Photographer Phil Toledano has become obsessed with his future. Using DNA tests, fortune tellers, and a prosthetic makeup artist, he begins photographing the many dark possibilities that might await him -- despite his wife's pleas to abandon the project. Over three years, Toledano's obsession alters him and his family forever.
The Surire Salt Flat is located at an altitude of 4300 m in the Chilean High Plateau and is one of the most remote places in the world, keeping the treasure of untouched nature with all its beauty but also holding an allurement: a huge amount of borax, promising the mining industry profits at unknown levels. Surire, metaphorically tells us in an outstanding visual way the story of our planet - about the very important subjects of the disappearance of traditional indigenous culture, untouched nature, the environment, and the clash of new and old.
Every nuclear weapon made, every watt of electricity produced from a nuclear power plant leaves a trail of nuclear waste that will last for the next four hundred generations. We face the problem of how to warn the far distant future of the nuclear waste we have buried --but how to do it? How to imagine the far-distant threats to the sites, what kinds of monuments can be built, could stories or legends safeguard our descendants? Filmed at the only American nuclear burial ground, at a nuclear weapons complex and in Fukushima, the film grapples with the ways people are dealing with the present problem and imagining the future. Part observational essay, part graphic novel, this documentary explores the idea that over millennia, nothing stays put.
Jan Haft is without doubt a nature filmmaker with a gifted knack for the very special regions of the world. A few years ago, in Das grüne Wunder - Unser Wald, he dedicated himself to the place that all Germans long for, and in his new film he explores a similarly mythologically and historically charged topography, which is nevertheless much less present than the murmur of the forests. It is about the mainly northern European moorland landscapes and their rich and unique flora and fauna, whose magic he traces in an opulent visual arc of exquisite beauty.
Her name conjures up beauty, grace, talent and style. One of the greatest actresses of her time, she is best remembered for a natural and vulnerable persona which was so genuine and alluring. Her cinematic contributions produced such classics as "Casablanca," "Gaslight" and "Anastasia." But Ingrid's story goes deeper than the triumphs of her movie career.
The band Morphine blazed like a comet across the global music scene in the 1990s with its innovative “Low Rock” sound. Fronted by two-string bassist/vocalist/songwriter Mark Sandman, the trio rose from local Boston clubs to indie and major label record deals, international touring, and wide critical acclaim until their tragic and untimely demise in 1999. In “Morphine: Journey of Dreams,” the group’s surviving members and associates tell their story intercut with passages from saxophonist Dana Colley’s vivid tour journals. Rare live performances from throughout their career woven into the story display why their unique and mesmeric sound continues to resonate with music lovers today. This artfully- delivered documentary doesn’t just get behind but rather inside the music and the soul of the group to honor Morphine’s notable artistic achievements and the creative bond the musicians shared. (LVFF)
Seed Money is the story of Chuck Holmes, a San Francisco pornographer turned philanthropist. Holmes helped shaped and create gay identity in the years after Stonewall, and later became a major contributor to gay advocacy groups like the Human Rights Campaign and the LGBT Victory Fund, only to find later in life that while his money was welcome in philanthropic circles, he sometimes wasn't.
Phong grew up in a small town in the center of Vietnam - the youngest of six children. From the time she was young, Phong felt like she was a girl with a mismatched boy's body. Not until she moved to Hanoi to attend university at age 20 did Phong discover that she was not the only one in the world with this predicament. Her dream to 'find herself' by physically changing sex becomes a reality several years later. The movie follows Phong's struggle during these years, with excerpts from an intimate video journal, along with encounters with family, friends and doctors - all of whom must come to terms with Phong determination to become a "complete girl".
The village of Tamaquito lies deep in the forests of Colombia. Here, nature provides the people with everything they need. But the Wayúu community's way of life is being destroyed by the vast and rapidly growing El Cerrejón coal mine. Determined to save his community from forced resettlement, the leader Jairo Fuentes negotiates with the mine's operators, which soon becomes a fight to survive.
Off-grid is not a state of mind. It is not about being out of touch, living in a remote place, or turning off your mobile phone. Off-grid simply means living without a connection to the electric and natural gas infrastructure. From 2011 to 2013 Jonathan Taggart (Director) and Phillip Vannini (Producer) spent two years travelling across Canada to find 200 off-gridders and visit them in their homes. -
The Mayan doomsday prophecy looms over a dark night in Poland. A late-night radio host takes in calls from citizens expressing their concerns, predictions and speculations on what may happen when—or even if—the sun comes up. Simultaneously, a crisis centre dispatcher fields panicked calls from people experiencing real-life traumatic situations in need of immediate attention. The voices of these callers are interwoven with an intimate therapy session and a wandering taxicab to build a profile of a place where citizens want to be heard. Never showing the callers on the other end of the line, the film creates an aural overview of a darkened city. As the night progresses, the calls continue coming in, revealing the various struggles people are experiencing in dealing with conceptual fears and current woes—all in a world that soon may be over.
The Price of Honor is a documentary about the murders of Sarah and Amina Said, two teenage sisters from Texas who were killed in a premeditated Honor Killing planned and executed by their father Yaser Said back in 2008.
Two young men are alone at a self-service laundry. They are sitting next to each other, waiting in silence. An old framed embroidery of a young deer is hanging against the wall across them.
A magical and moving archive trip through the universal theme of love, from the very first kisses ever caught on film, through the disruption of war to the birth of youth culture, gay liberation and free love, we follow courting couples flirting at tea dances, kissing in the back of the movies, shacking up and fighting for the right to love.
This true, astonishing story describes how King Leopold II of Belgium turned Congo into its private colony between 1885 and 1908. Under his control, Congo became a gulag labor camp of shocking brutality. Leopold posed as the protector of Africans fleeing Arab slave-traders but, in reality, he carved out an empire based on terror to harvest rubber.