Award-winning filmmaker Sandhya Suri (I for India) skilfully weaves together archive footage to create an emotionally resonant story about life across India from 1899 to 1947. Drawn exclusively from the BFI National Archive, Around India features some of the earliest surviving film from India as well as gorgeous travelogues, intimate home movies and newsreels from British, French and Indian filmmakers. Taking in Maharajas and Viceroys, fakirs and farmhands and personalities such as Sabu and Gandhi, the film explores not only the people and places of over 70 years ago, but asks us to engage with broader themes of a shared history, shifting perspectives in the lead up to Indian independence and the ghosts of the past. Around India boasts a superb new score that fuses western and Indian music from composer and sarod player Soumik Datta.
Dick Goin and his family have been fed by the Elwha River's salmon since migrating to Washington's Olympic Peninsula during the Dust Bowl. Dick has never forgotten his debt to the fish — who have been steadily disappearing. A pulp mill worker and master fisherman turned salmon advocate, Dick uses his memories and persistence to battle for the biggest dam removal project in U.S. history. His goal: bring the salmon home.
On the eve of her 70th birthday, Canadian writer Margaret Atwood set out on an international tour criss-crossing the British Isles and North America to celebrate the publication of her new dystopian novel, The Year of the Flood. Rather than mount a traditional tour to promote a book's publication, Atwood conceived and executed something far more ambitious and revelatory--a theatrical version of her novel. Along the way she reinvented what a book tour could (and maybe should) be. But Atwood wasn't selling books as much as advocating an idea: how humanity must respond to the consequences of an environmentally compromised planet before her work of speculative fiction transforms into prophesy.
TV writer/producer Lee Aronsohn tracks down the scattered members of a beloved early 1970's band with the hope that, 40 years after they broke up, he can get them to play one last show.
Obsession, love, money, and postage. Freaks and Errors: A Rare Collection, is the first, independent documentary film that reveals the rarely seen, expectedly eccentric and surprisingly large world of stamp collecting.
'I Used to be Normal - A Boyband Fangirl Story' is the surprising coming of age story of four diverse women who have had their lives dramatically changed by their love of a boyband - Backstreet Boys, One Direction, Take That and The Beatles.
This film takes us across three continents on a quest driven by a simple yet original idea: to shine a spotlight on the inimitable Davids of this world. The 24 Davids in this film are of varying ages and professions, ranging from cosmologist to recycler; together, they construct a playful “ecosystem” of ideas that touches on every sphere of knowledge and carries within it the power to radically transform. 24 Davids offers a melting pot of heady thoughts and politics in a refreshingly freewheeling cinematic format, probing the mysteries of the universe and the challenges of living together.
Five highly original musicians from different countries form the Accordion Tribe. Together they aim to reinforce the original power of the long disdained instrument. The film follows the energetic soundscapes and their performers on a journey through Europe. An extraordinarily intensive documentary on the communicative, connecting power of music.
Adele has recieved iconic status from fans and industry proffesionals alike. With sold out concerts around the world and multiple awards to her name Adele came from humble beginnings and has gone on to be one of the biggest Artists in the world.
A riveting story of transformation and healing, PEACEABLE KINGDOM: THE JOURNEY HOME explores the awakening conscience of several people who grew up in traditional farming culture and who have now come to question the basic assumptions of their way of life.
In Rod El Farag, one of the poorest residential areas in Cairo, obtaining meat, fruit and daily bread is a constant struggle. But the sense of community shared by the inhabitants there helps them to some extent overcome their hardships through a social practice known as ‘al Gami’ya’, or ‘the assembly’.
Why are there so many ghosts on the island of Jamaica? Why is the island so notoriously haunted by tales of voodoo and dark mystical lore? "Haunted Jamaica" seeks to answer these questions ...
Michel Roux Jr sets out to discover the secret of chocolate, not just why we're addicted to the sublime and complex foodstuff but it’s rich and varied history. From a sacred drink of Aztec Emperors to the aphrodisiac of choice at the court of Louis XIV in Versailles.
Inuit artist Asinnajaq plunges us into a sublime imaginary universe—14 minutes of luminescent, archive-inspired cinema that recast the present, past and future of her people in a radiant new light. Diving into the NFB’s vast archive, she parses the complicated cinematic representation of the Inuit, harvesting fleeting truths and fortuitous accidents from a range of sources—newsreels, propaganda, ethnographic docs, and work by Indigenous filmmakers. Embedding historic footage into original animation, she conjures up a vision of hope and beautiful possibility.
See The Keepers follows four different zookeepers and takes viewers behind the scenes into zoo areas that are forbidden to the general public. Get to know the unique personalities of the people that work on the other side of the exhibits.
A documentary that looks at the problems for young modern Israelis returning to the Germanic countries of central Europe, and in particular how this impacts upon older generations of their families, who had to leave countries like Austria and Germany.
On a Knife Edge is a father-son story about Guy and George Dull Knife that unfolds over the course of George’s coming-of-age journey. Under his father’s guidance, George becomes an activist and organizer, and begins identifying with the role of traditional Lakota warrior, which he views as his family legacy. He commits himself to the fight for social justice, but struggles with adapting the old ways and his father’s expectations to the modern-day realities of growing up on the Pine Ridge Reservation. Told largely through George’s eyes, the film offers a privileged glimpse into the youngest generation of the American Indian Movement, as well as George’s own evolving notions of Native identity, manhood, and duty. His story is interwoven with animated sequences that depict five generations of family history, narrated by his father and based on paintings he has created to explore the continuum of their fight through the generations.