the life and work of the preeminent master of Chinese Opera living in the United States. Qi Shu Fang was a household name in China due to her feature role in one of the Cultural Revolution Opera films, and traveled the world to show off her mastery of the art form. The film explores the reasons why Ms. Qi, her husband and a whole troupe of Chinese Opera performers have moved to the United States to transplant their art form to a foreign culture.
During WWII, the U.S. formed an elite intelligence unit -- mostly German Jewish academics -- at Camp Ritchie, Maryland. Tasked with devising ways to break the morale of the SS, these men are often credited with bringing an early end to the war. Some of these heroes, who are now in the eighties, are reunited in this documentary.
In 1936, a right-wing military coup tried to overthrow the new, legally elected, democratic government of Spain. Hitler and Mussolini quickly joined the fight on the side of the fascist military. In response, and against the wishes of the U.S. government, about 80 American women joined over 2700 of their countrymen to volunteer for the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War. This film is composed of interviews with and excerpts from the letters, journals, and published writings of some of these women, as well as of supporters and sympathizers including Martha Gellhorn, Eleanor Roosevelt, Virginia Cowles, Josephine Herbst, and Dorothy Parker.
Blind blues musician Paul Pena is perhaps best known for his song "Jet Airliner". In 1993, Pena heard Tuvan throat singing over his shortwave radio and subsequently taught himself how to reproduce these extraordinary sounds. This documentary follows him to Tuva, where he takes part in a throat singing competition. Languages featured in the film include English, Russian and Tuvan.
It was the spring of 2010 when I discovered that I was ill with leukemia. I was 29 years old and had never been in a hospital before. The fear, the chemotherapy, the waiting. After six months, everything seemed to be getting better, and a year and a half later, my first daughter, Nora, was born. So, three years later, I decided to return to the ward where everything had begun, to try to make sense of what had happened to me. Inside those rooms, I met Sabrina, who was going through what I had experienced. "Leucemia" is the story of our meeting, our journey together, and our shared experiences. It is the story of our friendship and our leukemia. (The author)
The extraordinary life of Orson Welles (1915-85), an enigma of Hollywood, an irreducible independent creator: a musical prodigy, an excellent painter, a master of theater and radio, a modern Shakespeare, a magician who was always searching for a new trick to surprise his audience, a romantic and legendary figure who lived only for cinema.
Teta Kaabour is an 83-year old family matriarch and sharp-witted queen bee of an old Beiruti quarter. She’s been gripped as of late by the silence of her once-buzzing household where she raised children and grandchildren. Resigned to Argileh smoking and day-long coffee drinking on a now-empty balcony, Teta now invokes the deepest memories of her violinist husband who died twenty years ago. She claims a preparedness to re-unite with him.
Lena Mae “Mother” Perry, the backbone of her community, cooks for crowds, tends to the needy, and boy, can she sing! After 50 years leading the dynamic, down-home gospel group The Branchettes, the octogenarian powerhouse, armed with her unwavering faith, shows no signs of slowing down. Taking us inside her loving community while following the recording of the group’s first album, this film is bursting with warmth, joy, and soul-stirring gospel music.
Over a thousand years ago, the sun-washed lands of Southern Spain were home to Muslims, Christians, and Jews living together and flourishing. Their culture and beliefs intertwined and the ...
A warmly amusing look at a bus-full of American tourists on a whirlwind tour of Europe. The eclectic soundtrack includes Mozart, Bob Dylan, Sandy Denny, Jonathan Richman, others.
The world's greatest pin-up model and cult icon, Bettie Page, recounts the true story of how her free expression overcame government witch-hunts to help launch America's sexual revolution. When she saw the film The Notorious Bettie Page, produced by HBO in 2006, the main person concerned reacted unequivocally: “Lies! Lies!” In a long interview recorded shortly before her death, the woman who entered the collective unconscious as the ultimate pin-up gave her version of events to director Mark Mori. In a gravelly voice, Bettie Page tells her own story and lifts the veil on areas often hidden by images that have made so many men and women fantasize since the 1950s: her abused childhood, an eclipse that lasted forty years, her mental illness. Through testimonies and unpublished archives, this documentary brings back to life a body and a face endlessly declined before our eyes, just as Bettie wanted: “I would like people to remember me as I was in the photos.”
For centuries, humans have sought to express beauty in architecture and art, but it is only recently that neuroscience is helping to determine how and why beauty plays an important role in our wellbeing. Architects and neuroscientists are embarking on a new field of study in which subliminal responses to one’s built environment may influence the future of design. Experts argue that positive subliminal reactions lead to a pleasurable experience, one reminiscent of a powerful meditation session. The question remains: what makes a building beautiful - or more specifically, which elements of the built environment does the brain recognize as beautiful? Narrated by Martha Stewart.