On the east coast of New Zealand, the Whangara people believe their presence there dates back a thousand years or more to a single ancestor, Paikea, who escaped death when his canoe capsized by riding to shore on the back of a whale. From then on, Whangara chiefs, always the first-born, always male, have been considered Paikea's direct descendants. Pai, an 11-year-old girl in a patriarchal New Zealand tribe, believes she is destined to be the new chief. But her grandfather Koro is bound by tradition to pick a male leader. Pai loves Koro more than anyone in the world, but she must fight him and a thousand years of tradition to fulfill her destiny.
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BBC Arena's documentary on the Dames of British Theatre and film featuring Maggie Smith, Elieen Atkins, Judi Dench and Joan Plowright on screen together for the first time as they reminisce over a long summer weekend in a house Joan once shared with Sir Laurence Olivier.
Five years have passed and Jake has turned his back on his family. He's still up to his usual tricks in McClutchy's Bar, unaware, as he downs his latest opponent, that his eldest son, Nig, has died in a gang fight. The uncomfortable family reunion at Nig's funeral sparks a confrontation with second son, Sonny, and sets Jake and Sonny on a downward spiral.
"Black" is a stunning fire-and-silk stallion celebrated the world over. But to his young American owner, Alec Ramsay, he's much more. So, when the amazing animal is stolen, Alec will stop at nothing to get him back. Alec finally unravels the mystery of Black's theft...only to discover that he must overcome even greater odds to reclaim his beloved horse.
A young teacher in Zurich in the 1950s falls in love with a transvestite star but is torn between his bourgeois existence and his commitment to homosexuality. He joins a gay organization that is eventually seen as the pioneer of gay emancipation in Europe.
When Emma meets Cassandra, they initiate a relationship filled with physical and psychological challenges. Emma does whatever it takes to master the rules of the game. Lines are crossed and the stakes get higher and higher. Despite this, Emma can't resist the intoxicating feeling of total control.
A documentary which examines the creation and co-production of the popular children's television program in three developing countries: Bangladesh, Kosovo and South Africa.
A watershed program in Australian television, The Dream aired every night for the 15 nights of the Sydney Olympic Games. Roy and HG engaged in loosely scripted banter, hilarious athlete interviews, and most famously a reinterpretation of Gymnastics, Greco-Roman Wrestling, Weight-lifting and Diving with their own distinctive commentary style.
An uplifting feature documentary highlighting the transformative power of art and the beauty of the human spirit. Top-selling contemporary artist Vik Muniz takes us on an emotional journey from Jardim Gramacho, the world's largest landfill on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro, to the heights of international art stardom. Vik collaborates with the brilliant catadores, pickers of recyclable materials, true Shakespearean characters who live and work in the garbage quoting Machiavelli and showing us how to recycle ourselves.
The forests of Michoacán are home to millions of monarch butterflies. Activist Homero Gómez was highly vocal about its preservation – and then he vanished.
Mladen and Marija are an ordinary and happy married couple of the "middle class" of the society in which they live as tenants. Mladen works as a civil engineer in a state company, and Marija is an English teacher in primary school. The couple finds joy in their only son, Nemanja. They discover that Nemanja has a rare heart disease and healing is possible with an operation in a foreign medical center, which costs €26,000.
The story of an idealist's rise to power in the world of Louisiana politics and the corruption that leads to his ultimate downfall. Based on the 1946 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel written by Robert Penn Warren, loosely based on the story of real-life politician Huey Long.
Canadian actress and filmmaker Sarah Polley investigates certain secrets related to her mother, interviewing a group of family members and friends whose reliability varies depending of their implication in the events, which are remembered in different ways; so a trail of questions remains to be answered, because memory is always changing and the discovery of truth often depends on who is telling the tale.
A talented art student named Angélique is passionately in love with Dr. Loïc Le Garrec, a handsome married man whom she believes will leave his wife. When he eventually decides to stay in his marriage, it causes Angélique to spiral. However, as the story shifts from Angélique's perspective to Loïc's, the surprising truth about their relationship is revealed.
A naive Midwesterner insurance salesman travels to a big-city convention in an effort to save the jobs of his co-workers.
Run Boy Run is the true story of Jurek, an eight-year-old boy, who escapes from the Warsaw ghetto, then manages to survive in the woods and working as a farmhand, disguising himself as a Polish orphan. He encounters people who will betray him for a reward, who will beat him up or try to kill him, and he meets those, who will do and risk almost everything to help him. Jurek’s resilience is put to the ultimate test, when an accident cripples him, making it harder to find work. But he struggles on against all odds. Eventually the Russians reach his area and Jurek even finds a family where he could stay. Yet he is betrayed again, and a young man from a Jewish orphanage forcefully tries to bring Jurek back to his people and his faith.
A series of down-on-their-luck individuals enter the decrepit and spine-chilling Rialto theater, only to have their deepest and darkest fears brought to life on the silver screen by The Projectionist – a mysterious, ghostly figure who holds the nightmarish futures of all who attend his screenings.
Orphan Mary Katherine Gallagher, an ugly duckling at St. Monica High School, has a dream: to be kissed soulfully. She decides she can realize this dream if she becomes a superstar, so her prayers, her fantasies and her conversations with her only friend focus on achieving super-stardom.
In this fascinating Oscar-nominated documentary, American guitarist Ry Cooder brings together a group of legendary Cuban folk musicians (some in their 90s) to record a Grammy-winning CD in their native city of Havana. The result is a spectacular compilation of concert footage from the group's gigs in Amsterdam and New York City's famed Carnegie Hall, with director Wim Wenders capturing not only the music -- but also the musicians' life stories.
