

2017-01-15
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6.7Forensic experts scan Pompeii’s victims to investigate why they didn’t escape the eruption.
0.0An innovative documentary that illustrates how weather works by performing brave, ambitious (even unlikely) experiments that show how nature transforms simple ingredients like wind, water and temperature into something spectacular and powerful.
6.8Follows the deadly Australian bushfires of 2019-2020, known as ‘Black Summer’. Burning is an exploration of what happened as told from the perspective of victims of the fires, activists and scientists.
0.0The Pierced Heart & The Machete is a vivid, unflinching exploration of two annual Vodou pilgrimages in Haiti. The first is for Èzili Danto, goddess of love, art and passion; worshipers from all over the world descend on the southwestern town of Ville-Bonheur to bathe in the sacred waterfall where Dantò resides. The second pilgrimage is for Dantòs' husband Ogoun, god of war, iron and healing. It takes place at the end of July in the northern town of Plaine du Nord, where practitioners bathe in a mud pool and make flamboyant sacrifices. This beautifully shot film offers disorienting yet illuminating glimpses of the contradictory and complementary aspects of these two lwa, the electrifying rites that honor them, and the intense music that accompanies these ecstatic and bloody ceremonies.
0.0In September of 1938, a great storm rose up on the coast of West Africa and began making its way across the Atlantic Ocean. The National Weather Bureau learned about it from merchant ships at sea and predicted it would blow itself out at Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, as such storms usually did. Within 24 hours, the storm ripped into the New England shore with enough fury to set off seismographs in Sitka, Alaska. Traveling at a shocking 60 miles per hour -- three times faster than most tropical storms -- it was astonishingly swift and powerful, with peak wind gusts up to 186 mph. Over 600 people were killed, most by drowning. Another hundred were never found. Property damage was estimated at $400 million -- over 8,000 homes were destroyed, 6,000 boats wrecked or damaged.
0.0The storm of 1993 that ravaged the Eastern Seaboard was bigger than any since the 1800s. Most were expecting only more unseasonable warmth, and were caught off-guard by the hurricane winds, massive thunderstorms, and fierce blizzards. Meteorologists puzzled over bizarre reports from their computers. Late warnings went largely unheard. Video footage from Florida to Maine documents nature's savagery.
0.0On August 29, 2005, Rockey Vaccarella rode out Hurricane Katrina on his roof by holding on to a rope for 4 hours. Rockey and his family lost everything but he refused to give up. Nearly one year after surviving the worst natural disaster in the history of America, Rockey set out on a mission to deliver a message to the President of the United States. Even when most people thought he was crazy, Rockey hooked up his FEMA trailer and journeyed from Louisiana to the White House. By the time he arrived in the nation's capitol, Rockey had captured the attention of America and much of the world. FORGOTTEN ON THE BAYOU is the true story of an unforgettable man who believes that anything is possible.
0.0Every New Year, and in celebration of their Independence, Haitian families gather together to feast in honor of a line of ancestors that fought for their freedom. The centerpiece of the festivity is the joumou soup—a traditional soup dating back centuries ago. The joumou soup is a concretization of war and victory, oppression and emancipation, and the deeply rooted celebratory traditions of the Haitian culture.
0.0Shot in early 2004 during the commemoration of the bicentennial of Haiti, this film offers a unique light on the last days to the presidency of Aristide, former priest of the poor became apprentice dictator. It is a reflection on the history of the first black republic in the world, a nation shared between the memory of its glorious revolution and the tragic litany of despots that have overwhelmed it since its independence.
4.8National Geographic gets 10 experts to pick the most significant natural disasters ever, adding eyewitness accounts and CGI to flesh out the stories.
9.0Archaeologist Raksha Dave and historian Dan Snow return to Pompeii to gain special access to a variety of new excavations, including two never-before-seen discoveries.
6.9"Trouble the Water" takes you inside Hurricane Katrina in a way never before seen on screen. The film opens the day before the storm makes landfall--just blocks away from the French Quarter but far from the New Orleans that most tourists knew. Kimberly Rivers Roberts, an aspiring rap artist, is turning her new video camera on herself and her Ninth Ward neighbors trapped in the city. Weaving an insider's view of Katrina with a mix of verité and in-your-face filmmaking, it is a redemptive tale of self-described street hustlers who become heroes--two unforgettable people who survive the storm and then seize a chance for a new beginning.
9.31804 is a feature length documentary film about the untold history of the Haitian revolution
0.0In 1925, during the occupation of Haiti, a U.S. Marine Corps sergeant was stationed in charge of the small island of La Gonave. He befriended the natives and was so popular that they named him King Faustin I and installed him as their ruler. He ruled the island for three years, then left and returned to make this documentary.
3.7Starting off a kilometre high, travelling at the speed of a jet aircraft, and heading for us. It doesn't make for a good outcome. Hollywood-style graphics and real-life archive bring home an imagined near-future scenario, all based on cutting-edge science. —Trevor
6.7A look at the state of the global environment including visionary and practical solutions for restoring the planet's ecosystems. Featuring ongoing dialogues of experts from all over the world, including former Soviet Prime Minister Mikhail Gorbachev, renowned scientist Stephen Hawking, former head of the CIA R. James Woolse
Using film footage shot by the Genevese film director, Fernand Reymond, in Bangladesh in 1972, this documentary film describes the cyclone prevention programme drawn up by the governmental authorities and the League of Red Cross Societies. It particularly depicts the cyclone warning system set up to protect the population. (League Film Library Catalogue Supplement No. 2, p. 39)
8.0The enthralling, against-all-odds story that transfixed the world in 2018: the daring rescue of twelve boys and their coach from deep inside a flooded cave in Northern Thailand.