PUTIN: LEAP YEAR
As Russian Head of State, Vladimir Putin is one of the most powerful men in the world. An ex-KGB Officer, he became Acting President in 1999, taking over from a sick Boris Yeltsin and was elected President in 2000. Award winning filmmaker Vitalij Manskij's film starts off as straightforward reportage but then, Putin seems to take a leaf out of Clinton's book in his willingness to be open to the camera, and the film succeeds in giving us not only a unique insight into Russian political life but also a surprisingly intimate portrait of this secretive and complex central figure.
FILM AS A SUBVERSIVE ART: AMOS VOGEL & CINEMA 16 + Director Q&A
In 1947, Amos Vogel established a film club in New York called Cinema 16. He was determined to show there were alternatives to Hollywood. Its aim was to invigorate citizenship...
CAPTURING THE FRIEDMANS
Arnold and Elaine Friedman were a seemingly typical couple. All appeared to be happy in their lives until November 1987, when police raided their home after Arnold and Jesse were accused of multiple counts of child molestation.
THE LAST PEASANTS: A GOOD WIFE
Angus Macqueen's three-part series follows the human stories of three Romanian families torn apart by the realities of migration.
A BOY'S LIFE
A heartbreaking and dramatic portrait of the troubling forces that have shaped the life of a seven-year-old boy from an impoverished region of Mississippi.
THE BOY WHO PLAYS ON THE BUDDHAS OF BAMIYAN
In March 2001 the ruling Taliban destroyed Afghanistan's foremost tourist attraction, the Buddhas of Bamiyan. Over the course of a year, this film follows the story of one of the refugees who lives in a cave amongst the ruins...
HEARTS AND MINDS
Director Peter Davis assembles newsreels, interviews and footage shot in Vietnam and the US to create a searing and incisive thesis that carefully balances both the American and the Vietnamese experiences of the war.
PRISONER OF THE CAUCASUS
A searing anti-war essay on the Russian-Chechen war - one of the most brutal yet under-reported of current conflicts. A collection of graphic footage from freelance camera people is interwoven with Tolstoy's writings, penned during his own stint in the Russian army, fighting Chechnya 150 years ago. Tolstoy asks 'why they are fighting'. The answer seems no clearer now than it was then. All that's changed, it seems, is the level of brutality.
MARRY ME
Marry Me follows a Cuban woman in her late twenties and her young son as they relocate to Germany in order to start a new life.
SHTO NOVOVO: AN ELEGY FOR THE UNION
The winds of change blow through a remote community living in the mountains of Kyrgyzstan. This beautifully observed film looks at life since the Russians have left the country, and the once modest rural economy is now steered towards market capitalism. However while the rural areas suffer from the loss of subsidies, the fortune of those living in the city is very different. Market forces have also brought change there, but mostly for the better. The film offers unique insight into this universal dilemma.
THE REVOLUTION WILL NOT BE TELEVISED
In 2001, Kim Bartley and Donnacha O'Briain traveled to Venezuela to videotape a behind-the-scenes profile of President Hugo Chavez. While filmming in 2002, they found themselves in the midst of a coup attempt against Chavez.
BATTLE HOSPITAL
Nobody wants to be at the Battle Hospital. The giant tented camp close to the Iraqi border is run by Britain's Territorial Army, and was sent out in advance of the allied invasion of 2003 to provide crucial trauma care to coalition soldiers...
OLD BELIEVERS
Old Believers documents a strongly religious community where time seems to stand still, but does it? During the 17th century, Russian immigrants of a minority faith settled in a remote area of Romania's Danube Delta, allowing them to preserve their original language and beliefs, but yet the people enjoy modern conveniences.
NO REGRETS
This feature debut by scriptwriter and director Theodora Remundová is made up of two independent stories oscillating between documentary and fiction. The first,Standard, began life as the author's graduation film at FAMU and describes the painful relationships between three women bound by close family ties – the seventy-five-year-old mother Irena, her widowed fifty-year-old daughter Masha and her twenty-seven-year-old granddaughter Patricia.The protagonist of the second half, No Regrets, is seventy-one-year-old Danuše Pánková, who experienced not only happiness and success in her life, but whose relationship to life and the people around her is in sharp contrast to the suffocating relationships in the preceding family. Marriage, motherhood, family life – these intimate and very concrete themes become the starting point for thoughts about the meaning of human existence.
JAZZ WAR
The director Vít Klusák is shooting a film about his father, the well-known composer Emil Viklický, but the latter wants nothing to do with it. This creates a portrait without portraiture, since the director places a double in the role of his father, whom he finds through an advertisement published in newspapers.What is interesting is that Klusák does not know his real father personally, but only meets him (or fails to meet him) for the second time in his life while filming ...y meets him (or fails to meet him) for the second time in his life while filming.
AILEEN: LIFE AND DEATH OF A SERIAL KILLER
Nick Broomfield's second documentary on Aileen Carol Wuornos. The film focuses on Wuornos' declining mental state and the questionable judgment to execute her despite her being of unsound mind.
THE WEATHER UNDERGROUND
In 1969 as the Vietnam War was raging, a group of student activists announced its intention to overthrow the United States government - by any means necessary.
UNPRECEDENTED: THE 2000 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION
Narrated by Peter Coyote, this 50-minute film examines the controversial occurrences in Florida during the 2000 presidential election leading up to the eventual administration of George W. Bush...
100 DOORS
100 Doors is a look behind some of the 100 doors that filmmaker Kerri Davenport-Burton slept behind between the ages of 12 and 21. Her candid and honest exploration of her own 'hidden homelessness' approaches this serious subject with humour and personal insight.
CALAIS: THE LAST BORDER
Marc Isaacs carefully juxtaposes the lives of asylum seekers, expats and English day trippers, in the french port town of Calais. Prompting each to reflect on life in their home country...
POWER TRIP
Power Trip exposes the electricity crisis in the country of Georgia shortly after the fall of the Soviet Union. It looks at the chaos and riots that occurred in Tbilisi, Georgia, shortly after the AES Corporation, an American global power company...