Stretching along the river Ganges rests Varanasi, the holiest of India’s seven sacred cities, and a place where devout Hindus go to die in hopes of achieving moksha - becoming liberated from the cycle of rebirth. Hindu scriptures say that a soul has to undergo 8.4 million rebirths before reaching the human form, the only form one can attain moksha, and dying in Varanasi and being cremated along the banks of the river is believed to be the ideal way of achieving this. Several so-called ‘death hotels’ exist to accommodate believers who abandon their lives and come here in wait for death - some for as long as 40 years.
Buster Brown creater R.F. Outcault sketches his creation. Part of the Buster Brown series for Edison film studio.
Ultrarunners overcome every kind of hardship. During her first run of the season, Mirna Valerio has to silence those who think she's not fit for this sport.
Computer animation and footage from NASA space missions explain how our solar system evolved and the place Earth has within the system.
A 1968 animation/documentary that criticises the industrial system. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive.
Jugaad is a Hindi word that can be translated as "innovative or effective solution that bends the rules". It refers to the extreme capacity developed by Mumbai's inhabitants to adapt and get around any type of constraint or obstacle posed by the city's urban structure. In a relatively small piece of land where 21 million people live today, the inhabitants of Mumbai demonstrate great creativity when it comes to managing the spaces (for sale, for prayer, for traffic) and the flows that cross them every day. Without using language, Hong Kong artist Chak Hin Leung brings together in this video a dozen unique situations in which people, animals, vehicles and natural elements intermingle and brush up against each other, without ever colliding.
Twenty-four images of a camera running in the woods, a moonlight and a cemetery through improvised gestures, mechanical abstraction and saturated colors
Short dramatised documentary showing the ups and downs of daily life on a circus farm. “The only light comes from the flames of the funeral pyre that consumes a dead circus elephant shortly after its corpse has been unceremoniously dragged across a field by 50 carthorses.” (BFI)
Can two strangers really fall in love by asking each other 36 psychologist-approved questions and staring into each other's eyes for four minutes straight?
Swedish writer Stig Dagerman (1923-1954) was a literary sensation who after a few productive years, suddenly fell silent. Struggling with writer's block, Dagerman wrote the essay "Our Need for Consolation" about his inner demons and his quest for freedom. For the first time in English, featuring Stellan Skarsgard as an on-camera narrator, this film brings Dagerman's powerful words to life in the form of a visual poem.
A parade highlights the Screen Actors Guild's Film Stars Frolic, hosted by Walter Winchell as Master of Ceremonies.
Sightseeing Stockholm offbeat through the lens of Jonas Mekas.
Brendan is a pastor in a small, evangelical church, and he has a secret. He doesn't believe in God anymore. His wife is still a true believer - and she just told the wrong person. Losing Our Religion is a feature length documentary about preachers who are not believers, and what atheists do when they miss church. Allowed access to the 600 members of The Clergy Project - a safe haven for preachers from all faiths who no longer believe - the documentary follows ex-members and clergy who are still undercover. They are not just losing their religion, for many they are losing their friends, community and even family. As well as their job. As events unfold that change lives forever, their stories also connect with secular communities that are growing in surprising places. New groups are experimenting in ways to have church without god, and asking the same question as unbelieving clergy - "what's next?"
While seething mobs converged around them, the Prophet Joseph and his brethren quietly submitted themselves to imprisonment in Carthage Jail. Now, as never before, audiences are invited to witness the events of the days preceding the martyrdom. Based on documents handed down through the generations, Carthage offers a glimpse into the turmoil and testimony of the men whose place in history was forever defined by what was to come - a jailer seeking to protect his charges, a governor caught between the persecuted and their persecutors, and a group of Saints whose faith and brotherhood stands as the ultimate witness of the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Discover the story behind the man who sparked the Protestant Reformation. Told through a seamless combination of live-action storytelling and artistic animation, Martin Luther's daring life is presented in extensive detail while still making the film relevant, provocative, and accessible.
Joao Texeira de Faria, also known as John of God, is a world famous spiritual healer from Brazil who has been attributed to many miracles that science cannot explain. His work attracts both controversy and acclaim. For the past 30 years, thousands of people from all over the world have been flocking to his remote village in Brazil in search of cures for illnesses Western medicine offers little hope. Film maker Michelle Mahrer follows the journey of two of her friends on a healing odyssey to Brazil - Lya Shaked from Australia has terminal cancer, and Fred Porter from USA has HIV. Will they be lucky enough to receive a miracle?
This Carey Wilson Miniature takes a further look at prophecies by 16th century seer Nostradamus.
Breaion King, a 26 year-old African-American school teacher from Austin, Texas - is pulled over for a routine traffic stop that escalates into a violent arrest. Dashcam clips intercut with verite scenes tell a story of racism in law enforcement through the eyes of one of its victims.
This is a film about 12-year-old girls, made by 12-year-old girls, for 12-year-old girls, or anyone that has been a 12-year-old girl, or will be a 12-year-old girl, or wishes they were a 12-year-old girl. This inquisitive cross between a documentary and a theatre piece was created by Tilda Cobham-Hervey and twelve 12-year-old girls, where real girls articulate what they hope for, what they remember and what it feels like to be twelve. Performing themselves in a filmed field guide, together these specimens investigate their own species.
Jag Mandir is a quiet and often overlooked film in the vast oeuvre of Werner Herzog. Apparently, 20 hours of footage was shot that covered the whole fest and the film hardly presents us a twentieth of that. A native walking into the film in between may well fail to immediately realize that it is his country that is being shown and these are figures from the mythology of various sections of his nation. The bulk of the film consists of footage of an elaborate theatrical performance for the Maharana Arvind Singh Mewar at the City Palace of Udaipur, Rajasthan staged by André Heller.
Short documentary about Twin Peaks: The Return.