Ebony Goddess: Queen of Ilê Aiyê follows three women competing to be the carnival queen of Ilê Aiyê, a prominent and controversial Afro-Brazilian group with an all-black membership. The selection is based on Afro-centric notions of beauty, in counterpoint to prevailing standards of beauty in Brazil, a country famous for slim supermodels and plastic surgery. Contestants for the title of Ebony Goddess dress in flowing African-style garments, gracefully performing traditional Afro-Brazilian dances to songs praising the beauty of black women.
Festive Land examines one of the largest and most extraordinary popular celebrations in the world, the week-long Carnival that brings more than two million people to the streets of Salvador, the capital of Bahia, in northeastern Brazil. Carnival is the most expressive showcase of the unique cultural richness of Bahia, where African culture has survived, prospered, and evolved, mixing with other Brazilian influences to create forms found nowhere else in the world. The film captures this unique cultural energy through extraordinary footage of musical performances, dances, religious manifestations, and street celebrations. At the same time, Carnival reflects the racial and social tensions of Brazil's heterogeneous society. At first glance there appear to be two million people chaotically mixed on the streets, but a more detailed look reveals how patterns of segregation driven by racial, social and economic differences continue in Carnival.
The execution was scheduled and the last meal consumed. The coolness of the poisons entering the blood system slowed the heart rate and sent him on the way to Judgement. He had paid for his crime with years on Death Row waiting for this moment and now he would pay for them again as the judgment continued..
Ann Dexter, daughter of an itinerant Haiti waterfront character, Carl Dexter, brings a golden idol, which her father her stolen at a voodoo ceremony, to Bill Buchanan, who is known along the waterfront as a man eternally on a treasure hunt. He agrees to let Ann accompany him in search of the treasure after a native he befriended gives him directions and certain voodoo secret charms. They follow an underwater passage to an island where they find a Pagan tribe. They learn that the golden idol is a burial symbol representing the dead and that hundreds of idols are at the bottom of the sacred burial lake.
Two male best friends have their relationship tested when it turns out that one is in love with the other.
The Secret Service abducts a "rocket scientist" to better protect him against gangsters acting for Chinese agents.
Freeform is the first student film by artist Jacob Sizemore. The narrative follows a woman in a mask as she longs to be free. The video is set to the musical piece Reach by Jeremy Levin.
A young prostitute, Gullan Svan, is murdered one night. The police suspects that the murderer is a student, since she had a lot of students as customers. The murderer stole a picture of Gullan after he killed her, a picture which later is found in a rented tuxedo when the tuxedo is returned. Four students decide to solve the case, but it seems that the truth is even closer than they first suspected... Plot by Mattias Thuresson
Milly Cohen lives in modest circumstances with her grandmother Cathy and her little brother Kevin. After the death of her parents, she gave up her art studies and works for the antiques dealer Philip Barnes, a handsome but uncouth bachelor. Philip only realizes that Milly has become the pearl of the store when she quits - due to her boss's unfriendliness and her brother's serious illness. Philip doesn't get on well with the new assistants. He realizes that he has fallen in love with Milly. When he tries to win her back, Milly has already accepted her old boyfriend's proposal of marriage.
A female eye doctor and a male film director run into each other on the airplane to Milan. The two were lovers in the past, and are now in their middle ages. After their chance encounter in Torino, they travel around Tuscany together, appreciating the works of Caravaggio. They begin to notice they are hiding their own wounds from each other. In Korea, he goes to her eye clinic, and they confess love to each other for the first time. In the end, they go their separate ways.
A glimpse of life as seen through young people at a Zimbabwean children's home.
Lin is a plain-clothes cop in the crime-riddled district of Mongkok who bungles a vice operation directed at mainland prostitues. He falls for a ditsy hooker who tells him the love of her life is a killer who once svaed her life in a shootout.
Romana fancies a proper holiday and convinces the Doctor to visit the leisure planet Argolis, where a takeover by the Argolins' historic enemy is underway.
Traces of a body draw a camera across a landscape of stone and walls.
Aubri Callahan is an aspiring comedian and ghost writer for Bella Delmonico, acclaimed stand up comic and owner of the Vista Theater. Performing at the Vista is a key step on the way to stardom and despite her natural talent, Aubri patiently waits for her time to shine, writing jokes for Bella in the shadows of the comedic giants that came before her. When The Vista Theater Variety Show lands in Aubri’s lap she must plan the whole event and find a headliner all before Christmas eve, just three weeks away.
Commissioned to make a propaganda film about the 1936 Olympic Games in Germany, director Leni Riefenstahl created a celebration of the human form. This first half of her two-part film opens with a renowned introduction that compares modern Olympians to classical Greek heroes, then goes on to provide thrilling in-the-moment coverage of some of the games' most celebrated moments, including African-American athlete Jesse Owens winning a then-unprecedented four gold medals.
