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A documentary that exposes the shocking truths behind industrial food production and food wastage, focusing on fishing, livestock and crop farming. A must-see for anyone interested in the true cost of the food on their plate.
From New York City to the farmlands of the Midwest, there are 50,000 Chinese restaurants in the U.S., yet one dish in particular has conquered the American culinary landscape with a force befitting its military moniker—“General Tso’s Chicken.” But who was General Tso and how did this dish become so ubiquitous? Ian Cheney’s delightfully insightful documentary charts the history of Chinese Americans through the surprising origins of this sticky, sweet, just-spicy-enough dish that we’ve adopted as our own.
When a Mongolian nomadic family's newest camel colt is rejected by its mother, a musician is needed for a ritual to change her mind.
Meat-based or vegetarian, with or without beans, potatoes in or out, tomato sauce or real tomatoes added, dried mushrooms or smoked pears, or maybe just mom's borsch? Which variant should be considered "the real thing"? The battles have been lasting for years. That is why Yevhen Klopotenko, a well-known chef, sets out on a journey across Ukraine to uncover the most fascinating borsch recipes and to find the secret ingredients which make this dish unique.
A film about the importance of heirloom seeds to the agriculture of the world, focusing on seed keepers and activists from around the world.
Pearl Randall, a 66-year-old widow, announces that she is planning to remarry, but her three grown children express conflicting emotions. Daughter Terri captures on tape the family's attempts to come to grips with Pearl's new romance.
The life of the Schouten family revolves around tulips and top sport. Together they run a large international tulip company and children Irene and Simon skate at world top level. When mother Jolanda unexpectedly needs a lot of care and attention due to a brain haemorrhage, everything changes. How does the family relate to each other, skating and the company in this new situation?
Part food doc, part comedy special, Gutbuster follows unhealthy stand-up comedian Dave Stone on a cross-country tour after a sobering health diagnosis pushes him toward a major lifestyle change. He talks to farmers, doctors and academics by day, compiling his own idiot's guide to the modern American meal, then makes funny about his experiences onstage by night.
Clarissa Dickson Wright tracks down Britain's oldest known cookbook, The Forme of Cury. This 700-year-old scroll was written during the reign of King Richard II from recipes created by the king's master chefs. How did this ancient manuscript influence the way people eat today? On her culinary journey through medieval history she reawakens recipes that have lain dormant for centuries and discovers dishes that are still prepared now.
Bananas, eggs, and tuna: three basic foodstuffs with three wildly different points of origin. Moullet begins with these on his plate but constructs his film by working backwards and finding the sources for these items and how they reach our plates. As Moullet’s investigation deepens, however, the film moves beyond the confines of a simple exploration of food origins into more political and social realms, not only relating to food but also to the medium of film.
What would your family reminiscences about dad sound like if he had been an early supporter of Hitler’s, a leader of the notorious SA and the Third Reich’s minister in charge of Slovakia, including its Final Solution? Executed as a war criminal in 1947, Hanns Ludin left behind a grieving widow and six young children, the youngest of whom became a filmmaker. It's a fascinating, maddening, sometimes even humorous look at what the director calls "a typical German story." (Film Forum)
At the end of the 1960s, Vanesa’s parents fled the Franco-regime’s deep poverty to pursue their dream in the Netherlands. Working their blue-collar jobs for hours and hours, for over 45 years, their purpose was to return to Spain wealthy and comfortable. There, in a house full of Dutch porcelain and shiny gold, they can now finally rest. Vanesa was raised as Dutch, but still feels trapped in their expectant illusion, even with the distance between them. Torn between two homes, she starts to re-examine her past.
Two Norwegian sisters receive a premonition from God that makes them buy an apartment in a tiny Swedish town, Gullspång. Meeting the seller, she is a dead-ringer of their older sister, who committed suicide 30 years ago.
An Oscar nominated documentary about a middle-class American family who is torn apart when the father Arnold and son Jesse are accused of sexually abusing numerous children. Director Jarecki interviews people from different sides of this tragic story and raises the question of whether they were rightfully tried when they claim they were innocent and there was never any evidence against them.
Casa Bonita opened in 1974 in an unassuming strip mall. The massive "Disneyland of Mexican restaurants" is an Old West and Acapulco-inspired fever dream made famous by its indoor waterfall, cliff divers, and haunted caves, and was featured in a classic 2003 episode of South Park. When its creators, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, learn that Casa Bonita might close its doors for good, they attempt to preserve a crumbling piece of their childhood and Denver history.
An intimate portrait filmed across 10 years of Mary, a charismatic and complex woman, born and raised in rural Kansas, USA. She runs a curiosity shop out of her front yard, builds giant furniture and dreams of becoming an artist one day.
Documentarist Jane Wong films her mother and two Chinese friends as they discuss their lives and experiences as émigrés living in Liverpool.
A fictionalised documentary about the great Japanese poet Bashô (1644–1694), the spiritual father of haiku poetry. A monk, portraying the poet, journeys through Japan, following Bashô's journal and writing many of his haikus. A ruminant, poetic, Zen Buddhist observation of nature – a return to the lost paradise of unspoilt nature.
Arctic Tale is a 2007 documentary film from the National Geographic Society about the life cycle of a walrus and her calf, and a polar bear and her cubs, in a similar vein to the 2005 hit production March of the Penguins, also from National Geographic.
A filmmaker follows her grandparents’ daily life after her chain-smoker and alcoholic grandmother is forced to stop drinking beer for a month.
What makes a voice “gay”? A breakup with his boyfriend sets journalist David Thorpe on a quest to unravel a linguistic mystery.
