Language Matters with Bob Holman

Mad About English!(en)

The amazing story of 1,000,000,000 people and their MAD MAD MAD rush to learn English! China 's love affair with the English language has reached feverish proportions. With half a million or more visitors descending on Beijing for the Games, can the Chinese pull it off with their newly-acquired English? Mad About English! follows the inspiring and heart-warming efforts of a city preparing to host the world by learning a once-forbidden tongue.

Inuit Languages in the 21st Century(en)

Ulivia explores what is accessible via the Internet in relation to Inuktitut. A complex language with several dialects which varies from one generation to the next. Inuktitut is threatened by dominant languages. Are there solutions so that these technologies are allies and not enemies?

Khamsin(fr)

Lebanon today. The traces of the civil war are all too tangible as government corruption becomes unbearable. In a country where conflict and peace are caught in an endless cycle, musicians from different backgrounds pool their talents to create an underground music scene. Each evokes his or her representation of Lebanon: its shifting geographical, political, historical and social borders, its painful passage through conflict and instability. A touching portrait of a young generation trying to build an oasis in a hostile environment where the forces of destruction continue to wreak havoc.

The Yes Men(en)

A comic, biting and revelatory documentary following a small group of prankster activists as they gain worldwide notoriety for impersonating the World Trade Organization (WTO) on television and at business conferences around the world.

Flow: For Love of Water(en)

From both local and global perspectives, this documentary examines the harsh realities behind the mounting water crisis. Learn how politics, pollution and human rights are intertwined in this important issue that affects every being on Earth. With water drying up around the world and the future of human lives at stake, the film urges a call to arms before more of our most precious natural resource evaporates.

Fox & Penguin(de)

How do German couples communicate in private? What are they arguing about? Is the way to a man’s heart really through his stomach? This docu-fictional hybrid production discusses such questions with the help of authentic interview snippets that were edited under the staged plot. We get an insight into the life of an animal couple, who experience typical everyday situations on behalf of us humans. At first, our fox is emotionally contained, while the penguin lady may get wild as hell. With a wink, the filmmakers hold up a mirror to the audience in the cinema.

Omegäng(de)

How is our dialect faring in the globalized age? When the "railroad age" began 160 years ago, Switzerland feared that High German would supplant the dialect. The opposite has happened. The dialect persists and continues to blossom.

Martin Luther King at Newcastle University(en)

A remarkable event the great American civil rights leader, Martin Luther King makes a powerful speech on a unique visit to Newcastle University.

War Photographer(en)

Documentary about war photographer James Nachtwey, considered by many the greatest war photographer ever.

Turks' Hearing Speech on Hürriyet(mk)

Early Balkan footage.

Mother Tongue(en)

"Mother Tongue" chronicles the first time a documentary film about Guatemalan genocide in Guatemala was translated and dubbed into Maya-Ixil—5.5% of whom were killed during the armed conflict in the 1980s. Told from the perspective of Matilde Terraza, an emerging Ixil leader and the translation project’s coordinator, "Mother Tongue" illuminates the Ixil community’s ongoing work to preserve collective memory.

I speak français(fr)

Stammer School(en)

Stammer School follows a cast of struggling stammerers as they enrol in a course that aims to help them finally find their voices. Stammer School features Musharaf Asghar – affectionately known as Mushy – from Educating Yorkshire. He found a place in the hearts of the nation as millions tuned in to watch him learn methods to overcome his crippling stammer and achieve the C grade he needed in his English GCSE. Although Mushy’s stammer has improved, he is often left speechless still. With the help of an intensive programme, led by other stutterers, Stammer School will follow Mushy and others as they attempt to overcome this huge stumbling block in their lives.

An Inconvenient Truth(en)

A documentary on Al Gore's campaign to make the issue of global warming a recognized problem worldwide.

Tickets s.v.p(en)

An incident from the early days of Québec's quiet revolution, tailor-made for the cartoonist. It is the story of a Montréal commuter train, a unilingual ticket collector and a bilingual passenger. The passenger appears on screen himself to describe his bid to have tickets requested in French as well as in English. What ensued, and how even the railway president became involved, is illustrated with wit and humor.

School of Babel(fr)

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.

Create or Die(en)

In an industry that is becoming increasingly competitive, what drives indie filmmakers to keep creating their art, even when there is no promise of money or fame? CREATE OR DIE explores the insatiable passion to create despite the overwhelming odds through the lens of South Carolina writer and filmmaker David Axe, as he and his band of cast and crew head out into the backwoods of Georgia to shoot his low budget passion project ACORN. But when tragedy strikes on set, doubt and tension threaten to bring an end to their production and their dreams.

The Disunited States of Canada(fr)

Secessionnist movements in Canada outside Quebec.

Empire of My Melodious Mind(en)

Be. Belonging. Words on vintage flash cards shuffle past in a stream-of-consciousness that shows the mind working, assigning labels and names to things through love and language. In the space of a moment, perception embarks on an epic journey of tongues, through Cantonese and English sounds and Ektachrome memories that form the characters and identity of this American-born Asian filmmaker.

Demon at the Door: Our Heroin Crisis(en)

Shocking, devastating and unflinchingly real. KOMO News' Eric Johnson looks at the heroin crisis in Seattle.

Scooby-Doo! and the Beach Beastie(en)

Scooby-Doo and the gang investigates a new ghost at a water park resort.

The Land Before Time VIII: The Big Freeze(en)

When the dinosaur families get trapped in a valley by an ice storm, one family of "spike tail" dinosaurs volunteers to leave since they consume more food than the others. Meanwhile, the young dinos and a new adult dinosaur named Mr. Thicknose, head out to bring back their friend Spike, who has left his friends to be with members of his own species.

