Search
Hunting for Hedonia explores how the burgeoning technology of Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) will impact human identity and our sense of self. DBS is a revolutionary tool in neuroscience and as a treatment it is crossing over from movement control in Parkinson’s to alleviating mental illness. Trials are underway in depression, OCD, PTSD and eating disorders.
Diagnosed with ovarian cancer, iron-willed journalist Sheng Nan (“Surpass Men” in Chinese) is pressured to make a quick fortune and find mind-blowing sex before the costly surgery numbs her senses. Taking on a businessman’s biography writing job, she hikes into the misty mountains, where a chain of outbursts with her dysfunctional family, grumpy client, misogynistic co-worker and dreamlike romantic interest hilariously unfold. As deeply moving as it is luminously witty, writer-director Teng Congcong’s debut waltzes across the bitterness swallowed by her generation of women born under China’s One Child Policy, unprecedentedly burdened to “surpass men” while trying not to be “leftover women” at the same time. Saluting the 18th-century Chinese literature classic Dream of the Red Chamber in its title, the enchanting gem refreshes the novel’s transcendent contemplation on desire, death and womanhood from a modern cinematic perspective.
Escapes blazes a path through mid-20th-century Hollywood via the experiences of Hampton Fancher – flamenco dancer, actor, and the unlikely producer and screenwriter of the landmark sci-fi classic Blade Runner. Fancher recounts episodes from his life — romantic misadventures with silver-screen stars, wayward acts of chivalry, jealousy, and friendship — matched with a parallel world of film and TV footage wherein Fancher plays cowboys, killers, fops, cads, and the occasional hero. Escapes shows how one man’s personal journey can unexpectedly shape a medium’s future.
The ‘Casa do Povo’ cultural centre in São Paulo, an icon of the secular Jewish workers’ movement: a crumbling theatre flanked by staircases, entryways and corridors. Construction noise drones away in the background, clinking crockery, a broom sweeping over tiled floors, an expressive façade of countless adjustable panes of glass covered by a patina. It’s October 2016 and a group of young people are preparing a preview of Bickels [Socialism]. The venue is to form a prologue to the completed film, which tours 22 buildings in Israel designed by Samuel Bickels, most of which for kibbutzim. Dining halls, children’s houses, agricultural buildings, bright structures inserted into the Mediterranean landscape with great ingenuity. An architecture with a sell-by date: That many are now empty or have been repurposed at best is linked to the decline of the socialist ideals they embody.
Based on the popular book by L. Frank Baum, the beloved author of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, comes the incredible story of The Life & Adventures of Santa Claus. Many centuries ago, long before toys had even been invented, a baby abandoned at the edge of an enchanted forest was adopted and raised by a beautiful wood nymph, thus beginning the life story of Santa Claus. From his first truly magical childhood through the discovery of his life’s work of making children happy, discover the origin of every tradition surrounding Santa Claus, from toys, stockings and lighted trees to reindeer and sleigh. Journey back to a time of magic and wonder, and experience this heartwarming tale that will bring joy each holiday season.
Under a powerful Mayan curse, snakes are hatched inside a young woman, slowly devouring her from within. Her only chance for survival is a powerful shaman who lives across the border. With only hours to live, she jumps on a train headed for Los Angeles. Unfortunately for the passengers aboard, they are now trapped, soon to be victims of these flesh-eating vipers.
The film is a comedy about Rasmus and Frederik, two Danish men in their 30s, who head out on a business venture. They know each other from a boarding school back in Denmark and none of them have really been successful in life so far. Now they meet, 15 years later, both keen to set up a dog breeding centre. The two partners have learned that so-called luxury dogs are extremely popular among the Chinese upper class and therefore expect this to be their way into fast and overwhelming wealth in China. A 200 plus lb St. Bernard dog by the name of Dollar travels with them to Chongqing. Here they meet up with the mysterious Mr. Liu who owns the largest bakery in Western China and who believes that dogs are as powerful as humans. Soon, the dog business evolves in unexpected ways, while the friendship between the two Danes grows stronger.
One night at a hot-dog stand in Finnish Lapland, a commitment-phobic party animal, Aurora, meets Iranian Darian. Darian suddenly asks her to marry him. Darian needs to marry a Finnish woman to get an asylum for himself and his daughter. Aurora turns him down, as she is busy working as a nail technician and plans to move to Norway, away from her shit life. However, after meeting his sweet daughter, Aurora agrees to help him. As Aurora introduces numerous women to Darian, the two of them grow close. When the perfect wife candidate comes along, Darian and Aurora are faced with a difficult choice: pretend to be happy or to finally stop running.
While caring for his ailing wife, an American engineer in Pakistan stumbles upon a deadly pharmaceutical conspiracy.
Inmates at a women’s mental asylum stage a theatrical production of Herman Melville’s ‘Moby Dick.’
