Slavery has never ended. It has just assumed other names and ways to conceal itself. Roser Corella’s film zooms in on Beirut, where the upper class on a large scale hires maids from countries such as Ethiopia, Kenya and the Philippines through agencies that advise people how to cheat and manipulate the young women to work full-time (literally) for meagre wages. An upsetting revelation, but Corella keeps a cool head and tears the inhuman ‘kafala’ system apart piece by piece. She analyses the situation in both words and images, but it is the underpaid maids themselves who provide the conclusion in the form of demonstrations, protests and demands for proper working conditions. ‘Room without a View’, the title of which describes the rooms made available to the women, combines an artistic and an investigative approach to its exposition of the abominable monster that is modern slavery. A film that is highly topical in all parts of the world - unfortunately.
How former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert unexpectedly rose to power and how he dramatically fell from grace: from the most powerful position in the country to prison.
An exploration of Native American-based mascots, especially the Washington R*dskins, and their impact on real-life attitudes, issues, and policies. Through interviews with scholars, tribal leaders, lawyers, policy experts, activists, and Washington R*dskins fans, the film explores the history of the slanderous term "r*dskin," and delves into cultural stereotypes of Native Americans and their relationship to history. Ultimately, the film argues for representations that honor and celebrate the humanity of Indigenous people.
Every year, a ritual known as ida is performed by the Umeda people, who inhabit the dense primary forest of the Waina-Sawanda district of West Sepik, Papua New Guinea. Ida, the central social and cultural drama of the Umeda, is a fertility ritual, in which a dominant theme is the metamorphosis of the cassowaries. An ethnography by anthropologist Alfred Gell, Metamorphosis of the Cassowaries, complements the film.
Life is certainly stranger than fiction. Even if he’d tried, filmmaker Sheldon Cohen couldn’t have made up the events that led to his being rushed to an Emergency room one sunny summer afternoon. This is the true story of “a nice Jewish boy with Buddhist inclinations” who should have been the last person in the world to need cardiac surgery.
Brasilia: Life After Design is the story of a city in conflict between its environment and its people. A true modernist experiment, Brasilia is considered by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site. Despite the population growing every year, the city plan itself cannot change. It was designed for 500 000 people, and now over two and a half million live within its borders. Despite its designers’ best intentions, people were secondary considerations. And in order to live there, people have to break the city’s rules.
ANGELS OF WAR captures the experiences of villagers who lived through the Papua New Guinea campaign. Caught up in a war they could not understand or influence, they had no choice but to obey whoever held the gun. Their homes were bombed. They starved as refugees in the bush. They were conscripted as carriers. They fought as infantrymen and guerillas. In Japanese-held areas, they were forced to collaborate or risk execution; some were later hanged for treason by the Australians.
Superstar DJs discuss the history, culture, technology, spirituality and the future of electronic dance music - the music that catapulted the Club DJ to "rock star" status and united dance floors across the globe. LIQUID VINYL brings together the DJ's, the people behind the scene, and the dancers from the floor that all ultimately share in the magic of the music
Filmmaker Carol Ciancutti-Leyva offers this penetrating look at the bewildering array of questions, opinions and troubling safety concerns that face everyday women who are contemplating breast augmentation. Following the stories of two women -- one who chooses to have implants, another who has her implants removed -- the film chronicles how big business, media and the medical community influence the debate surrounding the controversial procedure.
The film is a journey around the world where we meet people who are frozen in fear, people who search for them, who find them, who love them. Along the way we meet experts in neuroscience, psychology and politics who show us how society is controlled by messages of fear. The film analyzes the universal question of what fear is and why we are so afraid of it.
With the plastic industry expanding like never before and the crisis of ocean pollution growing, FRONTLINE and NPR investigate the fight over the future of plastics.
Hardy makes a living selling knickknacks on Chilean buses. But a government announcement worries him: Chile will soon be a world-class country with a modern and elegant public transportation system, so the bus system will tolerate his job no longer. He gathers two thousand colleagues, and together they struggle to survive modernization.
George Floyd’s killing triggered mass demonstrations nationwide calling for racial justice and police accountability in the United States. In the wake of those protests, New Yorker writer and historian Jelani Cobb returns to a troubled police department he first visited four years ago (Policing the Police) to examine whether reform can work, and how police departments can be held accountable.
Dedeheiwa the shaman weeds his manioc garden and clears the leaves around his plantains. Tired and sore, he rests while he is massaged and groomed by his wife and numerous children, with whom he plays affectionately.
In “A Year of War: Israelis and Palestinians,” Israelis describe what it was like to experience the deadliest day for Jews since World War II as the Oct. 7 attacks unfolded, with around 1,200 people killed and 251 taken hostage. And in Gaza, where more than 40,000 people have reportedly been killed in Israel’s retaliation against Hamas, Palestinians describe — and record — the horrors of large-scale devastation.
"Permanent Change" looks at the history and development of plastic within the architectural world. Capturing both a series of lectures and a panel with prominent names such as Steven Holl, Beatriz Colomina and Werner Sobek, this documentation observes detailed examples and lively debates regarding the popularization of plastic as a construction material. Addressing a number of contributing factors including design, engineering and form, the participants of the conference present a wide range of theories, analyses and predictions pertaining to plastics as an architectural material.
A feature documentary about five people navigating the paradoxes of diet culture. While promises of happiness, desirability and perfection are irresistible, joy and contentment remain out of reach. Personal stories from vastly different backgrounds quickly merge into a shockingly similar experience of battling one’s body. Self-starvation and compulsive exercise bring temporary satisfaction, only to be replaced with binging and purging soon after. Surprisingly, none of it has much to do with food.