Overcoming poverty and abuse, Diana Wright built a multi-million dollar business devoted to improving the quality of life for nurses, only to be given a terminal cancer death sentence by the very industry she dedicated her life to. Failed by the American medical system with only eight months to live, Diana takes her health into her own hands, spending her forecasted time in search of the cure for cancer.
A film about the four-year journey of a girl named Rupa. It is the story of her dream and her endeavor to escape from a predetermined destiny. The tea gardens lost in the misty hills of northeastern Bangladesh are the background to Rupa’s struggle. She fights against a life of hardships and against the perspective of an arranged marriage. Will she search independence or give in to the pressure of this ancient land?
This Changed Everything: 500 Years of the Reformation celebrates the fruits of the Reformation while exploring difficult questions about the cost of division: Could schism have been avoided? Is there hope for reunification? What did Jesus really mean when He prayed for His followers to be "one"?
In traditional martial arts, mastery of the art is not acquired through technical skill alone. In following ‘The Way’ one must look beyond technique. In Japanese archery or Kyudo, hitting the target is not enough. In order to shoot correctly we are told to “Shoot from the Heart”. As Takeuchi sensei says “As a national team member I had to hit the target no matter what. Eventually all that technique became obsolete in exchange to express myself through the bow”. This is One Shot. One Life. Zen of Japanese Archery.
A portrait of Salford-born poet, storyteller and comic, John Cooper-Clarke. His poems, a satirical blend of humour and social comment, are delivered at a fast pace, often with musical backing. His style, and that of his contemporary Linton Kwesi Johnson, have influenced a generation of younger poets involved in a revival of popular poetry in Britain.
A consciously modern depiction of working women in East Germany – labourers and managers in a garment factory talk about relationships and family planning, raising children and career qualifications, women’s rights and equality in the socialist (meritocratic) society. In conversations with a doctor, the women also have a chance to voice their personal concerns, as well as their feelings about the birth control pill, a subject that caused a stir at the time.
In this timely and fearless personal documentary, director Ofra Bloch engages with the people she was raised to hate and dismiss. Seen as a victim in one context and a perpetrator in the next, the film points towards a future – an “afterward” – that attempts to live with the truths of history in order to make sense of the present.
Shot on location in rural Southwestern Louisiana, Zydeco combines cinema verite style footage, interviews and musical performance to present a colorful, joyful portrait of the zydeco musicians in their culture. Featuring Dolon Carriere, Armand Ardoin, and Alphonse "Bois Sec" Ardoin. A film by Nicholas R. Spitzer. Color, 57 minutes.
In this highly anticipated sequel to his groundbreaking, ADVERTISING AND THE END OF THE WORLD, media scholar Sut Jhally explores the devastating personal and environmental fallout from advertising, commercial culture, and rampant American consumerism. Ranging from the emergence of the modern advertising industry in the early 20th century to the full-scale commercialization of the culture today, Jhally identifies one consistent message running throughout all of advertising: the idea that corporate brands and consumer goods are the keys to human happiness. He then shows how this powerful narrative, backed by billions of dollars a year and propagated by the best creative minds, has blinded us to the catastrophic costs of ever-accelerating rates of consumption.
In hand-built, double-hulled canoes sixty feet long, the ancestors of today's Polynesians sailed vast distances using only the waves, the stars, and the flights of birds to navigate. Anthropologist Sanford Low visits the Caroline Islands of Micronesia to meet Mau Piailug, the last navigator initiated on his island and one of few men still practicing this once-essential art. He demonstrates his skill by sailing a replica canoe 2500 miles from Hawaii to Tahiti with no modern navigational instruments.
This personal documentary reveals the complexities of a single woman living in a beauty-obsessed world with her original yet imperfect nose. It's a tale that anyone who has ever obsessed over their own "imperfection" will easily relate to MY NOSE explores filmmaker Gayle Kirschenbaum's mother's preoccupation with her nose, the intricacies of the mother/daughter relationship, and asks what drives people into the plastic surgeon's office. Will she live happily ever after with the nose I was born with? Will she end up having a nose job? And how will her decision affect their relationship? Official Selection at dozens of festivals including the Miami Jewish Film Festival and the UK Jewish Film Festival.
Explore the history of civilization’s quest to procure abundant water and energy — from ancient Roman aqueducts in Europe to modern America’s vast hydroelectric infrastructure. Shot on location across France, California, and Texas, the film explores our dependence on water for energy as well as vulnerabilities in our current systems.
"Monday's Girls" explores the conflict between modern individualism and traditional communities in today's Africa through the eyes of two young Waikiriki women from the Niger delta. Although both come from leading families in the same large island town, Florence looks at the iria women's initiation ceremony as an honor, while Azikiwe, who has lived in the city for ten years, sees it as an indignity.
This documentary, narrated by Academy Award winner Linda Hunt and directed by Jed Riffe, tells the story of how the discovery of a 9,000-year-old skeleton on the banks of the Columbia River near Kennewick, Washington, reignited the conflict between anthropologists and Native peoples over the control of human remains found on ancestral Indigenous lands.
An exposé on the public health impact of factory farming across the United States, told through the eyes of residents in five rural communities. When pushed to their limit, these citizens turned activists band together to demand justice.
A stately film about the history of St Paul’s Cathedral in London, with a focus on the architecture and individuals buried there, and the impact of the Blitz.
An unorthodox marriage between capitalism and charity, 'The Invisible Heart' tracks a social innovation that promises to solve society's most intractable problems. Social impact bonds are making strange bedfellows — social workers and Wall Street bankers, the homeless and venture capitalists, conservative and liberal politicians. From the halls of power to society's struggling underclass, this film follows an unusual cast of characters as they confront the ethical questions at the heart of an international revolution using profit motivation to rectify social inequality.