Revolves around a mineral water pool in director Hristiana Raykova’s hometown of Varna in Bulgaria. Situated right by the sea, this thermal pool is lovingly called “the pit” by local residents. Sitting in the hot water, they lean back up against the pool’s edge and philosophise about their lives. Here personal and political convictions collide, and tell of both social change and stagnation at the periphery of Europe.
Between 1405 and 1433, Admiral Zheng He of China led seven epic voyages to more than 30 countries, including Sri Lanka, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, Kenya and Tanzania. The admiral and his crew gathered knowledge and wealth from Indochina to Africa for China's Ming empire. These voyages were the biggest naval expeditions mounted at the time. Zheng He was bigger than life and could have changed the course of history. But after the seven voyages, he and his Treasure Fleet were forgotten by China, and the world, for six hundred years. National Geographic photographer Michael Yamashita sets sail to discover why. To celebrate the 600th anniversary of Zheng He's maiden exploration voyage, Michael Yamashita traveled over 10,000 miles from Yunnan in China to Africa's Swahili coast taking over 40,000 pictures for the feature story on this great explorer, published in the July 2005 edition of National Geographic.
In the 1932 drought of Ceará, several concentration camps were created to imprison and prevent refugees from reaching the city of Fortaleza. Remnants narrate fragments of his memories and unfulfilled regrets, witnessed in the ruins of concentration camps and in the cult of the “souls of the dam”, resistant to the strong historical erasure.
An epic journey through the oceanic kingdom of the Atlantic Salmon in an attempt to unravel the mystery of their life at sea. Salmon are plummeting to critical levels. The cause is mortality at sea. For the 1st time, using the latest DNA technology, scientists are tracking the salmon from the rivers into the vast North Atlantic and back again, in hopes of finding an answer before it's too late.
Thrust into the limelight for discovering the secret of life at age 25 with Francis Crick, influential Nobel Prize-winning scientist James Watson has thrived on making headlines ever since. His discovery of DNA’s structure, the double helix, revolutionized human understanding of how life works. He was a relentless and sometimes ruthless visionary who led the Human Genome project and turned Harvard University and Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory into powerhouses of molecular biology. With unprecedented access to Watson, his wife Elizabeth and sons Rufus and Duncan over the course of a year, American Masters explores Watson’s evolution from socially awkward postdoc to notorious scientific genius to discredited nonagenarian, also interviewing his friends, his colleagues, scientists and historians.
Zora Neale Hurston, path-breaking novelist, pioneering anthropologist and one of the first black women to enter the American literary canon (Their Eyes Were Watching God), established the African American vernacular as one of the most vital, inventive voices in American literature. This definitive film biography, eighteen years in the making, portrays Zora in all her complexity: gifted, flamboyant, and controversial but always fiercely original.
The film takes place on December 21, 2012, while the people of the town of Quillagua await the supposed "end of the world" that the Mayans predicted for that day.
Follow the evolution of Minor League Baseball over the last half-century as the Omaha Storm Chasers, the Triple-A affiliate of the Kansas City Royals, kick off their historic 50th season.
Thoughts and memories jostle for space during the experience of extreme solitude. Out there, in the frozen vastness, bodies go round in circles while the winterer's mind races. Only one thing is certain, he tells himself: no need for other worlds, only mirrors.
BAFTA winning actor Martin Clunes scuba dives in the Maldives seeking out the strange inhabitants that live beneath the sea. One resident of these warm blue waters have so far eluded him - the reef manta; one of evolution's true masterpieces. Martin will come closer to these gentle giants than he'd ever imagined possible; moved by their trust and intrigued by their mystery.
This documentary includes historical musical performances re-assessed by a panel of esteemed experts, as well as obscure footage, rare interviews and rarely seen photographs. It also contains review, comment, criticism and insight from; Broadcaster and friend of Freddie, Paul Gambaccini, Peter Stringfellow, Wayne Sleep; Rock Journalists, Malcolm Dome.
Four Feet Up is an intimate portrayal of child poverty in Canada by award-winning photographer and documentary filmmaker Nance Ackerman. Twenty years after the promise of the House of Commons 'to eliminate poverty among Canadian children,' 8-year-old Isaiah contemplates what 'less fortunate' means as he finds his voice through his own magical drawings and photographs. Four Feet Up invites us into the lives of this determined family, revealing an intimate and touching experience of child poverty in one of the world's richest nations.
An indelible tale of friendship and commitment set against the luminous beauty of the Central African Rainforest. Together, elephant behavioral biologist, Andrea Turkalo, and indigenous tracker, Sessely Bernard, will be tested by the realities of war and the limits of hope for the majestic animals they have committed their lives to study and protect.
In his film Fat Head, Tom Naughton demonstrated that much of the official advice about healthy eating is wrong - so wrong that it's created a record number of kids who are overweight, diabetic, and can't concentrate in school. Fat Head Kids explains what kids need to know about diet and health by taking them on a journey aboard a biological starship. By seeing how the crew members are programmed to respond to foods, kids learn what makes us fat (and no, it's not just about calories), how bad food makes 'boy boobs', why food sets our mood, and why industrial food causes health problems ranging from diabetes to ADHD. Finally, kids learn how their biological starship was programmed to thrive on the Planet of Real Foods.
A documentary about the true story that inspired the novel Island of the Blue Dolphins, telling the story of a 12 year-old Native American girl who was left alone for 18 years on San Nicolas Island, the most remote of California's Channel Islands, during the 19th century. The 'Lone Woman' survived with her dog for 18 years before being 'rescued' and brought to Santa Barbara. She died there and is buried in the Santa Barbara Mission.
Submerged under the blows and fury of the boxing ring, Daniela "La Bonita" Bermúdez, a young and introverted girl, aspires to be someone in life. Raised in a humble family of boxers, Daniela represents her only outlet for her family and she personifies the frustrated dream of her father, manager and coach.
Nearly 50 years ago, a mass murder was committed in the small Florida town of Arcadia. The victims were all children in the same family of African-American citrus pickers. Their father James Richardson was convicted of the crime and sentenced to death. More than 20 years and a series of unprecedented miracles followed in order to set him free. Now, in the present day, James Richardson travels back to Florida in the hopes of receiving a glimmer of justice from a State which took his life away. This is a story that has unfolded countless times in different ways in small towns across America.
On the evening of February 9th, 1918 three local lawmen and one federal officer rode into the Arizona wilderness to apprehend four men on counts of draft evasion and murder. The violence that followed has been so steeped in legend, lies, and hearsay, that the facts of what occurred at that remote cabin and why were almost lost to history. Contemporary interviews with historians and family members, archival footage, and original artwork tell the story of the events leading up to and following the deadliest shootout in Arizona's history.