Q(en)

New York police are bemused by reports of a giant flying lizard that has been spotted around the rooftops of New York, until the lizard starts to eat people. An out-of-work ex-con is the only person who knows the location of the monster's nest and is determined to turn the knowledge to his advantage, but will his gamble pay off or will he end up as lizard food?

Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan(en)

Jason ships out aboard a teen-filled "love boat" bound for New York, which he soon transforms into the ultimate voyage of the damned.

The Land Before Time IV: Journey Through the Mists(en)

When Littlefoot grandfather falls ill, The dinosaurs only way to cure him is a flower in the forbidding land of mist which hold unexpecting perils and danger.

Lake Placid 2(en)

Man-eating crocodiles return to the lake as two males and one aggressive female crocodile, which is protecting her nest, wreak havoc on the locals.

Godzilla vs. Megalon(ja)

Inventor Goro Ibuki creates a humanoid robot named Jet Jaguar. It is soon seized by an undersea race of people called the Seatopians. Using Jet Jaguar as a guide, the Seatopians send Megalon as vengeance for the nuclear tests that have devastated their society.

The Color of Friendship(en)

Mahree Bok lives on a farm in South Africa. Her father is a policeman who cannot hide his joy when activist Steve Biko is caught by the South African authorities. Piper Dellums is the daughter of a US congressman from California and who lives in a nice home in Washington DC. When Mahree is chosen to spend a semester at the Dellums' house, she doesn't expect that her host family would be black. Nor do her hosts suspect that she is not a black South African.

People(fr)

People is a film shot behind closed doors in a workshop/house on the outskirts of Paris and features a dozen characters. It is based on an interweaving of scenes of moaning and sex. The house is the characters' common space, but the question of ownership is distended, they don't all inhabit it in the same way. As the sequences progress, we don't find the same characters but the same interdependent relationships. Through the alternation between lament and sexuality, physical and verbal communication are put on the same level. The film then deconstructs, through its repetitive structure, our relational myths.

Mais qui a tué Pamela Rose ?(fr)

FBI Agents Bullit and Riper investigate the murder of a young dancer called Pamela Rose, found dead in her motel room in Bornsville, a small american town. Despite their differences, they must team up: the local police is hostile and they can only count on themselves to solve the crime. They meet Ginger, Pamela's best friend, and discover soon enough she knows more than she says.

Sabrina(id)

Maira lives happily with Aiden, a doll maker and toy company owner. But Vanya, their adopted daughter and Aiden's niece, is still dealing with the loss of her birth mother. After Vanya plays Charlie's Pencil to summon her late mother, strange things begin to happen.

The Little Ghost(de)

The Little Ghost lives in the castle over looking a small town and awakens for precisely one hour after the clock strikes midnight. Follow him on this adventure to see his first sunrise ever!

Cast a Deadly Spell(en)

In a fantastical 1940s where magic is used by everyone, a hard-boiled detective investigates the theft of a mystical tome.

The Land Before Time X: The Great Longneck Migration(en)

A bedtime story leads Littlefoot and his grandparents on a journey to a new land, where Littlefoot discovers someone who vanished before he was born: his father! Now Littlefoot must decide between two worlds. Will he leave to be with his friends in the Great Valley, or stay behind and start a new life with his father?

The Bohemian(cs)

The year is 1764. For over a year, Josef has been leading a precarious life in Venice. He hopes to become an opera composer. The city, full of talented and already-established composers, seems closed to him. Looking for work as a violinist, he comes into the orbit of a rich young woman. Thanks to her, he gets the opportunity to play at salons. But his real opportunity arises when he becomes the lover of a libertine marquise. She teaches him worldly manners, rids him of signs of a provincial upbringing and introduces him to a hedonistic existence free from religious intolerance. Thus transformed, Josef gets an incan incredible commission: to write an opera for the San Carlo, Europe's largest theatre.

Son of Godzilla(ja)

Reporter Goro Maki stumbles upon scientists conducting weather experiments on Sollgel Island in the South Seas. He discovers the island is inhabited by giant mantis and a woman named Saeko who's been cast away since the death of her father. The pair soon find a helpless infant monster that Godzilla must adopt and learn to raise as one of his own.

The Land Before Time XI: Invasion of the Tinysauruses(en)

Littlefoot and his friends return in another adventure. But this time, they aren't the smallest dinosaurs in the valley anymore.

Thor: Ragnarok(en)

Thor is imprisoned on the other side of the universe and finds himself in a race against time to get back to Asgard to stop Ragnarok, the destruction of his home-world and the end of Asgardian civilization, at the hands of a powerful new threat, the ruthless Hela.

Reversal of Fortune(en)

Wealthy Sunny von Bülow lies brain-dead, husband Claus guilty of attempted murder; but he says he's innocent and hires Alan Dershowitz for his appeal.

Midnight Masquerade(en)

Young businesswoman Elyse Samford's life takes a turn when she inherits Samford Candy, a multi-billion dollar corporation, from her retired father. A trademark infringement lawsuit against a rival company brings Elyse to Higgins Attorneys and Sons, where Rob Carelli, a young, too-nice-for-his-own-good lawyer, is bullied by his boss, firm founder Carter Higgins, and his two arrogant sons. Despite his workplace woes, Rob becomes instantly smitten with Elyse. With Halloween just around the corner, Elyse invites the Higgins law firm staff to an opulent masked Halloween costume ball. Rob obeys an order to remain in the office working that night, but has a change of heart when his spunky, 12-year old niece Ruby, convinces him to attend the ball wearing a prince costume. After a magnificent waltz and magical exchange with the handsome "prince," Elyse yearns to locate this mysterious man and hopefully find the romance her life has been missing.