Becoming Who I Was

Angdu is no ordinary boy. Indeed, in a past life he was a venerated Buddhist master. His village already treats him like a saint as a result. The village doctor, who has taken the boy under his wing, prepares him to be able to pass on his wisdom. Alas, Tibet, Angdu’s former homeland and the centre of his faith, lies far away from his current home in the highlands of Northern India. On top of that, the conflict between China and Tibet makes the prospect of a trip there even more daunting. Undeterred by these harsh facts, the duo set off for their destination on foot, accompanied by questions of friendship and the nature of life. With its narrative approach steeped in a serene sense of concentration, this documentary film, composed over a period of eight years, stands as a fundamental experience in its own right.

Moravian Hellas

Karel Vachek’s graduate film offers us a documentary essay which is both a light-hearted and aggressive little piece and also a parody of investigative film journalism. The Strážnice folk festival, backed by the cultural Party apparatus of the time, for years had little to commend itself to authentic folklore. In the film the event assumes the form of a bizarre stage spectacle with almost surrealistic elements that Vachek reinforces with unconventional approaches (commentary appearing as titles on screen, singing, declamations into the camera, feature etudes, the fusion of news coverage and fiction). The result is a stirring film collage depicting various characters, from crowd-pleasers, Easter egg decorators, kitsch artists and peddlers, to museologists and local residents, all of whom come up against the eccentric "identical” twin reporters Karel and Jan Saudek and a bored actress who appears as an extra. Using their special blend of irony and wit, they present us with the sad truth.

Walk with Me

Narrated 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.

Buddha Wild: Monk in a Hut

Buddhist monks open up about the joys and challenges of living out the precepts of the Buddha as a full-time vocation. Controversies swirling within modern monastic Buddhism are examined, from celibacy and the role of women to racism and concerns about the environment.

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Do Chile za zatměním Slunce

10 Questions for the Dalai Lama

How do you reconcile a commitment to non-violence when faced with violence? Why do the poor often seem happier than the rich? Must a society lose its traditions in order to move into the future? These are some of the questions posed to His Holiness the Dalai Lama by filmmaker and explorer Rick Ray. Ray examines some of the fundamental questions of our time by weaving together observations from his own journeys throughout India and the Middle East, and the wisdom of an extraordinary spiritual leader. This is his story, as told and filmed by Rick Ray during a private visit to his monastery in Dharamsala, India over the course of several months. Also included is rare historical footage as well as footage supplied by individuals who at great personal risk, filmed with hidden cameras within Tibet.

CERN, or The Factory for the Absolute

Human action is often influenced by the desire for knowledge. This desire is in itself a positive impulse and could be said to be the basis of all progress. Let's move this statement to the ground of scientific research at CERN, and see if it applies here - and then test the common experience that human stupidity permeates every social stratum and, in the case of the elites, is a potential threat.

The Venerable W.

A view of the religious tensions between Muslims and Buddhist through the portrait of the Buddhist monk Ashin Wirathu, leader of anti-Muslim movement in Myanmar.

Roma Boys – The Love Story

The film explores the taboo subject of homosexuality within the Roma community through the personal story of a Roma activist who happens to be gay. Though his job has earned him respect among his peers, by coming out his status is in jeopardy. However, the desire to share his complex story prompted him to write a screenplay based on his life. Partly a documentary about his autobiographical script, the film switches between documentary and narrative storytelling. Owing to its distinctive style, the film offers a glimpse into the protagonist's world as he faces triple discrimination: as a Roma, as a gay man, and as a gay man in the Roma community.

Art as a Weapon

Street art, creativity and revolution collide in this beautifully shot film about art’s ability to create change. The story opens on the politically charged Thailand/Burma border at the first school teaching street art as a form of non-violent struggle. The film follows two young girls (Romi & Yi-Yi) who have escaped 50 years of civil war in Burma to pursue an arts education in Thailand. Under the threat of imprisonment and torture, the girls use spray paint and stencils to create images in public spaces to let people know the truth behind Burma's transition toward "artificial democracy." Eighty-two hundred miles away, artist Shepard Fairey is painting a 30’ mural of a Burmese monk for the same reasons and in support of the students' struggle in Burma. As these stories are inter-cut, the film connects these seemingly unrelated characters around the concept of using art as a weapon for change.

The Most Beautiful Corner in the World

A reporter for a fictional television station, originally from Ukraine, travels around Slovakia and asks people at memorable places questions about the nature of fascism and the soul of the Slovak nation. The documentary essay seeks to capture the shape of a society on the fringes of the political spectrum through the words spoken and the images of crowd scenes.

Honey Bunny Duracell

A vivid encounter with former three time Czech National Boxing Champion. Experience the rise and fall in the career of a female fighter.

The Faces of Parkinson

The Faces of Parkinson shows the people who suffer from Parkinson's disease and the impact it made on their life and people around and close to them. As it also asks the question how one continues to stay positive with such a destructive disease.

Tangled Roots

An intimate look into Demers family's experience raising children while dealing with the societal stigmas around disabilities and the consequences of Alberta's forgotten experiment in eugenics.

Creature of the Sun

Childlike imagination, naive playfulness and an enchanted view of the world are at the centre of this poetic film. The child protagonists talk about their dreams, fantasies and experiences while touching on metaphysical questions of body and soul, life and death. Magic permeates every frame of this colourful collage.

VALE TUDO

Lucia "Pretty Beast" Krajčovič is a 34-year-old professional MMA fighter and mother of two children. Shortly after giving birth, she is determined to become a champion in both disciplines - sport and motherhood. With a baby in her arms, she is preparing for her next fight. Under the immense pressure of her two identities, exhausted from lack of sleep, she wrestles with a question to which she had a clear answer not long ago. How to be both Pretty and Beast and for how much longer?