In the summer of 1979, gay porn producer Anne sets out to film her most ambitious film yet, but her actors are picked off, one by one, by a mysterious killer.
4 stories about 4 criminal children. Two teenagers trapped in a world full of drugs and human trafficking, another two kids bring their loved ones to the limit, other two resentful kids want to fulfill their most evil desires, and one kid who has to decide between killing or loving.
As Cotopaxi spews ash, issuing an eerie penumbra over Quito, a young woman confronts dormant familial conflicts. Desperate for a place to store her things as volcanic disaster looms, Caridad turns to her long-estranged father Galo for help. Galo abandoned Caridad’s mother long ago and is eager to make amends, but questions concerning the nature of his transgressions linger, straining communication between father and daughter and casting grave doubts over the possibility of reconciliation.
Constructed from over 500 hours of never-before-seen footage, this documentary centers on the career of celebrated football player Diego Maradona who played for SSC Napoli in the 1980s.
As a hard-working miner of a planet mining colony, Lorraine longs to make a better life for her daughter and grandchildren. When her shift uncovers the death of a fellow miner under mysterious circumstances, Lorraine is forced to choose between escape or defying management orders and facing her fears to fight for the safety of her family. (One of six short films produced to celebrate the 40th anniversary of 1979’s Alien.)
Hope, an abandoned crew member aboard the derelict chemical hauler Otranto, has spent a year trying to keep her ship and herself alive as both slowly fall apart. After discovering hidden cargo, she risks it all to power up the broken ship in search of human life. (One of six short films produced to celebrate the 40th anniversary of 1979’s Alien.)
Seven friends summon a monster when they are tricked into eating burgers made of human flesh.
In 1959, Berry Gordy Jr. gathered the best musicians from Detroit’s thriving jazz and blues scene to begin cutting songs for his new record company. Over a fourteen year period they were the heartbeat on every hit from Motown’s Detroit era. By the end of their phenomenal run, this unheralded group of musicians had played on more number ones hits than the Beach Boys, the Rolling Stones, Elvis and the Beatles combined – which makes them the greatest hit machine in the history of popular music. They called themselves the Funk Brothers. Forty-one years after they played their first note on a Motown record and three decades since they were all together, the Funk Brothers reunited back in Detroit to play their music and tell their unforgettable story, with the help of archival footage, still photos, narration, interviews, re-creation scenes, 20 Motown master tracks, and twelve new live performances of Motown classics with the Brothers backing up contemporary performers.
An intimate story of the enduring bond of friendship between two hard-living men, set against a sweeping backdrop: the American West, post-World War II, in its twilight. Pete and Big Boy are masters of the prairie, but ultimately face trickier terrain: the human heart.
In 1994, on the first day that Yoo Yeul went on air as the new DJ of the popular radio show ‘Music Album,’ a college girl Mi-su meets Hyun-woo who happens to drop by the bakery she works at. Like the music streaming from the radio, their frequencies slowly come in sync; even when they’re apart, the show brings them together through ebbs and flows of events arising from both pure coincidence and inevitability, until the bitter reality sets in and drives them apart…
A rainy night. Dazed and numb, Luz, a young cabdriver, drags herself into the brightly lit entrance of a run-down police station. In a nightspot, Nora seductively engages police psychiatrist Dr. Rossini in a conversation. Nora tells the Doctor about her old schoolmate Luz’ rebellious past at a Chilean school for girls. Nora is possessed by a demonic entity, longing for the woman it loves – Luz.
Maura Mackenzie (Carolina Bartczak) believes the world is hers to conquer. With her career as a concert pianist gaining momentum, it seems her beauty and talent will be strong enough to mask the demons that threaten to engulf her. But with an absent husband (Chris Jacot) and two young daughters at home, her precarious sanity begins to unravel until one summer day, burning with manic energy, she makes a terrible mistake — a mistake that will change her life forever. The consequences for Maura are catastrophic: her ambitious husband runs for his life, taking the children with him, leaving Maura to lapse into a full-scale breakdown. Life as she knew it is now over. With the help of her father, Ian (Peter MacNeill), Maura works to reclaim her life and waits for a miracle to bring her daughters home. But when the fates align, can the past be forgiven?
Three murder cases take place in Tokyo. Numbers are left at the murder scenes, possibly hinting at where the next murder will take place. An investigation begins of the serial killer and Detective Kosuke Nitta (Takuya Kimura) works on the case. He believes the next murder will take place at Hotel Koruteshia Tokyo. To catch the killer, Kosuke Nitta goes undercover and begins working at the front desk of the hotel. Naomi Yamagishi (Masami Nagasawa) works at the front desk of Hotel Koruteshia Tokyo. She is selected to train Kosuke Nitta for his front desk job, but they can’t get along. Kosuke Nitta is focused on catching the killer, but Naomi Yamagishi prioritizes the safety of the guests. As they begin to understand each others differences, they also begin to build a trust between each other. Who is the murderer? –asianwiki
Once a known counterculture figure, June E. Leigh now lives in self-imposed exile in her South Bronx apartment during the incendiary ’77 Summer of Sam. When an unseen tormentor begins exploiting June’s weaknesses, her insular universe begins to unravel.
