The Jin Cheng restaurant in China's Chao region has a reputation for excellence due to its "Chao" specialties. To guarantee the authenticity of "Chao" flavors, the supplying of fish, shellfish and tofu, among others, must come from the original source…where the skills of this ethnic group are still applied in accordance with the ancestral rules and where the quality and freshness of the products is indisputable. Nothing can be properly done if the traditions are not respected. A fascinating documentary on Chinese culture, traditional skills and ethnic belonging.
With unique access inside the battle for Hong Kong, FRONTLINE follows five protesters through the most intense clashes over several months of pro-democracy protests. The film examines their struggle against what they say is growing influence from the communist government of mainland China.
The grassroots independent documentary about Miami's biggest performer, Lolita the killer whale on display at the Miami Seaquarium. Through rare interviews and undercover footage viewers are dragged into the dark secrets of the multi-billion-dollar marine theme park industry and the life of Lolita who's been caught in a net of lies for 3 decades.
The movie focuses on our common identities : “woman” and “black”, whilst highlighting the diversity of Afropean diasporas. This documentary explores the intersections of discrimination, art and blackness.
Esther Newton was drawn to the drag scene as a student in the 1950s. Identifying as both butch lesbian and between genders, she felt a kinship with the queens; what the feminine clothing society expected her to wear felt like a form of drag. Her 1972 book ‘Mother Camp: Female Impersonators in America’ is noted as the first rigorous study of its kind. Now entering her sixth decade writing about queer communities, Newton exudes wisdom and a healthy dose of New York no-nonsense. The film’s amazing archive footage encompasses gay liberation, the feminist sex wars, AIDS activism and life on the safe haven of Fire Island. Her other main passion is dog training, so this illuminating history lesson is peppered with poodles!
Making a film about a radio station doesn’t sound like the most visually compelling of projects. How many takes do you need before the acoustic transition from the opening to the closing of a door is perfect or the reader's voice correctly modulated? Nicolas Philibert has accepted the challenge to portray that which cannot be seen. Shouldering his camera, he spent half a year wandering the endless corridors of Radio France’s ‘round house’ on the banks of the Seine where he filmed people who dedicate themselves utterly and meticulously to their work.
In the fall of 1973 we had an opportunity to visit Jean Dubuffet in his studio while he was at work on a detail for his musical theater piece Coucou Bazar. The production, which Dubuffet saw as an animated painting, featured performers in costumes resembling figures in his paintings and sculptures. The piece had a successful premiere at New York's Guggenheim earlier that year, alongside a retrospective of Dubuffet's previous works, and later would open at the Grand Palais under the auspices of the annual Festival d'Automne. Though Dubuffet once suffered a period of doubt surrounding his art, he returned to the practice with an impersonal and primitive touch, becoming more and more influenced by works that had no connection to mainstream art, for which he coined the term ART BRUT.
Filmmaker Mark Pedri had never heard his grandfather Silvio's story. Ten years after his grandfather's death, Mark found an archive of photos and letters that changed the rest of his life. The discovery inspired Mark to journey across Europe on a bike to examine his grandfather's experience as a Prisoner of War in WWII in an effort to understand the man who helped raise him.
Deep in Brazil, where law and justice require first and last name, the struggle for a piece of land becomes a matter of life or death. "Threatened" shows peasants in the South and Southeast of Pará, who have to fight for a piece of land for farming and living.
Annie Goldson and Kay Ellmers’ doco, expanded from the film they made for Maori Television, takes a timely look at New Zealand’s military and media, notably journalist Jon Stephenson, in Afghanistan.
Records Collecting Dust II focuses on the East Coast cities of Boston, New York and Washington DC, and includes in depth interviews with twenty eight highly influential people from the 1980’s hardcore punk rock music scene. Talking about the music, the bands and the records that forever changed their lives. Including Ian MacKaye of Minor Threat/Fugazi, John Joseph of Cro-Mags, Dave Smalley of DYS/Dag Nasty, Bob Cenci of Jerry's Kids, Amy Pickering of Dischord Records, Walter Schreifels of Gorilla Biscuits/Quicksand, Roger Miret of Agnostic Front and Clif Croce of The Freeze.
The filmmakers were given remarkable freedom to record the historic 1984 contract negotiations between the United Auto Workers and General Motors Corporation. Bob White, labour leader of the Canadian branch of the UAW, must also confront his American counterpart from Detroit and succeeds in arriving at a contract that is significantly Canadian. His members had already given him a mandate to fight for independence from the American union. This is an invaluable document for anyone interested in the complexities of United States-Canada relations. It's an extraordinary film about revolutionary events.
The Rapanui community on Easter Island fights to prevent an environmental collapse due to overwhelming tourism and industrial progress, and to preserve their cultural traditions.
Wrapped Walk Ways, in Jacob Loose Memorial Park, Kansas City, Missouri, consisted of the installation of 136,268 square feet (12,540 square meters) of saffron-colored nylon fabric covering 2.7 miles (4.4 kilometers) of formal garden walkways and jogging paths.
Che: Rise and Fall, was entirely shot in Cuba at the time the remains of the legendary warrior were being airlifted from Bolivia to his final resting place in Santa Clara. The documentary brings out, for the first time, the voice of his brothers in arms in Sierra Maestra, Congo and Bolivia. But above all, that of Alberto Granados with whom the young CHE Guevara rode on a motorcycle out of Argentina on a trip that will end, tragically, sixteen years later in the jungles of Bolivia.
The film begins with the exhumation of four American women tortured, raped, and murdered by the right-wing government of El Salvador on December 2, 1980. The women — Dorothy Kazel, an Ursuline; Ita Ford and Maura Clarke, Maryknoll mission sisters; and Jean Donovan, a young laywoman from Cleveland — were providing food, shelter, medical care and burial to the poor. They were targeted for assassination by a death squad within the U.S.-supported Salvadoran military as part of a policy of suppressing the poor and “liberation theology.” The award-winning documentary focuses primarily on the life of Jean Donovan through archival news footage, interviews, home movies, and diary readings.
This film showcases an idealised version of life in the Victorian regional city of Geelong — complete with stable jobs, family homes, bustling shops, and thriving sporting and cultural life.