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A journey back through Dacia Maraini's and her trips around the world with her close friends cinema director Pier Paolo Pasolini and opera singer Maria Callas. An in-depth story of this fascinating woman's life. Maraini's memories come alive through personal photographs taken on the road as well as her own Super 8 films shot almost thirty years ago.
An epic journey along Africa's Great Green Wall — an ambitious vision to grow a wall of trees stretching across the entire continent to fight against increasing drought, desertification and climate change.
A look at the Brazilian black movement between 1977 and 1988, going by the relationship between Brazil and Africa.
Sir David Attenborough presents and narrates this wildlife series, a visual encyclopedia of the natural world. This episode looks at the fast, sleek and elegant cheetahs - supreme athletes and hunters of the animal world. Also the leopard, another deadly hunter, is observed in its natural habitat.
Edeltraut Hertel - a midwife caught between two worlds. She has been working as a midwife in a small village near Chemnitz for almost 20 years, supporting expectant mothers before, during and after the birth of their offspring. However, working as a midwife brings with it social problems such as a decline in birth rates and migration from the provinces. Competition for babies between birthing centers has become fierce, particularly in financial terms. Obstetrics in Tanzania, Africa, Edeltraud's second place of work, is completely different. Here, the midwife not only delivers babies, she also trains successors, carries out educational and development work and struggles with the country's cultural and social problems.
The Year of Return is an initiative of the government of Ghana that is intended to encourage African diasporans to come to Africa to settle and invest in the continent. This film documents one diasporan family as they return to Africa.
Between 1983 and 1987, Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso and the home city of FESPACO, one of the most important Pan-African film festivals in the world, was the scene of an exciting cinema utopia. With the support of the young president Thomas Sankara, the festival became a symbol of the cultural renaissance of a whole continent. The assassination of Sankara stifled the hopes of millions of young Africans, but the dynamism of FESPACO and African cinema did not stop.
Rwanda was once a country of peace, beauty and fabulous wildlife. Romain Baertsoen arrived there in 1966 and started to film two of Rwanda's secrets, the Bahima tribe and rare mountain gorillas. The Rwandan Civil War shattered the peace in 1994, as warring factions pillaged towns and plundered the forests. Remarkably, the gorillas survived, but the world around them is increasingly uncertain.
Many geneticists and archaeologists have long surmised that human life began in Africa. Dr. Spencer Wells, one of a group of scientists studying the origin of human life, offers evidence and theories to support such a thesis in this PBS special. He claims that Africa was populated by only a few thousand people that some deserted their homeland in a conquest that has resulted in global domination.
Dazzled by the surrealist movement, Francis Falceto decided at the age of 17 to live an extraordinary life. In the 1980s, co-created l'Oreille est Hardie and Le Confort Moderne in Poitiers, leaving his mark on French underground culture. A record he discovered by chance opened another important chapter in his life: Ethiopian music, of which he became a great champion. "Ethiopiques Magnetic Suite" is the portrait of a discreet and essential man, a plunge into the counterculture, an invitation to live his his life.
A true film account of a three-month safari in the big game hunting areas of the Dark Continent, undoctored with any faked plot or contrivance.
On a journey to West Africa, award-winning documentarian Mathew Welsh fashions portraits of six 'middle class' Gambians - taking us beyond stereotypes about Africa - and teaching us that we in the Developed World have a lot to learn from West Africa about how we give, how we live. These are six personalities that will resonate with a Western audience.
This film is a portrait of unique cultural space for Spirits, Gods and People. While permanent theatres are commonly built in most cosmopolitan modern cities, Hong Kong preserves a unique theatrical architecture, a Chinese tradition that has lasted more than a century - Bamboo Theatre.
380 kilometers from Nairobi, in the Samburu territory, lies a unique village: Umoja. Defended by a thorn fence, access is strictly forbidden to men. Created in 1991, it offers refuge to women repudiated by their husbands or victims of domestic violence. A nerve center for the community, its school is open to children from other villages, provided their families undertake not to subject them to genital mutilation or early marriage. As the new school year approaches, Jane, co-founder of the community, and Rose, teacher, meet little Samella's parents.
This documentary of repressive political realities in Cameroon begins with the 1990 publication of an open letter to President Biya calling for a national conference - and the immediate arrest of the letter's author and publisher. The narration then examines the nation's colonial history, beginning with the first German missionary in 1901, the establishment of schools, French occupation following World War I, the paucity of books written by and published by Cameroonians, and the repression of the CPU, a leftist organization of the 1950s and 1960s. Cameroon and its people are the lark, its feathers plucked first by colonialism and then by native strongmen: 'Alouette, je te plumerai.'
The expedition that shot this film was sponsored by the French Government and the Museum of Man, for the purpose of making a lasting record of the native tribes in French Equatorial Africa.