Amos Gitai returns to the occupied territories for the first time since his 1982 documentary FIELD DIARY. WEST OF THE JORDAN RIVER describes the efforts of citizens, Israelis and Palestinians, who are trying to overcome the consequences of occupation. Gitai’s film shows the human ties woven by the military, human rights activists, journalists, mourning mothers and even Jewish settlers. Faced with the failure of politics to solve the occupation issue, these men and women rise and act in the name of their civic consciousness. This human energy is a proposal for long overdue change.
Hollywood collides with a group of veterans who are tired of the typical PTSD and valor-portrayed movies and decide to make an original dark humor zombie apocalypse film all on their own.
What if working together for the good of all was the most common business model? Watch, as several organizations strive towards building a more cooperative future. By putting humanity before the bottom line, they are finding their place in an economy previously dominated by profits and big business.
In 2007, 11 years after one of the most influential American punk bands, Jawbreaker, called it quits, the three members, Blake Schwarzenbach, Chris Bauermeister, and Adam Pfahler reconnect in a San Francisco recording studio to listen back to their albums, reminisce and even perform together one last time. Follow the band as they retell their “rags to riches to rags” story writhe with inner band turmoil, health issues, and the aftermath of signing to a major label. Featuring interviews with Billy Joe Armstrong, Steve Albini, Jessica Hopper, Graham Elliot, Chris Shifflet, Josh Caterer and more.
A young man returns to his hometown after it succumbed to a volcano eruption, during his staying he will meet two women with he will create a strong bond -almost like, a family.
In the wake of a devastating personal tragedy, struggling would-be filmmaker Parker Smith decides to take a road-trip across America. Intending to make a “lo-fi” documentary about his journey he purchases a decade old camera off of eBay, and is surprised to discover that it holds a long forgotten video tape containing strange home video footage of the notorious bodybuilder Gregg Valentino, a/k/a ‘The Man Whose Arms Exploded’. Convinced that Valentino’s odd tape found its way into his hands for some important reason, Parker sets off from Austin, Texas to New York to find the fading bodybuilder armed with only his beloved cat, two cameras and a minivan.
There are many things in life that could do a number on a man’s masculinity. Lenny Babbitt has his identity and manhood challenged when his wife Tracy leaves him for a female doctor named Iris who has been treating their autistic son Isaac. After losing his job, and wife to a woman no less — Lenny’s dad Jack offers him a job at his pawn shop where he must re-examine his identity, manhood and sense of self after meeting Chelsea, a young, free-spirited pistol that lives life on two wheels. In the end, Lenny realizes that there are no absolutes… only one’s faith, sense of self and family — no matter how it’s constituted or defined by society.
Chizuru (Anne Watanabe) is the new teacher at Umega High School. Since her school days, she has played violin in an orchestra. One day, she listens to an amateur orchestra play at the local cultural hall. She is touched by their performance and decides to enroll in the orchestra, but there are 2 orchestras in town. Chizuru mistakenly enrolls in the orchestra which consists of elderly people. The members there are thrilled to have a young person join their group. Chizuru is unable to tell them she made a mistake and becomes the conductor for their orchestra.
“On The Map” tells the story of ’77 team, the one that brought the first European Cup to Israel and became “The Team of the Nation” Still demoralized after the 1973 Yom Kippur War, Israel was hungry for a collective uplifting event. “On The Map”, a fast-moving, emotional and awe-inspiring documentary, recounts the story of how one Tel Aviv team no one thought could win toppled the four-time defending European Champions and put Israel firmly on the map. Featuring interviews with the Jewish American athletes who made history, “On the Map” combines the pulsepounding action of a high-stakes game with an incendiary political situation at the height of the Cold War to deliver a film that honors Israeli heroes, mesmerizes fans of the game and captures the spirit of a nation triumphant and victorious against all odds.
The all new unrated, unapologetic and uncensored Crusty Demons film! Get an all access pass to never before seen crashes, parties and jumps. Brand new footage & interviews from legendary riders Travis Pastrana, Robbie Maddison, Larry Linkogle, Seth Enslow and more.
Never-before-heard audio tapes recorded with Neil Armstrong during the final years of his life reveal an intimate portrait of this iconic – and famously private – man. Illustrated through previously unseen personal photographs and archival footage, this documentary special takes viewers on an emotional journey into the thoughts and experiences of the first man on the Moon.
