Ian Davenport’s 48 metre-long painting Poured Lines transforms the tunnel beneath a railway bridge in Southwark, close to Tate Modern. The painting’s numerous vitreous enamel panels were created in a German factory where they were baked at fearsomely high temperatures. This film follows the artist as he creates this remarkable public artwork.
Pleasures of the eye, David Hockney’s work has shown him to be one of the most versatile and influential artists of our time. The British artist invites the observer to take a visual stroll through his paintings and explore the dimensions of time and space. In communicating a new sense of the spacetime continuum, he injects the medium of photography with entirely new and living components. His sensuous theatre sets make us hear music with our eyes and see colours with our ears. The documentary filmmaker Gero von Böhm paints a memorable portrait of a fascinating artist, whose work allows all of us to see the magic in the small and seemingly insignificant details of everyday life.
Life and art intersect on a spectacular Newfoundland farm where visual artist Colette Urban mounts thirteen art performances in the fields and barns of her property. Resilient, determined, self aware and funny, Colette embraces the transformative power of art as she restages the significant art performances of her thirty-year career. With the camera as her audience she transforms the quotidian into a playful world of the imagination with elaborate costumes and idiosyncratic self invented rituals.
Four women, four stories: Anissa, Fatiha, Malika and Sarah share in intimate portraits their journey of practicing the youyou or zaghareed, the cries of joy and emotion that women express in North Africa and West Asia. Through their life stories, interspersed with songs and personal narratives, they express the strength they draw from their voices and the legacy they carry with them.
Profiles on the creative processes of Dale Messick, Cathy Guisewite, Nicole Hollander, and Lynda Barry, preceded by a brief overview of early female comic strip artists.
A chronicle of the period from the departure of Charles Taylor to the election of Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, the first African woman head of state, that presents the difficulties of rehabilitating a nation destroyed by war. LIBERIA: A FRAGILE PEACE is a perfect follow-up to Liberia: An Uncivil War, picking up the Liberian saga in October 2003, with the departure of the despotic Charles Taylor, the arrival of interim President Gyude Bryant and the deployment of a U.N. peacekeeping force. More than a historical record, however, this film is an ideal case study in how difficult it is to rebuild a society once it has lapsed into anarchy, a condition afflicting more and more nations around the world. The success or failure of the Liberian experience could have long-lasting impact on peace-keeping missions in the future.
Pakistan, ‘Land of the Pure’, remains a country of contradictions. A bastion of radical Islam trying to change to a modern state. We examine some of the undercurrents threatening the stability of this Atomic nation.
Up in the Himalayas, at an altitude of 6,000 meters, a bizarre sort of war is being waged. 1,000 Pakistani soldiers face off against 3,000 Indian soldiers for control of the Siachen Glacier, biggest reserve of fresh water available. With 70% of the population of both India and Pakistan depend upon this water supply any change to its status could be catastrophic. We filmed an exclusive report with Pakistani Special Forces.
Some 30 million Americans have sent their DNA to be analyzed by companies like 23andMe and AncestryDNA, hoping to obtain clues to family origins and forecasts of their future health. Some users have found family members and discovered lurking genetic risks. But what happens once the sample is in the hands of testing companies? What are they looking at and how accurate are their results?
Fighter pilot Jerry Yellin flew the last combat mission of World War II and returned home to a dark life of survivor's guilt and daily thoughts of suicide. Married with four sons, Yellin was forced to face his enemy once again when his youngest son moved to Japan and married the daughter of a Kamikaze pilot.
The Busing Battleground pulls back the curtain on the volatile effort to end school segregation, detailing the decades-long struggle for educational equity that preceded the crisis. It illustrates how civil rights battles had to be fought across the North as well as the South and reckons with the class dimensions of the desegregation saga, exploring how the neighborhoods most impacted by the court’s order were the poorest in the city.
"Men: A Love Story" pieces together a rich tapestry of vignettes, woven from stories shared by men of different race, age, and socio-economic backgrounds. The result is a stunningly honest, unapologetic glimpse into the minds of American men, and what the word 'love' means to them.
A gripping portrait of trauma and resilience of the Rohingya people in the world's largest refugee camp. The film approaches the Rohingya crisis from the personal point of view of the victims. Gang rape survivors talk directly to the camera with unprecedented candor. Building upon a heartening thought from Albert Camus, the documentary follows a dramatic arc from hell to redemption, with stories of survival and endurance. Harrowing yet uplifting, THE ANTECHAMBER OF HELL is both a searing testimony of crimes against humanity and an enlivening testament to the human spirit.
Daring to seek Earth's history contained in glaciers atop the tallest mountains in the world, Dr. Lonnie Thompson found himself on the frontlines of climate change—his life's work evolving into a salvage mission to recover these priceless historical records before they disappear forever.
A poetic tribute to writer, poet and environmental activist, Ken Saro-Wiwa, who was executed alongside eight other activists for opposing the environmental damage done in their oil-rich homeland, Ogoni.
A secret museum in an art hotel sparks intrigue when it's revealed to be a creation of controversial artist, Banksy. Using art as a form of political resistance, the hotel highlights the reality of life under Israeli military occupation. The film journeys through the hotel, Palestine, and a relevant past to dismantle the mainstream media's bias towards the Palestinian struggle for freedom and equality.
Root Hog or Die is a portrait of a living remnant of this once pervasive but rapidly vanishing way of life. Filmed in 1973 in hilltowns across Western Massachusetts and Southern Vermont, it follows the cycle of the farming year from spring to winter. In its course we visit with an array of elders, who reflect on farming's deep natural patterns, share their family histories and personal memories, and ponder the inevitable forces of technological and social change they have endured. The bittersweet nature of their challenges is manifest, as is the quiet pride they take in their lives as farmers.