Social & External
The Russian Descendant of the Snow Leopard is based on a famous Kirghizian folktale. Apparently the Kirghizian folks had plenty of time to tell this story: to print a full synopsis would result in a novelette. Essentially, the story involves a proud group of highland hunters called the Snow Leopards, who in order to survive a brutal winter must request help from the Lowland people. The price for this assistance is the hand of the Snow Leopard's daughter, who is promised in marriage to a wealthy Lowland trader. During the Springtime wedding celebration, the trader becomes fascinated by a stranger who wins all the athletic contests. This "male" contestant turns out to be a woman, who has arrived to seek freedom for her imprisoned husband. The subsequent romance between the trader and the beautiful stranger results in disaster and bloodshed for both the Snow Leopards and the Lowlanders.
A whimsical blend of live action and animation, "Saludos Amigos" is a colorful kaleidoscope of art, adventure and music set to a toe-tapping samba beat. From high Andes peaks and Argentina's pampas to the sights and sounds of Rio de Janeiro, your international traveling companions are none other than those famous funny friends, Donald Duck and Goofy. They keep things lively as Donald encounters a stubborn llama and "El Gaucho" Goofy tries on the cowboy way of life....South American-style.
When a Spanish Jesuit goes into the South American wilderness to build a mission in the hope of converting the Indians of the region, a slave hunter is converted and joins his mission. When Spain sells the colony to Portugal, they are forced to defend all they have built against the Portuguese aggressors.
Takes 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.
Stephen Fry embarks on a journey to discover the stories behind some of the world's most fantastic beasts that have inspired myths and legends in history, story-telling and film.
The last two surviving members of the Piripkura people, a nomadic tribe in the Mato Grosso region of Brazil, struggle to maintain their indigenous way of life amidst the region's massive deforestation. Living deep in the rainforest, Pakyî and Tamandua live off the land relying on a machete, an ax, and a torch lit in 1998.
The Andes Mountains travel the western side of South America. Unlike many other mountain ranges of their altitude, the Andes do support human life on their high altitude slopes. Modern life is slowly making its way to the high altitude Andes, but the natives for the most part continue with the traditional ways of their ancestors, growing limited crops such as beans and potatoes - where the crop originated - raising sheep and pigs, and living in crude huts. The llama is the most useful of their work animals. The most conspicuous aspect of the native dress is their derby hats, the origins which are unknown. Further down the slopes, agriculture and ranching is more productive and is carried out by descendants of the Spanish settlers. There is a famous lake district in the Chilean part of the Andes, where resort hotels are located.
A few decades after the destruction of the Inca Empire, a Spanish expedition led by the infamous Aguirre leaves the mountains of Peru and goes down the Amazon River in search of the lost city of El Dorado. When great difficulties arise, Aguirre’s men start to wonder whether their quest will lead them to prosperity or certain death.
The third installment in Dan Přibáň's series of travel documentaries describes the author's journey with his friends across South America in vehicles that are often notorious but cult in their own way. The charming dynamics of the group on screen are further enhanced by the high-quality craftsmanship.
The story of the Trojan Horse is probably one of the most famous stories ever told: after ten years of bloody war, the Greek coalition decides to lift the siege and depart, but not before leaving at the gates a huge wooden horse, which the Trojans confidently lead into the city. A few hours later, the once invincible Troy goes up in flames. What exactly happened? Is this myth true or false?
Florian Hartung and Dirk Pohlmann have reconstructed a previously unknown dimension of the collaboration between Nazis and the CIA in the Cold War. Drawing upon recently released documents, the film exposes for the first time a perfidious, worldwide net that reaches deep into the power structures of the Federal Republic of Germany. Lending their authority to the fact-finders’ mission are high-ranking statesmen, journalists and historians.
Images of Argentinian companies and factories in the first light of day, seen from the inside of a car, while the director reads out documents in voiceover that reveals the collusion of the same concerns in the military dictatorship’s terror.
Buenos Aires, 1880. A journalist interviews Manuel Esteban Corvalán, one of the last living men who crossed the Andes in 1817 with José de San Martín, during the Argentinian and Chilean wars of independence, as one of his secretaries, when he was only 15 years old.
Joao Texeira de Faria, also known as John of God, is a world famous spiritual healer from Brazil who has been attributed to many miracles that science cannot explain. His work attracts both controversy and acclaim. For the past 30 years, thousands of people from all over the world have been flocking to his remote village in Brazil in search of cures for illnesses Western medicine offers little hope. Film maker Michelle Mahrer follows the journey of two of her friends on a healing odyssey to Brazil - Lya Shaked from Australia has terminal cancer, and Fred Porter from USA has HIV. Will they be lucky enough to receive a miracle?
