The dysfunctional Chinese justice system allows citizens with grievances against their local governments to petition the court to clear or correct their record. Yet in order to do so, the petitioners must travel to Beijing to file paperwork and wait an indefinite period to plead their case. Following the saga of a group of petitioners over the years of 1996 and 2008, Petition unfolds like a novel by Zola or Dickens. This was filmed surreptitiously from the point of view of the petitioners, and not the justice officials, the police, or those heavies sent by the municipalities.
The dysfunctional Chinese justice system allows citizens with grievances against their local governments to petition the court to clear or correct their record. Yet in order to do so, the petitioners must travel to Beijing to file paperwork and wait an indefinite period to plead their case. Following the saga of a group of petitioners over the years of 1996 and 2008, Petition unfolds like a novel by Zola or Dickens. This was filmed surreptitiously from the point of view of the petitioners, and not the justice officials, the police, or those heavies sent by the municipalities.
2009-05-22
6.8
The film consists almost entirely of an interview with the elderly He Fengming, recounting her experiences in post-1949 China.
A highway is waiting to go through a quiet village in Hunan, a province in central China where Mao was from. Due to the high cost of construction, construction companies and migrant workers who live on road work rush to here like the tide. In the following four years, they root in this strange place for interests, paying sweat and blood, even their lives. With their arrival, local village and peasants are forced to change their lives. Many hidden interest lines and hidden rules about road construction of the nation are unveiled, together with the shocking truth and emerging secrets.
The final entry in Michael and Johnny Mak's Long Arm of the Law series, Underground Express once again tells a story of gangsters versus police, focusing on the difference between how both factions act depending if they're coming from Hong Kong or Mainland China.
After a self-destructive lifestyle nearly kills her, tormented young Anne learns to open up and let go of her traumatic past through a new found passion for boxing.
A year after a supermoon’s light activated a dormant gene, transforming humans into bloodthirsty werewolves and causing nearly a billion deaths, the nightmare resurfaces as the supermoon rises again. Two scientists attempt to stop the mutation but fail and must now struggle to reach one of their family homes.
Characters from different backgrounds are thrown together when the plane they're travelling on crashes into the Pacific Ocean. A nightmare fight for survival ensues with the air supply running out and dangers creeping in from all sides.
A woman taking a cab ride from JFK airport engages in a conversation with the driver about the important relationships in their lives.
Ella Blake, a stop-motion animator struggling to control her demons after the loss of her overbearing mother, embarks upon the creation of a film that becomes the battleground for her sanity. As Ella’s mind starts to fracture, the characters in her project take on a life of their own.
International action star Jackie Chan is invited to the adoption ceremony of a rare baby panda, but after an international crime syndicate attempts to kidnap the bear, Jackie has to save the bear using his stunt work skills.
Alain and Diane have been together for 30 years. In his mind, Alain is still 30 years old. But the equation 30 years of routine feelings, empty nest (and incidentally a job where being 50 is like an incurable disease) creates a much less euphoric effect for Diane. She oscillates between depression and free fall - and the first one who says "hormonal" she smokes. Alain loves Diane like crazy and love is proof. He's going to do something crazy for her, something to make her feel vital again, to make her heart beat and youthfulness pulsate. The crazy thing? Leave her. The risk with electroshock ? Unknown: either it wakes up or it burns. They will take it, with their eyes closed.
The enigmatic resurrection, rampage, and retribution of an undead monster in a remote wilderness unleashes an iconic new killer after a locket is removed from a collapsed fire tower that entombed its rotting corpse.
A listless Wade Wilson toils away in civilian life with his days as the morally flexible mercenary, Deadpool, behind him. But when his homeworld faces an existential threat, Wade must reluctantly suit-up again with an even more reluctant Wolverine.
When he and his pregnant wife are attacked in their home, a former elite agent becomes trapped in a deadly manhunt tied to his own painful past.
An epic that details the checkered rise and fall of French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte and his relentless journey to power through the prism of his addictive, volatile relationship with his wife, Josephine.
1950. William Lee, an American expat in Mexico City, spends his days almost entirely alone, except for a few contacts with other members of the small American community. His encounter with Eugene Allerton, an expat former soldier, new to the city, shows him, for the first time, that it might be finally possible to establish an intimate connection with somebody.
During the 1972 Munich Olympics, an American sports broadcasting crew finds itself thrust into covering the hostage crisis involving Israeli athletes.
In the near future, on a decimated Earth, Paul and his twin sons face terror at night when ferocious creatures awaken. When Paul is nearly killed, the boys come up with a plan for survival, using everything their father taught them to keep him alive.
A father, immersed in a difficult divorce process, embarks on a dangerous mission when his children disappear from their isolated country house.
As the world falls, young Furiosa is snatched from the Green Place of Many Mothers into the hands of a great biker horde led by the warlord Dementus. Sweeping through the wasteland, they encounter the citadel presided over by Immortan Joe. The two tyrants wage war for dominance, and Furiosa must survive many trials as she puts together the means to find her way home.
In the near future, a group of war journalists attempt to survive while reporting the truth as the United States stands on the brink of civil war.
Paul Grignon's 47-minute animated presentation of "Money as Debt" tells in very simple and effective graphic terms what money is and how it is being created
Its hard to explain the full depth and breadth of the depravity of the pharmaceutical industry, the medical research industry, and the federal government. This film does a pretty good job. Hang on to your hat. The model for modern biological warfare was "discovered" during the conquest of the Americas and has been repeated over and over again.
