

2017-01-01
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5.0Aline Morales is one of the main broadcasters of Maracatu in Toronto. From a meeting with members of Recife's Maracatu Estrela Brilhante Nação, she and her traveling companions reflect deeply on the different aspects of this genre, beyond music.
6.6No measure of hellfire preaching can quell the boisterous and bawdy passions of Maracatu, an Afro-Brazilian burlesque carnival tradition with roots in slavery that takes place in the northeast state of Pernambuco. As the Falstaffian character Tiao, Valmir do Coco leads a nonprofessional cast of authentic Maracatu practitioners in a tale told through dance, music, and the supernatural, set in the sugarcane fields outside Recife.
0.0An experimental music film showcasing the filming locations of "Twin Peaks" using silent footage and eleven tracks from the original score composed by Angelo Badalamenti. It was released only on LaserDisc in Japan, and includes liner notes with lyrics to three songs performed by Julee Cruise.
7.7As YouTube turns ten we chart the history of the last decade through the lens of the world’s most famous video sharing site. This is the human story of those who created it, the stars it gave birth to and the countries whose fates it changed.
Mothers, architects, artists, shoppers and other women who live and work in Birmingham explore the contradictions of the city, its promises, frustrations and disappointments, and suggest that listening to the experiences of women may hold the answer to the impoverished 'concrete jungle' so familiar today.
8.0A portrait of Benny Fredriksson who for 16 years was CEO of Kulturhuset / Stadsteatern. He also had a background as an actor and director. In connection with a media hunt he resigned and later took his own life.
7.5Framed against the backdrop of Arsenal’s historic “Invincible” season of 2003-04, the first and only occasion a team has gone an entire Premier League campaign without defeat, the film sees Wenger reflect candidly on his revolutionary era at Arsenal and the emotional and personal turmoil that surrounded his controversial exit after 22 years.
A documentary film about the entrepreneur Mohamed El Fatatry.
7.4Wai-chan is one of the last remaining fishermen in Ushimado, a small village in Seto Inland Sea, Japan. At the age of 86, he still fishes alone on a small boat to make a living, dreaming about his retirement. Kumi-san is an 84 year old villager who wanders around the shore everyday. She believes a social welfare facility “stole” her disabled son to receive subsidy from the government. A “late - stage elderly” Koso-san runs a small seafood store left by her deceased husband. She sells fish to local villagers and provides leftovers to stray cats. Foresaken by the modernization of post-war Japan, the town Ushimado's rich, ancient culture and tight-knit community are on on the verge of disappearing.
6.0As they undergo 12 weeks of intensive training, a group of young civilians is gradually moulded into soldiers. The Basic Training, a prerequisite for joining the Canadian Armed Forces, becomes the gateway to exploring the inner workings of a world governed by its own rules and values.
6.6Claire Simon portrays an important time for any individual, from 16 to 18 years of age. Set in the Paris suburbs in high school (for those lucky enough to go), teenagers chat after and even during class, sitting in the hallway or outside on a bench, looking at the city below them.
6.1In 2013, Dima Ilukhin, the cousin of the film’s director and a soldier in the Russian army, died on duty in the Republic of Dagestan in the North Caucasus. He was 21 years old. This incident marks the starting point for Abaturov’s reflection on the military. He films the training of new recruits in Siberia, as they bid farewell to their mothers and girlfriends, learn the mechanics of a Kalashnikov, or how to throw a hand grenade and administer first aid. While his parents try to cope with their loss, Dima’s former fellow recruits have to return to battle.
7.2Theatre of War is an essay on how to represent war, performed by former enemies. British and Argentinian veterans of the Falklands war come together to discuss, rehearse and re-enact their memories 35 years after the conflict.
7.8Ruth Beckermann documents the process of uncovering former UN Secretary General Kurt Waldheim’s wartime past. It shows the swift succession of new allegations by the World Jewish Congress during his Austrian presidential campaign, the denial by the Austrian political class, the outbreak of anti-Semitism and patriotism, which finally led to his election.
6.5Adele Roberts tracks the rise of Korean Pop - the lifestyle, the fashion and the fans - and meets BTS, the biggest band in the scene. Is K-Pop about to take the world by storm? Adele investigates the secrets behind the genre, delving in to the lifestyle, the fashion, and looking at the fans and the politics that make up the scene…before meeting the K-Pop band who are taking the world by storm. BTS are the first Korean group to break into the US Top 30 and the UK Top 50 charts. So how is a music genre from a country with a different language, different culture and one of the world's most heavily militarised borders, becoming so successful around the world?
5.0Deep in the earth beneath the Norwegian permafrost, seeds from all over the world are stored in the Global Seed Vault to provide a backup should disaster strike. For the first time ever, seeds held there from a major gene bank in Aleppo are now being replicated, after its holdings were left behind when the institution had to move to Lebanon due to the civil war. It is refugees from Syria who are carrying out this painstaking work in the fields of the Beqaa Valley. In the Levant, dry conditions and the power of global agricultural corporations are the biggest challenge, while in the Arctic Circle - where the seed vault was supposed to withstand anything - it is rising temperatures and melting glaciers.
0.0Before the creation of the secret cities of Los Alamos, Oak Ridge and Hanford, the Manhattan Project hired the Mallinckrodt Chemical Works of St. Louis to refine the first uranium used in the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. For the next two decades, Mallinckrodt continued its classified work for the Atomic Energy Commission during the Cold War. The resulting radioactive waste contaminated numerous locations in the St. Louis area some of which have not been cleaned up 70 years after the end of World War II. Told through the eyes of an overexposed worker, the story expands through a series of interviews that careen down a toxic pathway leading to a fiery terminus at a smoldering, radioactively-contaminated landfill. The First Secret City reveals a forgotten history and its continuing impact on the community in the 21st Century, uncovering past wrongdoing and documenting the renewed struggles to confront the issue.
0.0Michel Roux Jr sets out to discover the secret of chocolate, not just why we're addicted to the sublime and complex foodstuff but it’s rich and varied history. From a sacred drink of Aztec Emperors to the aphrodisiac of choice at the court of Louis XIV in Versailles.