In Kanpur, India, an electricity thief provides Robin Hood style services to the poor in the face of day long power-cuts. Meanwhile the first female chief of the local electricity supply company has vowed to put an end to all illegal connections, for good. In a summer of crisis, both come to terms with India's energy poverty.
This Academy Award winning short subject documentary follows the United States Coast Guard icebreaker ships Eastwind and Westwind for four months as they work to clear navigational paths for ships traversing the arctic sea.
Michael Pilz's 285-minute Himmel and Erde is an essay film or an ethnographic documentary. It contemplates the finite lot of individuals as part of a continuum of human experience in the natural world. Himmel und Erde, translatable as Heaven and Earth, was recorded between 1979 and 1982. The documentary invites the viewer to contemplate the disruptive effects of technology on economic and social ties through circumscribed vignettes of village life which are oft repeated either as recycled footage or variations on a theme.
Caleidoscope of documentary-like scenes and re-enacted episodes of a day in the life of a large port town – Lisbon, from the old district around Saint George's Castle down to the docks and the 'Sagres' on the Tagus river, to the new commercial districts.
Seven adolescents take on the mission of filming, for one week, their family's housemaids and hand over the footage to the director to make a film. The images that confront us uncover the complex relationship that exists between housemaids and their employers, a relationship that confuses intimacy and power in the workplace and provides us with an insight into the echoes of a colonial past that linger in contemporary Brazil.
This documentary on the elusive director Alan Smithee was first shown on the American Movie Classics (AMC) cable channel. We learn where the name came from and why the Directors Guild of America (DGA) first allowed his name to be used on Richard Widmark's western Death of a Gunfighter. The film follows the numerous problems that director Tony Kaye had during the production and post-production of the film American History X and why the DGA refused to allow Alan Smithee to be credited for that film.
The narration and intertitles describe the ultimate teenage fantasy road-trip: a female version of Bonnie and Clyde in love, in trouble, and unstoppable. With dreams of freedom, a life of crime, and the glamour of Hollywood, the film depicts the ultimate wish list of the lesbian bad girl whose life is not only constrained by school and parents, but also by the fear of a world that cannot tolerate her difference.
A diary film about Kawase's relationship with her grandma and her search for her father, whom she has not seen since her parents divorced during her early childhood.
Pehlivan focuses on a three-day wrestling competition, an ancient tradition that dates back over a thousand years to the time of the Ottoman Empire, originating in the games the soldiers would play to entertain themselves in between battles. Maybe that's why there's more than a hint of homoeroticism in the way the wrestlers oil themselves up with grease, making sure to cover every inch of their bodies so that their opponents will be unable to get a grip. Pialat's closeups emphasize the men's muscular bodies jammed together and sliding off one another, posed in intimate, twisted arrangements, struggling desperately for a grip on each other's bodies. Arms are jammed down pants, one of the only places there's some potential for a handhold, and the whole thing is very suggestive and sensual, a form of intimate male contact that's sanctioned as a show of strength and masculinity.
La Corne d'or is mostly concerned with religious ritual, examining the mosque (and former cathedral) discussed in Byzance. As a contrast against Istanbul's status as a center of historical religious conflict, Pialat — drawing here on texts by the French poet Gérard de Nerval — also describes the city as a place of strange ethnic and religious harmony, with representatives of various cultures and religions living in close contact. He emphasizes the city's hybrid culture, its blend of Southern European and Arab influences, reflected in both its people and its very construction.
In this documentary on the life of Joan Crawford, we learn why she should be remembered as the great actress she was, and not only as "mommie dearest." caricature she has become. Friends, fellow actors, directors, and others reminisce about their association with her, and numerous film clips show off her talent from her start in silents to bad science fiction/horror movies at the end of her career.
Modern British dairy farms must get bigger and bigger or go under but Farmer Stephen Hook decides to buck the trend. Instead he chooses to have a great relationship with his small herd of cows and ignore the big supermarkets and dairies. The result is a laugh-out-loud emotional roller-coaster of a film, a heart warming tearjerker about the incredible bonds between man, animal and countryside in a fast disappearing England.
Explores the music scene in Greenwich Village, New York in the '60s and early '70s. The film highlights some of the finest singer/songwriters of the day.
How independent are we in our judgments? How do other people influence us? Being like everyone else is a natural desire of a child. He often succumbs to suggestion and passes out someone else's opinion for his own. But for an adult, this is a loss of personality, adaptability, conformism, which forms the psychology of a slave.
Chris Marker’s documentary traces the course of the Cuban Revolution, from its early optimism to the aftermath of the Bay of Pigs invasion. Through on-the-ground footage and interviews—including two with Fidel Castro—the film captures the spirit and contradictions of a nation in transformation.
An Iranian filmmaker and his son travel to Haifa, Israel to investigate a religion that originated a hundred and seventy years ago. Youth from all over come to Haifa to join this religion, and those who serve in the gardens that surround the holy places develop peace-loving attitudes through their interactions with nature. The filmmaker shares with his son the idea that if the Iranian people had adopted a peaceful religion, Iran would not be preparing a nuclear attack on Israel, but the son believes that all religions tend to bring about destruction. As a result of these arguments, father and son separate from one another and pursue their own paths.
Dan Drasin's documentary short, shot in a single afternoon in 1961, is often cited as the first major social protest film of the Sixties. When 19-year-old Drasin and his friends joined folk singers and protesters in Greenwich Village's Washington Square Park, they confronted NYC authorities to protest the cancellation of a standing permit to gather and sing in the park on Sundays. Here are the first signs of the political, racial and cultural issues that would soon erupt during the decade.
Exploring the technical aspects of Star Wars vehicles, weapons and gadgetry, Star Wars Tech consults leading scientists in the fields of physics, prosthetics, lasers, engineering and astronomy to examine the plausibility of Star Wars technology based on science as we know it today.