Varanasi is the Indian city where Hindus go to die. Stretching along the Ganges, Varanasi holds great spiritual significance because Hindu scriptutres say that anyone who dies there will attain moksha—liberation from the cycle of rebirth. Berlin-based director Dan Braga Ulvestad captures life and death in India’s heartland in this moving documentary filled with exquisite cinematic moments. By the River starts its narrative journey with the city’s “death hotels,” dedicated apartments where people wait to die, sometimes for decades, so they can be cremated on the banks of the Ganges.
Mondo-style docudrama about a war correspondent who comes back home and has a spiritual crisis about his own mortality. Surreal fantasy sequences are mixed with graphic real autopsy footage.
The Real Story of Fake Democracy. Filmed over three years in five countries, FREEDOM FOR THE WOLF is an epic investigation into the new regime of illiberal democracy. From the young students of Hong Kong, to a rapper in post-Arab Spring Tunisia and the viral comedians of Bollywood, we discover how people from every corner of the globe are fighting the same struggle. They are fighting against elected leaders who trample on human rights, minorities, and their political opponents.
In the week when Hindus celebrate the holy festival of Diwali, this documentary tells the story of one of their faith's most sacred symbols - the swastika. For many, the swastika has become a symbol synonymous with the Nazis and fascism. But this film reveals the fascinating and complex history of an emblem that is, in fact, a religious symbol, with a sacred past. For the almost one billion Hindus around the world, the swastika lies at the heart of religious practices and beliefs, as an emblem of benevolence, luck and good fortune.
Behind the scenes at a Chennai teachers training college.
Efrain, known as the Reaper, has worked at a slaughterhouse for 25 years. We will discover his deep relationship with death and his struggle to live.
These days it seems that nothing is as polarizing and controversial as religious belief. Everywhere one goes it seems that people are asking the question: Do we even need religion? Is it limiting our understanding? What kind of world is being produced by these faith systems? Regardless of your answers to these questions, it is hard to deny that worship still plays an important role in many people's lives and many people simply do not understand where others are coming from. Believers is a unique exploration of those questions related to faith by focusing the lens on five of the world's belief systems, Agnosticism, and the new Atheism. The film follows Sacha Sewhdat's personal journey towards understanding as he searches for the value of religion in modern society. With honesty and objectivity Sacha explores what it means to believe in a higher power or what it would mean to let those beliefs go. It will both inform and challenge what you know about religion in the 21st Century.
This portrayal of the rhythm of life and work in a gigantic textile factory in Gujarat, India, moves through the corridors and bowels of the enormously disorienting structure—taking the viewer on a journey of dehumanizing physical labor and intense hardship.
Two Bangladeshi girls born and raised in London have weddings arranged for them against their will by their family. Shahanara, the rebel of the family, banished from the family in her teens for being "too Western", has to swap her pink hot pants for a sari as she goes off to the airport to meet her new Bangladeshi husband. Her sister Hushnara is the opposite of Shahanara; a devout Muslim who agrees to marry so she doesn't upset her parents.
Documentary film about Catholic Church teachings about homosexuality. Describes the "third way", the lifestyle lead by orthodox gay Catholics practicing celibacy out of personal choice, an often overlooked demographic in the debates about homosexuality in the Church.
A story of life and death, featuring Lozinski's six-year-old son Tomaszek and elderly people spending time on the benches of a Warsaw park. Riding his scooter, Tomaszek asks the elderly very adult, though basic, questions, which they are happy to answer. The boy's ideas of future and life are confronted with those of men at the end of their lives.
A fascinating quest for proof of life after death -- a true-life enigma that begins with one small, odd incident and mushrooms into a huge scientific inquiry into apparent messages from the 'Other Side.'
In a poetic hour and a half, director Mani Kaul looks at the ancient art of making pottery from a wide variety of perspectives.
To the city come men, women, fruits, flowers, vegetables, goats and sheep – all ready for consumption. It is the process of consumption/exploitation that forms the core of the film.
The Hidden Dimension in World Affairs is one of Jordan Maxwell’s most controversial subjects. It emphatically displays Vatican ties to some of the highest crimes in humanity past and present. A must see for anyone in search of this knowledge.
On Valentine's Day, 1993, Caveh Zahedi decided to ingest 5 grams (a very large dose) of hallucinogenic mushrooms. For the first time in his mushroom-taking history, he had an experience of "divine possession," in which he felt that a divine being took possession of his body and spoke through him, in a voice that was not his, and with knowledge that he himself did not possess. He later tried several times to repeat the experience. I WAS POSSESSED BY GOD is the documentary record of one such attempt.
Explores the influence of propaganda on religion during Hitler's reign as well as his representation as the new Messiah.
Michael Mosley transformed the lives of millions of people. In this programme, we look back at an extraordinary broadcasting career which spanned almost 40 years. Fronting series such as Trust Me I’m a Doctor and the hit podcast Just One Thing, Michael used his warm, often funny approach to deliver important, life-changing health messages. He started behind the scenes as an award-winning science journalist and producer, before becoming a much-loved presenter. His programmes have made a lasting impact on the nation’s health habits, from intermittent fasting to the benefits of a cold shower. Michael also shared his own struggles with audiences worldwide. As a chronic insomniac, he made programmes about sleep and, ever curious, he would also go to extremes in the pursuit of science, even infecting himself with a tapeworm. Celebrating Michael’s career, this programme marks the enormous impact he made, touching the lives of so many.
RROMANI SOUL traces the true origin of the Rroma people. Through rituals, song and dance we follow emblematic figure and "Queen of the Gypsies" Esma Redzepova to Macedonia, south of France and finally to India. The film reveals for the first time ever that the true and unique origin of the Rroma is Kannauj in Uttar Pradesh, India.