The Language Master

Michel Thomas is one of the most brilliant language teachers in the world. His usual clients are movie stars and business leaders. This programme takes him to a Sixth Form College in London to work with school pupils, to test his claim that he can teach anyone a language in a week - with no reading, writing or homework. The film also explores his personal history - as a hero of the French Resistance during WW II. Nigel’s documentary with the 85 year old Michel Thomas was the first time that Thomas allowed his techniques to be made public. The subsequent success of the film transformed Thomas into a global celebrity and his method into one of the most highly regarded in the world of education.

La trattativa

What are we talking about when we talk about negotiations? About the state's concessions to the Mafia in exchange for ending the massacres? About who assassinated Falcone and Borsellino? Of the eternal coexistence between the Mafia and politics? Between the mafia and the church? Between the Mafia and law enforcement? Or is there more? A group of actors enacts the most relevant episodes of the affair known as the Mafia-state negotiation, impersonating mobsters, secret service agents, high officials, magistrates, victims and murderers, Freemasons, honest and courageous people, and courageous people up to a point. Thus one of the most intricate events in our history becomes an exciting tale.

Bente gaar til Sygeplejen

A movie about the education for nurse told from Bente's perspective. She starts at the preschool at Rødkilde Højskole at Møn and comes from there to a hospital, where student time begins. After three years, Bente is trained and can get the nursing needle attached to the robe.

Mein Leben und der Notenschnitt

Sixth-graders have many things on their minds. But they are confronted with an important decision: do they continue their education in secondary school A, B, or C, or do they go to grammar school after all? And what even are those things? How do children deal with the hopes and fears associated with this step?

Lo zebù e la stella

A zebu disappears while children are drawing it. They find it again in the woods. The notes of a harp accompany their multi-coloured joy. This short was made with children from a nursery school in Mantua. Playing with colours, the children seem to conquer the world.

Quando i tedeschi non sapevano nuotare

Where in the World Is Osama Bin Laden?

Morgan Spurlock tours the Middle East to discuss the war on terror with Arabic people.

Cold Trumpet

Chet Baker silently wanders through an Antonioniesque landscape in a Felliniesque state of wonderment as his improvised trumpet solos alternate between earnestly offering the obvious and mocking the artiness of the whole affair.

The Real Beauty and the Beast

It's a condition known as "hypertrichosis" or "Ambras Syndrome," but in the 1500s it would transform one man into a national sensation and iconic fairy-tale character. His name: Petrus Gonsalvus, more commonly known today as the hairy hero of Beauty and the Beast.

Fascism in Colour

After the World War I, Mussolini's perspective on life is severely altered; once a willful socialist reformer, now obsessed with the idea of power, he founds the National Fascist Party in 1921 and assumes political power in 1922, becoming the Duce, dictator of Italy. His success encourages Hitler to take power in Germany in 1933, opening the dark road to World War II. (Originally released as a two-part miniseries. Includes colorized archival footage.)

Backpack Full of Cash

Documentary warning about the decline of American public schools as they become more and more privatized.

Wolves Return

Wolves divide and fascinate us. 150 years after they were driven to extinction in Central Europe, they are returning slowly but inexorably. Are they dangerous to humans? Is it possible to coexist? Using Switzerland as a point of departure, where wolves have returned in the very recent past, this documentary sheds light on the wolf situation in Austria, eastern Germany, Poland, Bulgaria, and even Minnesota, where freely roaming packs of wolves are more common sight.

Libere

Writing the Land

In this short documentary, a Musqueam elder rediscovers his Native language and traditions in the city of Vancouver, in the vicinity of which the Musqueam people have lived for thousands of years. Writing the Land captures the ever-changing nature of a modern city - the glass and steel towers cut against the sky, grass, trees and a sudden flash of birds in flight and the enduring power of language to shape perception and create memory.

Acadia Acadia?!?

In the late 1960s, with the triumph of bilingualism and biculturalism, New Brunswick's Université de Moncton became the setting for the awakening of Acadian nationalism after centuries of defeatism and resignation. Although 40% of the province's population spoke French, they had been unable to make their voices heard. The movement started with students-sit-ins, demonstrations against Parliament, run-ins with the police - and soon spread to a majority of Acadians. The film captures the behind-the-scenes action and the students' determination to bring about change. An invaluable document of the rebirth of a people.

Dance for All

To Be and to Have

The documentary's title translates as "to be and to have", the two auxiliary verbs in the French language. It is about a primary school in the commune of Saint-Étienne-sur-Usson, Puy-de-Dôme, France, the population of which is just over 200. The school has one small class of mixed ages (from four to twelve years), with a dedicated teacher, Georges Lopez, who shows patience and respect for the children as we follow their story through a single school year.

Maestras Voluntarias

Ana Deborah Mola and Belkis Lescaille were among the first young teachers who started pilot programs around the island of Cuba in 1960, laying foundation for the massive National Literacy Campaign that would take place the following year.

Jolly Roger

"Jolly Roger" could mean Roger Schawinski. But by definition, a "Jolly Roger" is the classic black pirate flag with skull and crossbones. This documentary tells the unvarnished story of the Swiss radio pirates who emerged in the 1970s. The focus is on Radio 24 in its wild years, when Schawinski's team broadcast from Italy, with the strongest FM station in the world at the time, straight down from Pizzo Groppera, 130 kilometers all the way to the Zurich area. Supported by numerous original documents from private filmmakers and from the SRG archives, the viewer relives the absurd radio war between David and Goliath that lasted almost four years, 24 years after this war between the radio pirates and the state power began on November 13, 1979. The many known and unknown fighters, who rallied behind their Radio Winkelried Schawinski in 1979 to help usher Switzerland into a new media age, remember the good and bad times, the demonstrations and the numerous threatened and actual closures.

Masters of Mayhem

For decades Italian genre cinema dominated the world and before changing beyond recognition it went to unthinkable places. Giants don't die quietly however and this is the story of an industry's most absurd, extreme, blood-soaked fight for survival. Through dozens of brand new interviews, and never-before-seen archival materials, with the men and women who were there during one of the most unique moments in film history, MASTERS OF MAYHEM tells their stories of scandal, contradictions, drama and outrage.