Commissioned to make a propaganda film about the 1936 Olympic Games in Germany, director Leni Riefenstahl created a celebration of the human form. Where the two-part epic's first half, Festival of the Nations, focused on the international aspects of the 1936 Olympic Games held in Berlin, part two, The Festival of Beauty, concentrates on individual athletes such as equestrians, gymnasts, and swimmers, climaxing with American Glenn Morris' performance in the decathalon and the games' majestic closing ceremonies.
The senior year of a girls’ high school step team in inner-city Baltimore is documented, as they try to become the first in their families to attend college. The girls strive to make their dancing a success against the backdrop of social unrest in their troubled city.
This in-depth look into the powerhouse industries of big-game hunting, breeding and wildlife conservation in the U.S. and Africa unravels the complex consequences of treating animals as commodities.
When Harvard PhD student Jennifer Brea is struck down at 28 by a fever that leaves her bedridden, doctors tell her it’s "all in her head." Determined to live, she sets out on a virtual journey to document her story—and four other families' stories—fighting a disease medicine forgot.
From a historic genocide trial to the overthrow of a president, the sweeping story of mounting resistance played out in Guatemala’s recent history is told through the actions and perspectives of the majority indigenous Mayan population, who now stand poised to reimagine their society.
This is the remarkable story of an American icon who changed the sport of big wave surfing forever. Transcending the surf genre, this in-depth portrait of a hard-charging athlete explores the fear, courage and ambition that push a man to greatness—and the cost that comes with it.
A groundbreaking film that portrays the journey of Gigi Lazzarato, a fearless woman who began life as Gregory, posting fashion videos to YouTube from his bedroom, only to later come out as a transgender female. With never-before-seen personal footage, the film spotlights a family’s unwavering love for a child.
In this astonishing twelve-part project for and about television — the title of which refers to a 19th-century French primer Le tour de la France par deux enfants — Godard and Miéville take a detour through the everyday lives of two children in contemporary France.
Six blind Tibetan teenagers climb the Lhakpa-Ri peak of Mount Everest, led by seven-summit blind mountain-climber Erik Weihenmayer.
They just arrived in France. They are Irish, Serbs, Brazilians Tunisians, Chinese and Senegalese ... For a year, Julie Bertuccelli filmed talks, conflicts and joys of this group of students aged 11 to 15 years, together in the same class to learn French.
The planet’s busiest maternity hospital is located in one of its poorest and most populous countries: the Philippines. There, poor women face devastating consequences as their country struggles with reproductive health policy and the politics of conservative Catholic ideologies.
Documentary about the role of Native Americans in popular music history, a little-known story built around the incredible lives and careers of the some of the greatest music legends.
While her husband served a life sentence, paradoxically kept safe and morally uncontaminated, Winnie Mandela rode the raw violence of apartheid, fighting on the front line and underground. This is the untold story of the mysterious forces that combined to take her down, labeling him a saint, her, a sinner.
On learning that her infant niece, Maya, is dying of a rare disease, newly pregnant Sharon decides she must return home to Buffalo, N.Y., to help out -- but instead, she steps into a hornet's nest of family turmoil. While Maya deteriorates, another crisis erupts when Karen -- Maya's mother -- becomes pregnant with the child of a former gang member in this cinema verité-style portrait of a family on the brink.
The story of Pocahontas has been passed down through the centuries. Her relationship with John Smith has been characterized as a romance that united two cultures and created lasting peace. However, the life of this American Indian princess was anything but a fairytale. Join us as we look beyond the fiction and reveal the real story of Pocahontas, a tale of kidnapping, conflict, starvation, ocean journeys, and the future of an entire civilization.
Norman Mailer and a panel of feminists — Jacqueline Ceballos, Germaine Greer, Jill Johnston, and Diana Trilling — debate the issue of Women's Liberation.
THE AMERICAN NURSE is a heart-warming film that explores some of the biggest issues facing America - aging, war, poverty, prisons - through the work and lives of nurses. It is an examination of real people that will change how we think about nurses and how we wrestle with the challenges of healing America. THE AMERICAN NURSE is an important contribution to America's ongoing conversation about what it means to care. The film follows the paths of five nurses in various practice specialties including Jason Short as he drives up a rugged creek to reach a home-bound cancer patient in Appalachia. Tonia Faust, who runs a prison hospice program where inmates serving life sentences care for their fellow inmates as they're dying. Naomi Cross, as she coaches an ovarian cancer survivor through the Caesarean delivery of her son. Sister Stephen, a nun who runs a nursing home filled with goats, sheep, llamas and chickens, where the entire nursing staff comes together to sing for a dying resident.
Documentary film interviews leading Latinos on race, identity, and achievement.
The film analyzes the efforts by the families of 9/11 victims to create the 9/11 Commission and what information was revealed by it in the 9/11 Commission Report.