Ai Weiwei is known for many things – great architecture, subversive in-your-face art, and political activism. He has also called for greater transparency on the part of the Chinese state. Director Alison Klayman chronicles the complexities of Ai’s life for three years, beginning with his rise to public prominence via blog and Twitter after he questioned the deaths of more than 5,000 students in the 2008 Sichuan earthquake. The record continues through his widely publicized arrest in Beijing in April of 2011. As Ai prepares various works of art for major international exhibitions, his activism heats up, and his run-ins with China’s authorities become more and more frequent.
You May Also Like
Experience an inside look at David Bowie’s incredible influence on music, art and culture via interviews with some of the people who knew him best.
A look at the varied new ways Americans are choosing to both find meaning and celebrate life as it comes to an end.
Fanarchy explores the rise of fan culture and ways in which fans are threatening the Hollywood system by becoming a creative force in their own right. With affordable technology at their fingertips, fans are producing more new content per month than studios or networks combined. Whether it’s an original idea or a personal spin on a favorite film or TV show, fans are taking the reins and blurring the line between amateur and professional. Written and directed by Halifax’s own Donna Davies, Fanarchy exposes the burgeoning media landscape and the issues that complicate it – copyright, intellectual property and the concept of originality in a remix culture.
Anything can happen on Russian roads and is precisely shot by the dashboard camera. Super-objective video registration grows into the strong image of Russian national character – with its permanent awaiting for the miracle and habitual approach to real dramas. A forest on fire as a symbol of Russian hell, a military tank at a car wash and car chase in the vicinity of Kremlin shot with a dashboard cam at the same time when Boris Nemtsov, the leader of political opposition, was shot dead near Kremlin. Dashboard cam depicts life in it’s purity as an unbiased observer.
Auschwitz is synonymous with the Holocaust, but it’s also a place on the map with a surprising history preceding World War II. Narrated by Meryl Streep, this short documentary tells the story of Auschwitz, from its construction to its infamy.
While the 2016 election catalyzed the Women’s March and a new era of feminist activism, Tamika Mallory and Erika Andiola have been fighting for their communities for decades. Their stories expose the fundamental connection between personal and political and raise the question: what’s intersectionality and can it save the world?
This is a powerful documentary, filmed over a 16 year span, about the rise of a Coalition of six lions, branded The Mapogo Lions, and their takeover of the largest territory by a pride.
When 35 year old stand-up comedian Steve Mazan learned he was dying of cancer, he dedicated the rest of his life to making his dream come true: performing comedy on The Late Show with David Letterman. This documentary chronicles his five-year journey, as he races his own ticking clock to achieve a nearly impossible goal. Hilarious and heart-breaking, Steve brings a brand-new perspective to living with cancer. This is a story that proves it’s not how much time you have, it’s what you do with it. As Steve says, ‘If you stop chasing your dreams, you’re already dead.’
This documentary unveils evidence of corruption in the investigation into the murder of five people in the Narvarte neighborhood of Mexico City in 2015.
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.
A.I. guru Ben Goertzel grew up in a hippie community in Oregon during the Vietnam War. Inspired by science fiction, he imagined a perfect rational world that would transcend 1970s’ America. Ben has dedicated his life to developing OpenCog, a software that models the human mind. If Ben’s design works, OpenCog will become a human-like general intelligence. But for OpenCog to work, it needs a body.
The untold origin story behind Ridley Scott’s Alien – rooted in Greek and Egyptian mythologies, underground comics, the art of Francis Bacon, and the dark visions of Dan O’Bannon and H.R. Giger. A contemplation on the symbiotic collaborative process of movie-making, the power of myth, and our collective unconscious.