Cartoneras is a documentary that grapples with Latin America’s urban realities, and the cardboard publishing movement that has emerged from these in the 21st century. Reflecting on the different contexts that propelled this form of community publishing, like Argentina’s 2001 economic crisis, the independent art scene, and the movements which formed around waste-pickers, the film’s narrative is developed through conversations with important actors from the cartonera world.
Humanity’s ascent is often measured by the speed of progress. But what if progress is actually spiraling us downwards, towards collapse? Ronald Wright, whose best-seller, “A Short History Of Progress” inspired “Surviving Progress”, shows how past civilizations were destroyed by “progress traps”—alluring technologies and belief systems that serve immediate needs, but ransom the future. As pressure on the world’s resources accelerates and financial elites bankrupt nations, can our globally-entwined civilization escape a final, catastrophic progress trap? With potent images and illuminating insights from thinkers who have probed our genes, our brains, and our social behaviour, this requiem to progress-as-usual also poses a challenge: to prove that making apes smarter isn’t an evolutionary dead-end.
A woman visits her boyfriend, locked up in a prison a few hours’ drive away from Buenos Aires. Each week, she manages as best as she can to accomplish her mission: provide her boyfriend food, drugs and love. In an exercise of visceral realism, Edgardo Castro constructs a harrowing love story with Las Ranas.
The film follows adventurer Jeff Johnson as he retraces the epic 1968 journey of his heroes Yvon Chouinard and Doug Tompkins to Patagonia.
Dick 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.
James Cameron and Simcha Jacobovici go on an adventure to find the lost city of Atlantis by using Greek philosopher Plato as a virtual treasure map.
One man’s journey to find meaning in Bill Murray’s many unexpected adventures with everyday people, rare and never-before seen footage of the comedic icon participating in stories previously presumed to be urban legend.
The history of cinematic sound, told by legendary sound designers and visionary filmmakers.
A woman narrates the thoughts of a world traveler, meditations on time and memory expressed in words and images from places as far-flung as Japan, Guinea-Bissau, Iceland, and San Francisco.
A group of British children aged 7 from widely ranging backgrounds are interviewed about a range of subjects. The filmmakers plan to re-interview them at 7 year intervals to track how their lives and attitudes change as they age.
The story of the gold-plated statuette that became the film industry's most coveted prize, AND THE OSCAR GOES TO... traces the history of the Academy itself, which began in 1927 when Louis B. Mayer, then head of MGM, led other prominent members of the industry in forming this professional honorary organization. Two years later the Academy began bestowing awards, which were nicknamed "Oscar," and quickly came to represent the pinnacle of cinematic achievement.
A subjective documentary that explores various theories about hidden meanings in Stanley Kubrick's classic film The Shining. Five very different points of view are illuminated through voice over, film clips, animation and dramatic reenactments.
The captivating tales of the people and events behind one of humanity's greatest achievements in exploration: NASA's Voyager mission.
Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino, co-creators of the hit television series, Avatar: The Last Airbender, reflect on the creation of the masterful series.
Set both in Latin America and the United States, the film explores the historic and current relationship of Washington with countries such as Venezuela, Bolivia and Chile. Pilger says that the film "...tells a universal story... analysing and revealing, through vivid testimony, the story of great power behind its venerable myths. It allows us to understand the true nature of the so-called "war on terror". According to Pilger, the film’s message is that the greed and power of empire is not invincible and that people power is always the "seed beneath the snow".
For the 20th anniversary of "Titanic," James Cameron reopens the file on the disaster.
A paralysingly beautiful documentary with a global vision—an odyssey through landscape and time—that attempts to capture the essence of life.
In Angola's mist-shrouded highlands, three KhoiSan master trackers embark on a spiritual quest to rediscover the legendary "ghost elephants" of Lisima, creatures presumed lost but remembered in ancestral trance, ritual, and memory.
Director Agnès Varda and photographer/muralist JR journey through rural France and form an unlikely friendship.
On September 15, 1963, a bomb destroyed a black church in Birmingham, Alabama, killing four young girls who were there for Sunday school. It was a crime that shocked the nation--and a defining moment in the history of the civil-rights movement. Spike Lee re-examines the full story of the bombing, including a revealing interview with former Alabama Governor George Wallace.
In Botswana's Okavango Delta, an ostracized lioness and her two cubs must fight alone to survive - overcoming all manner of hazards. Their only defense is to escape to Duba Island -- and with that, an unknown future. The setting for this epic tale is one of the last regions where lions can live in the wild. Faced with dwindling land and increasing pressure from hunting, lions - like our lone lioness and her cubs - are approaching the brink of extinction.
Darwin meets Hitchcock in this documentary. Directors Dan Geller and Dayna Goldfine have created a parable about the search for paradise, set in the brutal yet alluring landscape of the Galapagos Islands, which interweaves an unsolved 1930s murder mystery with stories of present day Galapagos pioneers. A gripping tale of idealistic dreams gone awry, featuring voice-over performances by Cate Blanchett, Diane Kruger, and Gustaf Skarsgard.
