2011-01-05
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6.1A visual montage portrait of our contemporary world dominated by globalized technology and violence.
8.2A paralysingly beautiful documentary with a global vision—an odyssey through landscape and time—that attempts to capture the essence of life.
7.7Sheds light on an alternative approach to farming called “regenerative agriculture” that could balance our climate, replenish our vast water supplies, and feed the world.
7.1A detailing of the rise to prominence and global sporting superstardom of six supremely talented young Manchester United football players (David Beckham, Nicky Butt, Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes, Phil and Gary Neville). The film covers the period 1992-1999, culminating in Manchester United's European Cup triumph.
7.0The epic tale of the development of the American West from the 1830s through the Civil War to the end of the century, as seen through the eyes of one pioneer family.
6.8BBC Arena's documentary on the Dames of British Theatre and film featuring Maggie Smith, Eileen 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.
8.1During the last forty years, the photographer Sebastião Salgado has been travelling through the continents, in the footsteps of an ever-changing humanity. He has witnessed the major events of our recent history: international conflicts, starvations and exodus… He is now embarking on the discovery of pristine territories, of the wild fauna and flora, of grandiose landscapes: a huge photographic project which is a tribute to the planet's beauty. Salgado's life and work are revealed to us by his son, Juliano, who went with him during his last journeys, and by Wim Wenders, a photographer himself.
7.3Stars of "The Walking Dead," Andrew Lincoln and Danai Gurira, walk down memory lane and visit iconic locations where pivotal moments between their characters, Rick and Michonne, were filmed.
7.6Director Agnès Varda and photographer/muralist JR journey through rural France and form an unlikely friendship.
7.6Varda focuses her eye on gleaners: those who scour already-reaped fields for the odd potato or turnip. Her investigation leads from forgotten corners of the French countryside to off-hours at the green markets of Paris, following those who insist on finding a use for that which society has cast off, whether out of necessity or activism.
7.3An intimate portrait of the small shops and shopkeepers of the Rue Daguerre in Paris, a picturesque street that has been the filmmaker’s home for more than 50 years.
7.9Takes us to locations all around the US and shows us the heavy toll that modern technology is having on humans and the earth. The visual tone poem contains neither dialogue nor a vocalized narration: its tone is set by the juxtaposition of images and the exceptional music by Philip Glass.
7.9Dick Proenneke retired at age 50 in 1967 and decided to build his own cabin in the wilderness at the base of the Aleutian Peninsula, in what is now Lake Clark National Park. Using color footage he shot himself, Proenneke traces how he came to this remote area, selected a homestead site and built his log cabin completely by himself. The documentary covers his first year in-country, showing his day-to-day activities and the passing of the seasons as he sought to scratch out a living alone in the wilderness.
6.5After railroad agents forcibly evict the James family from their family farm, Jesse and Frank turn to banditry for revenge.
7.5An oppressed Mexican peasant village hires seven gunfighters to help defend their homes.
6.5A documentary that explores the downloading revolution; the kids that created it, the bands and the businesses that were affected by it, and its impact on the world at large.
7.4The life of Mr. Spock, as well as that of Leonard Nimoy, the actor who played him for almost fifty years, written and directed by his son: Adam.
6.4“Showrunners” is the first ever feature length documentary film to explore the fascinating world of US television showrunners and the creative forces aligned around them. These are the people responsible for creating, writing and overseeing every element of production on one of the United State’s biggest exports – television drama and comedy series. Often described as the most complex job in the entertainment business, a showrunner is the chief writer / producer on a TV series and, in most instances, the show’s creator. Battling daily between art and commerce, showrunners manage every aspect of a TV show’s development and production: creative, financial and logistical.
5.8Narrated by Benedict Cumberbatch, Walk With Me is a cinematic journey into the world of a monastic community who practice the art of mindfulness with Zen Buddhist master Thich Nhat Hanh.
0.0Former governor Arthur A. Link has become virtually a mythic figure in the North Dakota consciousness. Art Link was governor of North Dakota during the first great energy crisis in the 1970s. On October 11, 1973, Governor Link delivered what is widely regarded as North Dakota's "Gettysburg address". His credo, written in the margins of his prepared speech moments before he was introduced, is known by its opening phrase: "When the landscape is quiet again." This is the story of that man, that speech, and the landscape that inspired it.
7.8In barely a century, French peasants have seen their world profoundly turned upside down. While they once made up the vast majority of the country, today they are only a tiny minority and are faced with an immense challenge: to continue to feed France. From the figure of the simple tenant farmer described by Emile Guillaumin at the beginning of the 20th century to the heavy toll paid by peasants during the Great War, from the beginnings of mechanization in the inter-war period to the ambivalent figure of the peasant under the Occupation, From the unbridled race to industrialization in post-war France to the realization that it is now necessary to rethink the agricultural model and invent the agriculture of tomorrow, the film looks back at the long march of French peasants.
