A chronicle of the iconoclastic life of gay poet, filmmaker, and spiritual visionary James Broughton, one of the defining voices of the sexual revolution, whose groundbreaking artistic celebrations of sexuality and the body influenced generations of the 1960s and '70s to profoundly embrace life and ‘follow your own weird’.
For the eight young men in the Hypnotic Brass Ensemble, “brotherhood” is literal: they’re all sons of anti-establishment jazz legend, Phil Cohran. Cohran and their mothers raised them together on Chicago’s South side on a strict diet of jazz, funk and Black Consciousness.
FACING SUICIDE combines the poignant personal stories of people impacted by suicide with profiles of scientists at the forefront of research to reveal new insights into one of America’s most pressing mental health crises. Shining a light on this difficult topic can destigmatize suicide while revealing that there is help as well as hope for those at risk and their loved ones.
In the closing decades of the nineteenth century, during what has become known as the Gilded Age, the population of the United States doubled in the span of a single generation. As national wealth expanded, two classes rose simultaneously, separated by a gulf of experience and circumstance that was unprecedented in American life. These disparities sparked passionate and violent debate over questions still being asked in our own times: How is wealth best distributed, and by what process? Does government exist to protect private property or provide balm to the inevitable casualties of a churning industrial system? The outcome of these disputes was both uncertain and momentous, and marked by a passionate vitriol and level of violence that would shock the conscience of many Americans today.
Ballet in Cuba is a national institution, revered by all. It is also a way to climb out of poverty and achieve a better life. Yet for one young ballerina, even that isn't enough.
To the Australian media Kenja is a 'secretive cult', their leader described in Parliament as a 'seedy conman'. Despite preparing to fight yet another court case Ken Dyers and Jan Hamilton allow a film crew unprecedented access to the 'spiritual evolvement centre' they founded in 1982. How can the view from inside Kenja be so different to the one outside? Through remarkable verite footage and candid interviews, Beyond Our Ken explores the anatomy and ambiguity of the 'cult' enigma.
Journalist and activist Masih Alinejad has 4.5 million followers on Instagram after urging Iranian women to rebel against the forced hijab on social media. Her call to action has grown into one of the largest acts of civil disobedience in today’s Iran. Something that has made the regime desperately tighten its grip to regain control over the people.
8-year-old Aaron Averhart was just a year shy of being able to move up from Cub Scout to Boy Scout when he received a special request from an admired Boy Scout leader, William (Bill) Sheehan. As Aaron rose up the Boy Scout ranks, he slowly became aware of Sheehan’s grooming techniques and began to realize he had much more sinister intentions in store for him. If Aaron’s parents had known that since the 1920s the Boy Scouts of America had been keeping hidden files on dangerous pedophiles in their ranks while failing to warn the public, the police, the scouts, their parents, or even fully removing them from the Boy Scouts program, they would have never allowed young Aaron to be part of such a complicit and corrupt organization.
There is mass confusion in the world relating to climate change. A growing gap between reality and perception has created viewpoints often based on emotion rather than fact. Can we conquer climate change? Human beings are facing a problem that requires a solution more complex than taking one side. Society’s use of energy is a profound story. It transcends far beyond the boundaries of one region. The conflict between our need for fuels and our need to reduce human impact is filled with strong emotions including anger, lies, greed, and divisiveness.
Follows women who dared to aim higher from Lego-loving young girls who includes female pilots in her toy airplanes, to a courageous women who helped lead shuttle missions to space.
High Wire examines the reasons that Canada declined to take part in the 2003 US-led military mission in Iraq, shining a spotlight on the diplomatic tug of war that took place behind the scenes with our neighbours to the south, who have often adopted an interventionist foreign policy to serve their own economic and geopolitical interests. Canada’s historic refusal could have had disastrous consequences, but a number of key players and other analysts remind us of the terrible price we pay when diplomacy fails.
Is it ever rational to choose death? On Independence Day at Stern Ranch, 77-year-old solar energy pioneer Bob Stern finds out he’s seriously ill – possibly dying. Meanwhile, an elderly in-law is dying on artificial life support. Bob decides to cheat that fate and take his own life. His family tries to stop him. Bob sets up a video camera. Daughter Susan Stern explores “rational suicide,” the “right-to-die” and the difficult end-of-life choices faced by an aging population.
From rooftop farmers to backyard beekeepers, Americans are growing food like never before. Growing Cities goes coast to coast to tell the inspiring stories of intrepid urban farmers who are challenging the way this country feeds itself.
Filmmaker and evolutionary biologist Randy Olson tries to figure out if it is the Darwinists or Intelligent Design supporters who will become a flock of dodos.
Joaquim Pinto has been living with HIV and VHC for almost twenty years. “What now? Remind Me” is the notebook of a year of clinical studies with toxic, mind altering drugs as yet unapproved. An open and eclectic reflection on time and memory, on epidemics and globalization, on survival beyond all expectations, on dissent and absolute love. In a to-and-fro between present and past memories, the film is also a tribute to friends departed and those who remain.
THE PATHOLOGICAL OPTIMIST takes us into the inner sanctum of Wakefield and his family from 2011- 2016 as he fights for his day in court in a little known defamation case against the British Medical Journal. Wakefield attempts to clear his name as the media-appointed Father of the Anti-vaccine movement.
Grand Saline, Texas, was a sleepy, unremarkable town—until a white preacher lit himself on fire to protest the town's racism in 2014. The subject of this film is deceptively straightforward: A minister commits suicide by setting himself on fire. He leaves behind a letter that frames his decision as a religious response to the intolerable racism of America's past and present, particularly in his Texas hometown. The aftermath is befuddling: There are townspeople who can recall incidents of racial violence and hate speech, and those who have never seen anything of the kind. Black folk in surrounding towns who share rumors and fears about acts of violence, and white folk who say you can't believe everything you hear. Fellow ministers who share the desire to be liberated from a racist past, and churchgoers who believe only mental illness could explain such a suicide.