China is the only civilization that continues to hold sway throughout its entire territory as defined by its ancient borders. This three-part series retraces almost 2,000 years of Chinese ancient history – a period that holds vital clues to understanding how this powerful nation was built. Many people forget that during the heyday of the Christian era, China was already a highly developed country. In this fascinating program we will focus on the heart of one of the most mysterious countries in the world. Witness the evolution of civilization and visit the places where the dignitaries are buried, also visit the mausoleum of China's first emperor Qin Shi Huang Di.
October 1st, 1957. Dusk descends on Tiananmen Square, Peking. Fireworks crackle light across the night sky, above a city alive with National Day festivities and celebrations. Two intrepid New Zealand film-makers - Rudall and Ramai Te Miha Hayward - are there, documenting the life and times of communist China. The distinction of being the first English speaking foreigners to film unfettered in communist China was significant. The invitation to visit China was facilitated through the New Zealand China Friendship Society. They filmed in Canton, Shanghai, Peking (Beijing) and Wuhan. It was a small window of opportunity for Westerners to gaze on a country that was largely a mystery to the outside world since 1949. The unfortunate irony was that two of the documentaries; “Wonders of China”, and “Inside Red China”, were considered to be communist propaganda, and were not distributed outside of New Zealand.
A documentary about Caroll Spinney who has been Sesame Street's Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch since 1969. At 78-years-old, he has no intention of stopping.
MANUFACTURED LANDSCAPES is the striking new documentary on the world and work of renowned artist Edward Burtynsky. Internationally acclaimed for his large-scale photographs of “manufactured landscapes”—quarries, recycling yards, factories, mines and dams—Burtynsky creates stunningly beautiful art from civilization’s materials and debris.
The true story of the seven weeks that changed China forever. On June 4, 1989, pro-democracy demonstrations were violently and bloodily repressed. Thousands of people died, but the basis for China's future was definitely planted.
How do you reconcile a commitment to non-violence when faced with violence? Why do the poor often seem happier than the rich? Must a society lose its traditions in order to move into the future? These are some of the questions posed to His Holiness the Dalai Lama by filmmaker and explorer Rick Ray. Ray examines some of the fundamental questions of our time by weaving together observations from his own journeys throughout India and the Middle East, and the wisdom of an extraordinary spiritual leader. This is his story, as told and filmed by Rick Ray during a private visit to his monastery in Dharamsala, India over the course of several months. Also included is rare historical footage as well as footage supplied by individuals who at great personal risk, filmed with hidden cameras within Tibet.
2nd Edition of Loose Change documentary. What if...September 11th was not a surprise attack on America, but rather, a cold and calculated genocide by our own government?We were told that the twin towers were hit by commercial jetliners and subsequently brought down by jet fuel. We were told that the Pentagon was hit by a Boeing 757. We were told that flight 93 crashed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. We were told that nineteen Arabs from halfway across the globe, acting under orders from Osama Bin Laden, were responsible. What you will see here will prove without a shadow of a doubt that everything you know about 9/11 is a complete fabrication. Conspiracy theory? It's not a theory if you can prove it.Written and narrated by Dylan Avery, this film presents a rebuttal to the official version of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and the 9/11 Commission Report.
This is a documentary about an honest search for the truth about the Federal Reserve Bank and the legality of the Internal Revenue System. Through extensive interviews with recognised experts and authority, the director shows an astonishing revelation of how the Federal Government and the Bankers have fooled the American public by taking thier wages and putting it in the pockets of the super-rich.
Michael Moore's view on how the Bush administration allegedly used the tragic events on 9/11 to push forward its agenda for unjust wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Xu Xin’s film “Dao Lu” (China 2012) offers an exclusive “in camera” encounter with Zheng Yan, an 83 year-old veteran of the Chinese Red Army, who calmly relates how he has navigated his country’s turbulent history over three-quarters of a century.Born to a wealthy family in a foreign concession, Yan joined the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in 1941 because he sincerely believed in the socialist project, and in its immediate capacity to free China from the Japanese yoke and eradicate deep-rooted corruption.
Acclaimed journalist Paul Moreira investigates how Russia manipulates public opinion, undermines democratic governments and attempts to alter world events. The public face of foreign policy: the state news channels, Sputnik and Russia Today. But working in the shadows is the hidden part: the hackers and trolls pushing the Russian agenda - The Russians know that public perception of their country has reached a new low. Russophobia is massive. Their message is tainted with illegitimacy. But how does the Russian information war machine work?
The inside story of Biden’s rise to the presidency, and the personal and political forces that shaped him and led to his dramatic decision to step aside.
The documentary film of the brief window of artistic freedom and democracy movement 1978 - 1982 following China's brutal cultural revolution.
In China more people are on death row than the rest of the world combined. The children of the convicts are often left alone, stigmatized and living in the streets. Grandma Zhang, as the kids call her, is a former prison guard who has founded an orphanage in Nanzhao.
It's war. War against an invisible enemy that is not as deadly as we are told. The world is changing rapidly. Disproportionate measures are taken worldwide that disrupt society as a whole. A dichotomy in society forced vaccinations and restrictions on freedom. Have we had the worst? Or is there something more disturbing to awaiting us.
Crocodile in the Yangtze follows China's first Internet entrepreneur and former English teacher, Jack Ma, as he battles US giant eBay on the way to building China's first global Internet company, Alibaba Group. An independent memoir written, directed and produced by an American who worked in Ma's company for eight years, Crocodile in the Yangtze captures the emotional ups and downs of life in a Chinese Internet startup at a time when the Internet brought China face-to-face with the West. Crocodile in the Yangtze draws on 200 hours of archival footage filmed by over 35 sources between 1995 and 2009. The film presents a strikingly candid portrait of Ma and his company, told from the point of view of an “American fly on a Chinese wall” who witnessed the successes and the mistakes Alibaba encountered as it grew from a small apartment into a global company employing 16,000 staff.