0.0Province of Lugo, Galicia, Spain. A year in the life of A Fonsagrada, a rural region whose inhabitants live both near and far from urban civilization; a praise of the distance that crosses the four seasons of the year, whose inevitable passage transforms both the natural environment and the existence of people, a simple, dignified and peaceful existence.
6.0A poetic journey through the paths and places of old Castile that were traveled and visited by the melancholic knight Don Quixote of La Mancha and his judicious squire Sancho Panza, the immortal characters of Miguel de Cervantes, which offers a candid depiction of rural life in Spain in the early 1930s and illustrates the first sentence of the first article of the Spanish Constitution of 1931, which proclaims that Spain is a democratic republic of workers of all kind.
7.8Set in the mountains of northeast Italy, this film may be considered an observational documentary about rural life. Although this is undeniably the case, at the same time Under the cold stars can hardly be considered a documentary: the microcosm on which it focuses appears to be a reflection of a broader reality and perhaps a way to deal with the themes of man’s existence and his relationship with animals, nature and, most importantly, with time. As written by Franco Piavoli "it is a film which essentially relies on images and sound, where words themselves are sound and the music of life, of the relentless flow of time."
0.0By attempting to travel 2,960 km from southern Quebec to its northernmost point, by bike and skis, in the middle of winter, adventurers Samuel Lalande-Markon and Simon-Pierre Goneau want to reinvest the territory and reflect on the identity and collective relationship that Quebecers have with it. Their journey begins at kilometer marker 720, an obelisk-shaped monument located on the border with the United States, and ends at Cape Anaulirvik, north of Ivujivik, the northernmost point of the Ungava Peninsula. Over the course of a 91-day expedition, they set out to meet the country in all its immensity, splendor and impetuosity, a country that suddenly reveals itself to be less abstract, less distant, more real.
6.5A strange story from Somerset, England about a filmmaking farmer and the inspiring legacy of his long-lost home movies.
7.4The first of a documentary serie about rural France.
7.2Second documentary of a trilogy produced on the long term (together with Profils paysans: l'approche (2001) and Profils paysans: La vie moderne (2008)), showing the simple lives of farmers in contemporary Southern France.
7.5For ten years, Raymond Depardon has followed the lives of farmer living in the mountain ranges. He allows us to enter their farms with astounding naturalness. This moving film speaks, with great serenity, of our roots and of the future of the people who work on the land. This the last part of Depardon's triptych "Profils paysans" about what it is like to be a farmer today in an isolated highland area in France. "La vie moderne" examines what has become of the persons he has followed for ten years, while featuring younger people who try to farm or raise cattle or poultry, come hell or high water.
8.0The follow-up film to “Barstow, California” takes us to the mountains of Miyama, a remote forest and tourist area north of Kyoto. Uwe Walter, a shakuhachi player from Germany, lives there with his wife Mitsuyo for 30 years. Together with the villagers he prepares the annual Gion Festival. On the eve of the festival, the village representatives tell him that his self-built studio is to be demolished. This brings back memories for him of earlier times and his first steps as a Nō actor. In the manner of a fresco, the film interweaves rural depictions of everyday life with the story of its German protagonist. In the village community with its togetherness of generations, Uwe shares life with his neighbours, with farmers, hunters, woodsmen, poultry farmers and anglers, tills his kitchen garden, and like other tradition-conscious villagers, he also grows his rice. The film shows them in a harsh mountain landscape between the rainy season and the first snow.
0.0In Canada, the village of Val Gagné is facing a rural exodus. Life seems to be dissolving, the future is uncertain. But these Franco-Ontarian villagers are surprised by a wind of renewal. A wind that will give them hope.
6.7A musical portrait of Texas blues songster Mance Lipscomb.
0.0Oases are more than fairytale places in the desert sand. Amidst the stony heights of the Andes, the endless expanse of the Pacific, or the hectic concrete sausages of Mumbai, islands of life flourish. In breathtaking shots, the documentary explores the phenomenon of oases – and the magical places in the Saharan sand are of course included.
7.7Through the figure of Lakota activist and community organizer Madonna Thunder Hawk, this inspiring film traces the untold story of countless Native American women struggling for their people's civil rights. Spanning several decades, Christina D. King and Elizabeth A. Castle's documentary charts Thunder Hawk's lifelong commitment, from her early involvement in the American Indian Movement (AIM), to her pivotal role in the founding of Women of All Red Nations, to her heartening presence at Standing Rock alongside thousands protesting the Dakota Access Pipeline. She passed her dedication and hunger for change to her daughter Marcy, even if that often meant feeling like comrades-in-arms more than mother and child. Through rare archival material—including amazing footage of AIM's occupation of Wounded Knee—and an Indigenous style of circular storytelling, Warrior Women rekindles the memories and legacy of the Red Power movement's matriarchs.