The Newlyn School of artists flourished at the beginning of the 20th Century and the film focuses on the wild and bohemian Lamorna Group, which included Alfred Munnings and Laura and Harold Knight. The incendiary anti-Modernist Munnings, now regarded as one of Britain's most sought-after artists, is at the centre of the complex love triangle, involving aspiring artist Florence Carter-Wood and Gilbert Evans, the land agent in charge of the Lamorna Valley estate. True - and deeply moving - the story is played out against the timeless beauty of the Cornish coast, in the approaching shadow of The Great War.
A man with a troubled past is released on parole. He finds work as a church organist and develops a rewarding relationship with a priest and her young son. However, his past soon catches up with him.
Charlie Rankin, recently released from prison, seeks vengeance for his jail-house mentor William "The Buddha" Pettigrew. Along the way, he meets the ethereal, yet streetwise, Florence Jane. They embark on a unlikely road trip, careening towards an unlikely redemption and uncertain resolution.
Broadly considered a brand that inspires fervour and defines cool consumerism, Apple has become one of the biggest corporations in the world, fuelled by game-changing products that tap into modern desires. Its leader, Steve Jobs, was a long-haired college dropout with infinite ambition, and an inspirational perfectionist with a bully's temper. A man of contradictions, he fused a Californian counterculture attitude and a mastery of the art of hype with explosive advances in computer technology. Insiders including Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, the chairman who ousted Jobs from the company he founded, and Jobs' chief of software, tell extraordinary stories of the rise, fall and rise again of Apple with Steve Jobs at its helm. With Stephen Fry, world wide web inventor Sir Tim Berners-Lee and branding guru Rita Clifton, Evan Davis decodes the formula that took Apple from suburban garage to global supremacy.
When former comedian Mark McCarthy is faced with a rare form of cancer, he hires a young, impressionable cameraman to document his crude and comical lessons on what it means to be a man for his unborn son.
The good guys win out in this sweet tale about a young orphan who is abused for much of her life but who eventually finds happiness when she marries an honest man who extricates her from her situation.
The short film's main character is a diving bell spider who seems to have fallen in love with a water strider. Although she is scared of him at first, the water strider soon gets used to the presence of the spider.
An inspirational story about the power of hope in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds, and an object lesson in what it really means to be a winner in life.
Chronicles the history, ideology and aesthetic of Norwegian black metal, a musical subculture infamous as much for a series of murders and church arsons as it is for its unique musical and visual aesthetics. This is the first film to truly shed light on a movement that has heretofore been shrouded by rumor and obscured by inaccurate and shallow depictions. Featuring exclusive interviews with the musicians themselves, Until the Light Takes Us explores every aspect of the controversial movement that has captured the attention of the world.
The first documentary feature to explore the tragic and bizarre life of the late chess master Bobby Fischer.
Seattle, WA EMP brings viewers inside the ground-breaking story of one man, his music and the world that embraced him with the two-hour documentary special "Jimi Hendrix Voodoo Child,"
Through the unrelenting winter in the north of Japan, a small group of workers must brave unusual working conditions to bring to life a 2,000-year-old tradition known as sake. A cinematic documentary, The Birth of Sake is a visually immersive experience of an almost-secret world in which large sacrifices must be made for the survival of a time-honored brew.
Abruptly abandoned by her husband in a country completely foreign to her, Colombian native Mariana (Paola Mendoza) struggles to take care of herself and her two young children on the unforgiving streets of New York City. Sebastian Villada, Laura Montana and Anthony Chisholm also star in this gritty independent drama jointly written and directed by Mendoza and her collaborator Gloria La Morte.
In the final decades of the 20th century, the Philippines was a country where low-budget exploitation-film producers were free to make nearly any kind of movie they wanted, any way they pleased. It was a country with extremely lax labor regulations and a very permissive attitude towards cultural expression. As a result, it became a hotbed for the production of cheapie movies. Their history and the genre itself are detailed in this breezy, nostalgic documentary.
Based on Reich's 2010 book Aftershock: The Next Economy and America's Future, the film examines widening income inequality in the United States. U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich tries to raise awareness of the country's widening economic gap. He publicly argued about the issue for decades, and producing a film of his viewpoints was a "final frontier" for him. In addition to being a social issue documentary, Inequality for All is also partially a biopic regarding Reich's early life and his time as Secretary of Labor under Bill Clinton's presidency. Warren Buffett and Nick Hanauer, two entrepreneurs and investors in the top 1%, are interviewed in the film, supporting Reich's belief in an economy that benefits all citizens, including those of the middle and lower classes.
The film portrays Saint Peter reflecting on his time with Jesus and his fellow Apostles during his final imprisonment in Rome. In particular, Peter attempts to convert one of his jailers, Martinian, by relating the life, teachings, and sacrifice of Jesus.
INTO THE CIRCLE ( German: IM INNEREN KREIS) highlights the diverse psychological and political consequences of covert police operations. The undercover police officer, Iris P., investigated the Hamburg left scene as "Iris Schneider" for nearly six years. She had close friendships, and she had several years of intimate relations with people, who at the same she spied upon. After Iris P. was publicly unmasked in 2014, two more clandestine investigators were revealed as well. However, public surveillance can also affect people who would have considered it impossible. This is illustrated by the case of the police officer Simon B., who enrolled in the University of Heidelberg, to spy out peaceful left-wing students.
DANNY SAYS is a documentary unveiling the amazing journey of Danny Fields. Fields has played a pivotal role in music and culture with seminal acts including: the Doors, the Velvet Underground, the Stooges, MC5, Nico, the Ramones and beyond.