

1996-03-09
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7.4Because of the power of love, the last year of Franz Kafka's life becomes his happiest. The well-known writer has never before been able to allow himself to experience intimacy, he suffers from tuberculosis and is dependent on his overbearing family. In the summer of 1923, he met Dora Diamant in the seaside resort Graal-Müritz on the Baltic Sea coast, where he is convalescing and she is working in a Jewish Volksheim. He is a man of world, the 14 years younger woman is from the deep East, he can write, she can dance. She has both feet firmly on the ground, he is always hovering a little above it. She embraces the indicative, he gets tangled up in the conjunctive. But the worldly wise Dora accepts him as he is. And he accepts her. Together they go to Berlin and when Franz's health deteriorates rapidly, to a sanatorium in Austria. They are granted a single year together until Franz Kafka's health deteriorates incurable. However their year together allows them to feel the glory of life.
6.5In 1561, Mary Stuart, widow of the King of France, returns to Scotland, reclaims her rightful throne and menaces the future of Queen Elizabeth I as ruler of England, because she has a legitimate claim to the English throne. Betrayals, rebellions, conspiracies and their own life choices imperil both Queens. They experience the bitter cost of power, until their tragic fate is finally fulfilled.
7.1For six years, Melati, 18, has been fighting the plastic pollution that is ravaging her country, Indonesia. Like her, a generation is rising up to fix the world. Everywhere, teenagers and young adults are fighting for human rights, the climate, freedom of expression, social justice, access to education or food. Dignity. Alone against all odds, sometimes risking their lives and safety, they protect, denounce and care for others. The earth. And they change everything. Melati goes to meet them across the globe. At a time when everything seems to be or has been falling apart, these young people show us how to live. And what it means to be in the world today.
9.3In the crystal clear waters off the coast of Borneo, a unique way of life threatens to disappear forever. For generations, the Badjao were oceanic nomads, living in harmony with the sea as fishermen and free divers. Nowadays, however, only a few Badjao remain, like Alexan, who still remembers the old ways. He hopes to pass his knowledge along to his ten-year-old nephew Sari, but time and opportunities are running out. Sari loves the sea, but it can only offer a hard life of subsistence fishing, while the nearby tourist resort sings a siren song of easy money.
8.5A gifted singer, struggling with addiction on the streets of Skid Row, sets out on a journey to transform his life.
5.7July 2006. Another war breaks out in Lebanon. The directors decide to follow a movie star, Catherine Deneuve and a friend, actor and artist Rabih Mroue;, on the roads of South Lebanon. Together, they will drive through the regions devastated by the conflict. It is the beginning of an unpredictable, unexpected adventure...
4.9Twenty-five films from twenty-five European countries by twenty-five European directors.
7.2A Jewish boy separated from his family in the early days of WWII poses as a German orphan and is taken into the heart of the Nazi world as a 'war hero' and eventually becomes a Hitler Youth.
7.6A documentary of insect life in meadows and ponds, using incredible close-ups, slow motion, and time-lapse photography. It includes bees collecting nectar, ladybugs eating mites, snails mating, spiders wrapping their catch, a scarab beetle relentlessly pushing its ball of dung uphill, endless lines of caterpillars, an underwater spider creating an air bubble to live in, and a mosquito hatching.
5.0Robert De Niro, Sr., was a celebrated painter obscured by the pop-art movement. His life and career are chronicled in the artist's own words by his contemporaries and, movingly, by his son, the actor Robert De Niro.
0.0ALLIES is a landmark documentary from 1983, made at the time of Bob Hawke’s unequivocal embrace of the American alliance.
5.6An epistolary feature film: a cinematic discourse between a British director Mark Cousins, and an Iranian actress and director Mania Akbari which extends the concept of "essay film" with startling confrontations in the arenas of cultural issues, gender politics and differing artistic sensibilities. A unique journey into the minds of two exceptional filmmakers which becomes a love affair on film.
9.0Documentary about the degraded rivers of Canterbury, New Zealand.
0.0Hungary was the site of serial murders on ethnic basis. Over the course of one year, the murderers killed and seriously injured Roma children and adults. The state charged 4 men with committing the crime with racial motivation. This historical trial started March, 2011, and ended August, 2013 in Budapest. The 167 days of hearings was only documented continuously by our crew. We had exclusive permission to use multiple cameras in the court-room. The film is a classical chamber-drama, taking place in a small, claustrophobic court room, in the middle of Europe. What will be the outcome of the marathon, 3 year-long trial?
7.0Per Persson left Sweden 40 years ago. In Pakistan he fell in love and became the father of two daughters. Trouble starts when the girls grow up and the family decides to emigrate to Sweden. When they end up living in a caravan outside Hässleholm, all their expectations are dashed.
5.2The Kitades run a butcher shop in Kaizuka City outside Osaka, raising and slaughtering cattle to sell the meat in their store. The seventh generation of their family's business, they are descendants of the buraku people, a social minority held over from the caste system abolished in the 19th century that is still subject to discrimination. As the Kitades are forced to make the difficult decision to shut down their slaughterhouse, the question posed by the film is whether doing this will also result in the deconstruction of the prejudices imposed on them. Though primarily documenting the process of their work with meticulous detail, Aya Hanabusa also touches on the Kitades' participation in the buraku liberation movement. Hanabusa's heartfelt portrait expands from the story of an old-fashioned family business competing with corporate supermarkets, toward a subtle and sophisticated critique of social exclusion and the persistence of ancient prejudices.
1.0Agnes may not seem like someone with much to laugh about. For one thing, she has albinism - a lack of pigment in the skin, hair and eyes - and her appearance has provoked prejudice from family, friends and strangers since she was born. But despite all odds, Agnes refuses to lead a life of sorrow. This fascinating and inspiring documentary also shares the stories of seven other people's individual experiences of living their lives with albinism in Kenya, a predominantly black society. While each person's story is unique, they all have one thing in common: they know what it is like to stand out uncomfortably from the crowd.
5.5"Michael Moore doesn't like documentaries. That's why he doesn't make them." A documentary that looks to distinguish what's fact, fiction, legend, and otherwise as a camera crew trails Michael Moore as he tours with his film, Fahrenheit 9/11.
7.5Monsanto is the world leader in genetically modified organisms (GMOs), as well as one of the most controversial corporations in industrial history. This century-old empire has created some of the most toxic products ever sold, including polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and the herbicide Agent Orange. Based on a painstaking investigation, The World According to Monsanto puts together the pieces of the company’s history, calling on hitherto unpublished documents and numerous first-hand accounts.
7.0Portrait of the first laughing club in India, its founding by a doctor who believes that laughter is the best medicine, his outreach to schools, interviews with club members, scenes of outdoor sessions, and shots of billboards and street scenes in contemporary Mumbai. Club members gather, stretch, and start to laugh. Founder Dr. Madan Kararia talks of the club's history and the growth of laughing clubs across the country. Among those interviewed, there's a stockbroker, three bawdy women, a musician, a widow laughing to cope with grief, and two old men - friends since school days who meet daily to laugh. No form, no fuss: happiness equals health.