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.
Shortly after his death in 2008, Maldoror made this film about her longtime friend and collaborator, the Négritude poet Aimé Césaire. In this film, she retraces the steps of Césaire’s travels across the globe — particularly back to his hometown in Martinique, where Maldoror interviews his relatives about his life — and her working relationship with Césaire, including fragments of her previous films about him, Un homme, une terre (1976) and Le masque des mots (1987).
A paralysingly beautiful documentary with a global vision—an odyssey through landscape and time—that attempts to capture the essence of life.
In a crime-plagued neighborhood near Miami, brutal, bare-knuckled backyard fights give young men a chance to earn money -- and self-respect.
A 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.
A documentary on the expletive's origin, why it offends some people so deeply, and what can be gained from its use.
A documentary focused on plastic pollution in the world's oceans.
With unprecedented access to the official archives and intimate recollections from the band, both current and past, Iron Maiden: Burning Ambition invites fans to experience one of the most iconic journeys in music history. Spanning five decades, this electrifying documentary charts the band’s rise from the pubs of East London to the world’s biggest stadiums. Featuring exclusive interviews with band members and contributors such as Javier Bardem, Lars Ulrich and Chuck D, as well as all-new animated sequences of the band's legendary mascot, Eddie, the film offers a rare and intimate look at Iron Maiden’s uncompromising vision and unwavering connection with their truly global army of fans.
JB Smoove and Martin Starr host a celebration of 20 years of "Spider-Man" movies, from the Sam Raimi trilogy to Marc Webb's movies and the trio from Jon Watts.
A purely observational non-fiction film that takes viewers into the ethically murky world of end-of-life decision making in a public hospital.
In the Realms of the Unreal is a documentary about the reclusive Chicago-based artist Henry Darger. Henry Darger was so reclusive that when he died his neighbors were surprised to find a 15,145-page manuscript along with hundreds of paintings depicting The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What is Known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glodeco-Angelinnian War Storm, Cased by the Child Slave Rebellion.
A documentary about how a dominant cultural and demographic institution both sustains their traditional activities and adapts to the digital revolution.
Alexander McQueen's rags-to-riches story is a modern-day fairy tale, laced with the gothic. Mirroring the savage beauty, boldness and vivacity of his design, this documentary is an intimate revelation of McQueen's own world, both tortured and inspired, which celebrates a radical and mesmerizing genius of profound influence.
A documentary about the life and films of director John Ford.
When Allied forces liberated the Nazi concentration camps in 1944-45, their terrible discoveries were recorded by army and newsreel cameramen, revealing for the first time the full horror of what had happened. Making use of British, Soviet and American footage, the Ministry of Information’s Sidney Bernstein (later founder of Granada Television) aimed to create a documentary that would provide lasting, undeniable evidence of the Nazis’ unspeakable crimes. He commissioned a wealth of British talent, including editor Stewart McAllister, writer and future cabinet minister Richard Crossman – and, as treatment advisor, his friend Alfred Hitchcock. Yet, despite initial support from the British and US Governments, the film was shelved, and only now, 70 years on, has it been restored and completed by Imperial War Museums under its original title "German Concentration Camps Factual Survey".
Al Pacino's deeply-felt rumination on Shakespeare's significance and relevance to the modern world through interviews and an in-depth analysis of "Richard III."
Through deeply personal interviews with her siblings and an examination of the photographs, letters, and belongings left behind, Mariska assembles a new portrait of her mother Jayne Mansfield, an extraordinary and complex woman.
After another 7 year wait, director Michael Apted revisits the same group of British-born children from Seven Up! and 7 Plus Seven. The subjects are interviewed as to the changes that have occurred in their lives during the last seven years.
Vulgar, taunting texts blow up the phones of a teen and her boyfriend. Who's sending them — and why? This twisty documentary reveals the shocking answer.
Those who knew iconic funnyman John Candy best share his story, in their own words, through never-before-seen archival footage, imagery, and interviews.
Documentarian Ross McElwee originally set out to make a travelogue of sorts tracing General William T. Sherman's infamous scorched-earth march through the Confederacy in the latter stages of the Civil War. Instead, haunted by a recent breakup with a girlfriend, McElwee ends up documenting his progress -- or lack thereof -- in starting a new relationship. His journey then becomes one of self-reflection and self-discovery rather than a historical/sociological exploration.
In the early-morning hours of July 23, 2007, in Cheshire, Conn., ex-convicts Steven Hayes and Joshua Komisarjevsky broke into the family home of William Petit, his wife, Jennifer, and their daughters, Michaela, 11, and Hayley, 17. Dr. Petit was beaten and tied to a pole in the basement. The three women were bound in their bedrooms while the men ransacked the house. The brutal ordeal continued throughout the morning, ending with rape, arson and a horrific triple homicide.