A lyrical portrait of an excommunicated Amish woodworker struggling with spirituality, poverty, and life as an outcast from his strict, insular community.
Explores the influence of propaganda on religion during Hitler's reign as well as his representation as the new Messiah.
About the life and work of controversial American Jewish academic Norman Finkelstein.
A man confronts the trauma of past sexual abuse as a boy by a Catholic priest only to find his decision shatters his relationships with his family, community and faith.
"Go Further" explores the idea that the single individual is the key to large-scale transformational change. The film follows actor Woody Harrelson as he takes a small group of friends on a bio-fueled bus-ride down the Pacific Coast Highway. Their goal? To show the people they encounter that there are viable alternatives.
Commentator-comic Bill Maher plays devil's advocate with religion as he talks to believers about their faith. Traveling around the world, Maher examines the tenets of Christianity, Judaism and Islam and raises questions about homosexuality, proof of Christ's existence, Jewish Sabbath laws, violent Muslim extremists.
Documentary on a politically active group of nuns of Montreal.
The district of Molenbeek-Saint-Jean in Brussels has become world-famous as a center of jihadism, but for six-year-old Aatos and his friend Amine, it is a familiar home. Here, they listen to spiders, discover black holes, and fight about what is going to steer a flying carpet. Together they search for the answers to life's big questions. But the brutality of the adult world makes itself known when terrorists detonate a bomb in the neighborhood. Aaatos envies Amine's Muslim faith and looks for his own gods, although his classmate Flo questions him; she is strongly convinced that anyone who believes in God is completely nuts. Gods of Molenbeek is a wonderful portrayal of childhood friendship, inquiry and the creation of meaning in a chaotic time.
In 2000, the Vatican prepares to hold its first Jubilee year in 50 years, a celebration of the Catholic faith. Meanwhile, gay rights organizers prepare for a simultaneous parade in Rome -- alarming the church, which views the event as a threat. Documentarian Joe Balass interviews activists on both sides as preparations for the dual festivities advance. When Rome's mayor, Francesco Rutelli, withdraws his support for the gay event, the organizers worry their parade will be derailed.
Lebanon is a country hijacked by sects, money, and power. While citizens long for a collective identity to thrive as a community, politicians use the sectarianism for their corrupt ambitions. Unless there is a change, Lebanon will be lost forever.
What started out as an inside joke amongst two self proclaimed weirdos in Ft. Worth, Texas soon becomes much more than they bargained for. Frustrated by the rising consumer-driven culture, out-of-work pals Douglass St. Clair Smith and Steve Wilcox decide to turn their conservative southern ideology on its head and invent a new religion all their own. Spurred on by the overreach of religion and zealous televangelists of the day, the pair concoct religious monikers (Reverend Ivan Stang and Dr. Philo Drummond), a newly minted prophet (J.R. "Bob" Dobbs), and devise a crusade to expose the conspiracy of normalcy by using humor as the ultimate weapon.
An intimate portrait of the nuns of Kala Rongo, a rare and exceptional Buddhist Monastery exclusively for women situated in Nangchen, in remote and rural northeastern Tibet. These nuns are receiving religious and educational training previously unavailable to women, and playing an unprecedented role in preserving their rich cultural heritage even as they slowly reshape it. They graciously allow the camera a never-before-seen glimpse into their vibrant spiritual community and insight into their extraordinary lives. Some shy, some outspoken, all are committed to the often difficult life they have chosen, away from the yak farms and herding families of their birth. It is the story of their spiritual community, one that couldn't have existed 20 years ago but is thriving today.
Scott Mills travels to Uganda where the death penalty could soon be introduced for being gay. The gay Radio 1 DJ finds out what it's like to live in a society which persecutes people like him and meets those who are leading the hate campaign.
In a community of a Muslim majority, the first woman pastor in the Middle East leads a parish in one of the poorest city of the Mediterranean, in the heart of Tripoli, North Lebanon.
At the beginning of winter, a filmmaker retires for six months to a hermit's cabin in the middle of the forest, cut off from the world and its means of communication. Through the words of four women she has filmed previously, all of whom have dedicated their lives to different forms of spirituality, she embarks on a mysterious inner adventure, on the edge of solitude and nature. A journey that invites us to connect with the world in a different way.
Documentary following the lives of two Amish families leaving the only world they've ever known and trying to get to grips with the modern world. The Amish travel by horse and buggy and dress exactly as their forebears did when they first arrived in America almost 300 years ago. They have countless rules which keep them separate from the modern world, with electric lights, mobile phones, television and radio all forbidden. For those born into this culture, leaving is the biggest decision they'll ever make.
From Muslims in Bosnia-Herzegovina to Christians in Lebanon, from the Bektashis of Macedonia to the Syriacs of Turkey, director Jacques Debs helps us discover two groups of people long forgotten or ignored - the Muslims in Europe and the Christians in the Middle East.
Two Bangladeshi girls born and raised in London have weddings arranged for them against their will by their family. Shahanara, the rebel of the family, banished from the family in her teens for being "too Western", has to swap her pink hot pants for a sari as she goes off to the airport to meet her new Bangladeshi husband. Her sister Hushnara is the opposite of Shahanara; a devout Muslim who agrees to marry so she doesn't upset her parents.
On Valentine's Day, 1993, Caveh Zahedi decided to ingest 5 grams (a very large dose) of hallucinogenic mushrooms. For the first time in his mushroom-taking history, he had an experience of "divine possession," in which he felt that a divine being took possession of his body and spoke through him, in a voice that was not his, and with knowledge that he himself did not possess. He later tried several times to repeat the experience. I WAS POSSESSED BY GOD is the documentary record of one such attempt.