In 1810, 20 year old Sara Baartman got on a boat from Cape Town to London, unaware that she would never see her home again, or that she would become the icon of racial inferiority and black female sexuality for the next 100 years. Four years later, she became the object of scientific research that formed the bedrock of European ideas about BFS. She died the next year, but even after her death, Sara remained an object of imperialist scientific investigation. In the name of Science, her sexual organs and brain were preserved and displayed in the Musee de l'Homme in Paris until as recently as 1985. Using historical drawings, cartoons, legal documents, and interviews with noted cultural historians and anthropologists, this documentary deconstructs the social, political, scientific, and philosophical assumptions that transformed one young woman into a representation of savage sexuality and racial inferiority.
In 1810, 20 year old Sara Baartman got on a boat from Cape Town to London, unaware that she would never see her home again, or that she would become the icon of racial inferiority and black female sexuality for the next 100 years. Four years later, she became the object of scientific research that formed the bedrock of European ideas about BFS. She died the next year, but even after her death, Sara remained an object of imperialist scientific investigation. In the name of Science, her sexual organs and brain were preserved and displayed in the Musee de l'Homme in Paris until as recently as 1985. Using historical drawings, cartoons, legal documents, and interviews with noted cultural historians and anthropologists, this documentary deconstructs the social, political, scientific, and philosophical assumptions that transformed one young woman into a representation of savage sexuality and racial inferiority.
1998-09-16
0
October 2003, Alma and Lila Levy are excluded from the Lycée Henri Wallon in Aubervilliers solely because they were wearing a headscarf. What follows is a deafening political and media debate, justifying in most cases the exclusion of girls wearing head-scarves to school. February 2004, a law was eventually passed by the National Assembly. "A thinly veiled racism" is about this controversy since the affair of Creil in 1989 (where two schoolgirls were excluded for the same reasons) and attempts to "reveal" that maybe what hides behind is the desire to exclude these girls. This film gives them a voice as well as others - teachers, community activists, feminists, researchers - gathered around the group "A School for You-All" fighting for the repeal of this law they consider sexist and racist ... This movie was censured in Septembre 2004 in France.
With an off beat sense of humour, the film looks at the politics and glamour of lipstick and the dilemmas of the modern woman in a marketed world.
Through one woman's experience as an adopted person and also as a mother who relinquished her child in 1971, this documentary highlights the many complex issues associated with adoption.
Making of Moontide talking about the production of the movie.
One of the most significant cases in European archaeology is the grave of the shaman woman of Bad Dürrenberg, a key finding of the last hunter-gatherer groups. From a time when there were no written records, this site was first researched by the Nazis, who saw a physically strong male warrior from an ‘original Aryan race’ in the buried person. It was, in fact, the most powerful woman of her time. The latest research shows that she was dark-skinned, had physical deformities, and was a spiritual leader. The documentary – using high-end CGI and motion capture – compares the researchers of the Nazi era, who misrepresented and instrumentalised their findings, to today’s researchers, who meticulously compile findings and evidence, and use cross- disciplinary methods to examine and evaluate them. It also substantiates the theory of the powerful roles women played in prehistoric times. The story of this woman, buried with a baby in her arms, still fascinates us 9,000 years after her death.
An actuality and reportage film. This film captures Lord Frederick Roberts (British Army rank Field Marshal) departing England for South Africa on 23rd December 1899, where he commanded British forces for a year in the Second Boer War. The ship in this film is the RMS Dunottar Castle. Going with Roberts is his chief of staff, Lord Kitchener, whose future role as Secretary Of State for War during World War One awaits him. This film was produced and distributed by the Warwick Trading Company, a London based company at its peak at this time, involved in the majority of British films.The Warwick Trading Company specialised in travel, reportage and actuality films and had substantial catalogues. Charles Urban had taken over as managing director in 1897 and was in that role when this film was produced. According to the BFI programme entry, the company had a large amount of resources already in South Africa. This meant they could capture historic moments as part of its Boer War coverage.
This exploration of Japan's fascination with girl bands and their music follows an aspiring pop singer and her fans, delving into the cultural obsession with young female sexuality and the growing disconnect between men and women in hypermodern societies.
Voleurz's third movie, with skiing, snowboarding and more goofiness from the Voleurz crew.
A tiny fragment of an actuality film of Tom Merry (William Mechem), a 'lightning sketch' caricaturist performing his act for the camera and producing a large profile caricature of Kaiser Wilhelm II. The loss of the rest of the film has bequeathed us 6 seconds that are of Mechem standing next to the completed portrait and sadly, that is all there is. An early film made by Birt Acres for R.W. Paul. (see release information for further detail).
Dorothy Johnson was a Western writer ahead of her time. Women saved men, heroes died unwept and unsung, whites lived with Indians and benefited from the experience. Three of her stories were made into films and many critics consider "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" to be the cornerstone of the modern western. This documentary looks back on Dorothy's life, and her place in history.
Using archival footage, cabinet conversation recordings, and an interview of the 85-year-old Robert McNamara, The Fog of War depicts his life, from working as a WWII whiz-kid military officer, to being the Ford Motor Company's president, to managing the Vietnam War as defense secretary for presidents Kennedy and Johnson.
"Louceiras" portraits the daily life of the last ceramists of the Brazilian indigenous ethnic group Kariri-Xocó, who earn a living from clay. They inherit a tradition passed from mother to daughter concerning the art of choosing, manufacturing and cooking clay pots and pans. Living in a village by the São Francisco river in the city of Porto Real do Colégio(AL), they share with their people the secret of medicinal herbs, the Toré dance, the labour songs (rojão) and the secret of Ouricuri.
The voices of five gay men who cruised for sex at the World Trade Center in the 1980s and 1990s haunt the sanitized, commerce-driven landscape that is the newly rebuilt Freedom Tower campus.
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.
30 seconds of actual snowball fighting from 1899. A quick glimpse of a time gone by
The cast and crew talk about the core themes of the film and the seeds of the film.
IN THE LAND OF GIANT PYGMIES, a diary of Aurelio Rossi's 1925 trek into the immense Belgian Congo, preserves a long-gone-Colonial-era wonder at natural resources, "primitive" tribes, customs and costumes in Europe's cast African possessions, and implies that the "dark continent" could benefit from the "civilizing" influences of home.