Peace Is Every Step

The influential life and powerful messages of Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh are explored in this biographical documentary. For more than 50 years, this amazing social activist has preached self-awareness and compassion for all living beings. Follow him as he travels through France and the United States—including a stop at the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington, D.C.—spreading peace by teaching mindfulness and forgiveness.

My Dad and the Volcano

Gavin built a giant volcano sculpture that's now in his dad's shed. Gavin seeks his dad's understanding but he's uninterested in modern art and refuses to participate in the documentary.

Amici, tanec s přáteli

Pinball: The Man Who Saved the Game

The dramatic comedy is based on the true story of writer and pinball wizard Roger Sharpe, chronicling his journey to overturn New York City’s 35-year ban on pinball.

National Family

Don Poli, the patriarch of a family embedded in politics, faces the change of party in his state - after a hundred years in power - losing all his privileges. Humiliated and angry, he threatens to disinherit his family and leave to rebuild his life. This forces his children (Kippy, Ramses and Belén) to take extreme measures to ensure their future, causing everything that could go wrong to turn out worse.

The Accursed

Hana spends twenty years suppressing a maleficent curse that was placed upon her bloodline, only to have a family member knowingly release it forcing her to kill or to be killed.

Autumn and the Black Jaguar

Growing up in the Amazon rainforest gave Autumn the rarest of friendships – a lost jaguar cub she named Hope. When a tragic event forces her to leave Hope for New York City, she dreams of going back to the rainforest and her friend. That opportunity soon comes when Autumn decides to return to the Amazon to save her beloved jaguar from animal traffickers who threaten her childhood village.

Eye for an Eye 2

The blind swordsman, skilled in martial arts, named Cheng Xiazi (Xie Miao), accidentally saves Zhang Xiaoyu (Yang Enyou), who has suffered from the destruction of his family. Under the persuasion of the orphan Xiaoyu, Cheng reluctantly keeps him by his side and teaches him skills. Xiaoyu also waits for the opportunity to seek revenge.

Kill

When an army commando finds out his true love is engaged against her will, he boards a New Dehli-bound train in a daring quest to derail the arranged marriage. But when a gang of knife-wielding thieves begin to terrorize innocent passengers on his train, the commando takes them on, one by one.

A

Roughly chronological, from 3/96 to 11/96, with a coda in spring of 1997: inside compounds of Aum Shinrikyo, a Buddhist sect led by Shoko Asahara. (Members confessed to a murderous sarin attack in the Tokyo subway in 1995.) We see what they eat, where they sleep, and how they respond to media scrutiny, on-going trials, the shrinking of their fortunes, and the criticism of society. Central focus is placed on Hiroshi Araki, a young man who finds himself elevated to chief spokesman for Aum after its leaders are arrested. Araki faces extreme hostility from the Japanese public, who find it hard to believe that most followers of the cult had no idea of the attacks and even harder to understand why these followers remain devoted to the religion, if not the violence.

Q

Uma Thurman boogies, Harvey Keitel whips out his gun, Hitler’s head is sliced in half. And Quentin Tarantino sits serenely through it all, impervious to the mayhem he’s created.

Gunner

While on a camping trip in order to reconnect, war veteran Colonel Lee Gunner must save his two sons from a gang of violent bikers when they're kidnapped after accidentally stumbling upon to a massive drug operation.

24 Hours with Gaspar

With only 24 hours left to live, a private investigator follows a trail of confounding clues to uncover the disappearance of his childhood friend.

My Penguin Friend

A lost penguin rescued from an oil spill transforms the life of a heartbroken fisherman. They become unlikely friends, so bonded that even the vast ocean cannot divide them.

Kamen Rider SD: Strange?! Kumo Otoko

"Kamen Rider SD: Strange!? Kumo Otoko" is an animated OVA based on the gag manga Kamen Rider SD: Hurricane Legend. This cute and comedic short movie features chibi versions of the Showa Era Kamen Riders, as they team up against the evil GranShocker organization, while Kamen Rider Black RX tries to confess his love to female sports instructor Michiru.

Ruthless

A high school coach, whose teenage daughter was murdered, takes matters into his own hands by going after the men who kidnap his students for their sex trafficking operation.

Flow

A filmmaker talks about his work and love life with an unseen friend behind the camera. We also watch four of his short films.

Panda Plan

International action star Jackie Chan is invited to the adoption ceremony of a rare baby panda, but after an international crime syndicate attempts to kidnap the bear, Jackie has to save the bear using his stunt work skills.

Noryang: Deadly Sea

The Imjin War reaches its seventh year in December of 1598. Admiral Yi Sun-shin learns that the Wa invaders in Joseon are preparing for a swift withdrawal following the deathbed orders of their leader Toyotomi Hideyoshi. Determined to destroy the enemy once and for all, Admiral Yi leads an allied fleet of Joseon and Ming ships to mount a blockade and annihilate the Wa army. However, once Ming commander Chen Lin is bribed into lifting the blockade, Wa lord Shimazu Yoshihiro and his Satsuma army sail to the Wa army's rescue at Noryang Strait.

Hunting with Tigers

Malik, a young Parisian hustler, discovers that his stepfather Serge, a famous bank robber, has been arrested along with his accomplices. During the trial, Iris, one of the accused's lawyers, Chérif, requests Malik to accept a dangerous heist in exchange for Serge and her client's liberty. Malik must convince and reunite Chérif's former partners to accomplish this high-risk stickup.

Paddington in Peru

Paddington travels to Peru to visit his beloved Aunt Lucy, who now resides at the Home for Retired Bears. With the Brown Family in tow, a thrilling adventure ensues when a mystery plunges them into an unexpected journey through the Amazon rainforest and up to the mountain peaks of Peru.