A manager of an orphanage in India is sent to Copenhagen, Denmark, where he discovers a life-altering family secret.
Addie is a New York City chiropractor mistakenly receives a text from “Nana.” The accidental text turns into a loving friendship between the matronly Nana and Addie who now communicate regularly. Nana invites Addie to spend the holiday in Vermont. It is picture-postcard perfect and exactly as Nana described except for one surprise. Nana’s single son, James, a traveling doctor is also home for the holidays. Over three consecutive years, James and Addie are together during the holidays, though it isn’t until they are both single that they begin to see each other in a different light.
Emma Freese is desperate when her husband Alfred falls ill at the Howaldtswerke in Kiel. How is the family supposed to get by without their wages? The war has scarred this generation, but now things are supposed to be looking up. The workers want their fair share and are fighting for an income that also gives them room to live. In October 1956, 34,000 metalworkers in the shipyards and factories of Schleswig-Holstein walk off the job to fight for justice and their dignity. This strike is still regarded as the toughest and longest in Germany. Employers and politicians stand in the strikers' way.
When Liliana decides to return to Uruguay she will have to face up to a new dilemma, perhaps the last great dilemma of her life: To choose between supporting a collective case for female prisoners, raped during the time of the dictatorship, or to reconcile with her son and be able to live peacefully as a mother and a grandmother.
After the death of his mother, a young boy calls a radio station in an attempt to set his father up on a date. Talking about his father’s loneliness soon leads to a meeting with a young female journalist, who has flown to Seattle to write a story about the boy and his father.
The world's most loved fairy tale is back in a whole new fantastic imagining in Pinocchio. When a piece of pine-wood falls into the hands of the poor old toy maker, Geppetto, he carves it into a puppet which he names Pinocchio. To Geppetto's delight, Pinocchio comes to life - and like most little boys, he's full of reckless whims and wild ideas! His crazy escapades lead him into a series of madcap adventures from joining the circus to visiting the inside of whale! Along his journey, and throughout all the fun, Pinocchio learns to be considerate and courageous and learns what it takes to become a real boy.
An erotic drama that submerges an innocent new arrival to the City of Angels in the intoxicating double life of her charismatic lesbian dominatrix housemate.
Twelve short films, twelve portraits of the city of San Sebastian.
A Frenchman stuck in New Orleans has just had a colossal argument. The mother of his infant child has left him wallet-less and with a wailing baby. He must get diapers for his son, but he does not speak English.
During the making of a video film about a communist printing press, a union member and a leftist activist discuss how to present their information, especially how to caption two specific images: one of a protest in Portugal, the other of a strike in France. One of them decides to write to his son, a manual worker living outside of Paris with his girlfriend, telling the young man about his troubles.
When his young daughter's beloved companion — an android named Yang — malfunctions, Jake searches for a way to repair him. In the process, Jake discovers the life that has been passing in front of him, reconnecting with his wife and daughter across a distance he didn't know was there.
The film tells the story of Russian emigree and the only survivor from ship crash Yanko Goorall and servant Amy Foster in the end of 19th century. When Yanko enters a farm sick and hungry after the shipwreck, everyone is afraid of him, except for Amy, who is very kind and helps him. Soon he becomes like a son for Dr. James Kennedy and romance between Yanko and Amy follows.
In 1980, the black Falashas in Ethiopia are recognised as genuine Jews and are secretly carried to Israel. The day before the transport the son of a Jewish mother dies. In his place and with his name (Schlomo) she takes a Christian 9-year-old boy.
The story is set at the beginning of the 20th century in Sicily. Salvatore, a very poor farmer, and a widower, decides to emigrate to the US with all his family, including his old mother. Before they embark, they meet Lucy. She is supposed to be a British lady and wants to come back to the States. Lucy, or Luce as Salvatore calls her, for unknown reasons wants to marry someone before to arrive to Ellis Island in New York. Salvatore accepts the proposal. Once they arrive in Ellis Island they spend the quarantine period trying to pass the examinations to be admitted to the States. Tests are not so simple for poor farmers coming from Sicily. Their destiny is in the hands of the custom officers.
Two tigers are separated as cubs and taken into captivity, only to be reunited years later as enemies by an explorer (Pearce) who inadvertently forces them to fight each other.
Secrets, rumors and betrayals surround the upcoming marriage between a young dissolute man and virtuous woman of the French aristocracy.
A woman employs a gay man to spend four nights at her house to watch her when she's "unwatchable".
A young woman working at a retirement home takes an elderly man living there on an excursion into the countryside, but the two wind up stranded in the titular forest.
In 1970s Iran, Marjane 'Marji' Satrapi watches events through her young eyes and her idealistic family of a long dream being fulfilled of the hated Shah's defeat in the Iranian Revolution of 1979. However as Marji grows up, she witnesses first hand how the new Iran, now ruled by Islamic fundamentalists, has become a repressive tyranny on its own.
The lives of six German-Turkish immigrants are drawn together by circumstance: An old man and a prostitute forging a partnership, a young scholar reconciling his past, two young women falling in love, and a mother putting the shattered pieces of her life back together.
Shin-ae moves to her recently late husband’s hometown. Despite her efforts to settle in this unfamiliar and too-normal place, she finds that she can’t fit in. After a sudden tragedy, Shin-ae turns to Christianity to relieve her pain, but when even this is not permitted, she wages a war against God.
After proving himself on the field of battle in the French and Indian War, Benjamin Martin wants nothing more to do with such things, preferring the simple life of a farmer. But when his son Gabriel enlists in the army to defend their new nation, America, against the British, Benjamin reluctantly returns to his old life to protect his son.