For years, right-wing politicians and pundits have repeatedly criticized the left for playing “the race card” and “the woman card.” This new film turns the tables and takes dead aim at the right’s own longstanding – but rarely discussed – deployment of white-male identity politics in American presidential elections. Ranging from Richard Nixon’s tough-talking, law-and-order campaign in 1968 to Donald Trump’s hyper-macho revival of the same fear-based appeals in 2020, "The Man Card" shows how the right has mobilized dominant ideas about manhood and enacted a deliberate strategy to frame Democrats and liberals as soft, brand the Republican Party as the party of “real men,” and position conservatives as defenders of white male power and authority in the face of transformative demographic change and ongoing struggles for racial, gender, and sexual equality.
At its peak, The Black and White Minstrel Show was watched by a Saturday night audience of more than 20 million people. David Harewood goes on a mission to understand the roots of this strange, intensely problematic cultural form: where did the show come from, and what made it popular for so long? With the help of historians, actors and musicians, David uncovers how, at its core, blackface minstrelsy was simply an attempt to make racism into an art form - and can be traced back to a name and a date.
Sake is a traditional alcoholic beverage from Japan and is otherwise known as rice wine. Women were prohibited from entering the many large and small sake breweries dotting Japan for centuries. However, times have changed and women are present on the sake scene today. In several cases, they are integral to the Japanese brewery business. The documentary depicts women who are not only enthusiasts, but also leaving their marks on the evolution of this Japanese mainstay.
"Politics for Austria," "Fairness," "We provide security"-election slogans that promise a return to bygone morals, adorn the city of Vienna before the Austrian national parliamentary elections in 2017. The mistrust with regard to supposed political elites, coupled with promises made by the right wing populist parties, polarize Austrian society. INLAND offers intimate insight into the lives of its protagonists and thereby draws a genre picture of their fears and hopes in complex times.
The natural sciences museum of La Plata, Argentina, had indigenous people held captive as study objects in the past, and their skeletons were on exhibit for many decades. The story of Krygi, served as a trigger to look back at the ideologies that defined us as individuals and as a people.
Guy Debord's analysis of a consumer society.
An intimate portrait of Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov — once Deputy Prime Minister and “an heir of President Yeltsin”, later an uncompromising adversary of Putin — that was assassinated near the Kremlin in February 2015. Election campaigns and hotel beds, protest rallies and office routine, train compartments and courtrooms, night walks and police vans – you have never seen any politician so close. This is a story how a journalist assignment turns into a genuine friendship.
A look at the history of the Statue of Liberty and the meaning of sculptor Auguste Bartholdi's creation to people around the world.
Afonsinho, Paulo Cézar Caju and Nei Conceição started their careers in the mid-1960s, a time of strong political repression in Brazil. Originally teammates of a celebrated generation of the Botafogo football team superstars, they did not give up their freedom when the military dictatorship decided to take control of the field.
The National Truth Commission, installed in 2011 to investigate crimes committed during a military dictatorship, brought to the public a still very obscure chapter of our history: the existence of an indigenous detention center in the city of Resplendor (MG), called Reformatório Krenak . First installed within the territory of the Krenak ethnic group, and later transferred to Carmésia, it imprisoned and tortured not only Krenak indigenous people, but several other ethnic groups such as the Pataxó, imposing restrictions on their ancestral practices under relentless surveillance by the military. The documentary shows how this concentration camp worked, and the consequences of this collective trauma for the affected indigenous peoples.
In 2001, Jimmy Wales published the first article on Wikipedia, a collaborative effort that began with a promise: to democratize the spreading of knowledge, monopolized by the elites for centuries. But is Wikipedia really a utopia come true?
In some of Cleveland, Ohio’s most dangerous neighborhoods, a unique subculture uses the powerful expression of Krump dance to combat trauma. Aaron, Paul and Conrad, along with their fellow Krumpers find mental, and emotional support via public and private dance convenings called "The Sessions."
Shudra: The Rising is a Hindi language film with a storyline based on the caste system in ancient India, and more specifically the Hindu Varna system. It is directed by Sanjiv Jaiswal and dedicated to Bhim Rao Ambedkar. The film depicts the four basic units of the caste system - the Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas and the Shudras. The film shows various rules imposed on the Shudras such as waking with a bell around their ankles and a long leaf behind their back,and a pot hanging around their neck.
Dare to Dream was directed by Marianne Jenkins, a film student from Goldsmiths' College, University of London, in 1990. It looks at the history of anarchism in the UK and beyond, as well as the state of the movement in the tumultuous year the poll tax uprising finally led to the resignation of Thatcher. Among the anarchist heavyweights interviewed are Albert Meltzer, Vernon Richards, Vi Subversa, Philip Sansom, Clifford Harper and Nicholas Walter, as well as a host of lesser known but equally committed dissidents. The film also features the miners strike and class struggle, squatting and social centres such as Bradford's 1in12 club, animal rights and feminism.
On June 1st, 2019, around 11:30pm, the shoot which represents a turning point in the federal republic falls. In the hessian small town Wolfhagen-Istha, the district president of Kassel, Walter Lübcke, is murdered during this night, while, just a few meters away, the annual carnival is putting the locals into a festive mood. It is DNA-evidence on the clothes of Walter Lübcke which leads the investigators on June 15th, 2019, to his presumptive murderer: Stephan Ernst. The previously convicted right-wing extremist Ernst gets arrested by a SEK unit in Kassel. A first background check reveals: Stephan Ernst was known to the security authorities, but they did not have him on their radar for six years. Now he is back. And a person is dead. The docu-drama “Schuss in der Nacht” („Shoot in the dark“) tells emotionally, and simultaneously factually, how the deadly attack on Lübcke came to be. It tells about the first far-right motivated murder of a politician since the era of national socialism.
WATERSHED chronicles the story of Mallory Weggemann, who was paralyzed at the age of 18 and found refuge in the pool as a swimmer. Having won five Paralympic medals, Weggemann is now not only looking to reclaim her spot on the podium, but she’s trying to become a mother as well. In WATERSHED, which was self-documented by Weggemann and her husband Jay Snyder, Weggemann trains for the Tokyo Paralympics during COVID-19 and battles an additional injury to her arm, putting her career in question. Against the backdrop of these crossroads, the couple bravely share their struggles with infertility, the importance of IVF, and their journey to start a family. In this deeply personal and inspiring film, Weggemann reminds us that trauma and tragedy not only change how we are perceived by society, but how we perceive ourselves. And that if we’re brave enough, we too can write our own ending.