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a tightly knit cult hiding in a remote desert enclave as they prepare for the impending apocalypse. Two dissenters try to escape through the vast desert wasteland as the cult embarks on a mass suicide pact.
Tom “Putuparri” Lawford is a man caught between two worlds: his past and present in modern society, where he battles with alcoholism and domestic violence; and his future as a leader of his people, reconnecting with his ancestral lands, learning about his traditional culture and shouldering his responsibility to pass this knowledge on to the next generation. Director Nicole Ma spent more than a decade documenting Putuparri’s journey, travelling with him and his family on numerous occasions to Kurtal, in the Kimberley’s Great Sandy Desert region – traditionally a site of great significance as a place where people ritually make rain – as they fight for their native title claim over the area. Set against the backdrop of this long fight for ownership of traditional lands, the MIFF Premiere Fund-supported Putuparri and the Rainmakers is an emotional, visually breathtaking story of love, hope and the survival of Aboriginal law and culture against all odds.
Anoosh and Arash are at the center of Tehran’s underground techno scene. Tired of hiding from the police and their stagnating career, they organize one last manic techno rave under dangerous circumstances in the desert. Back in Tehran they try their luck selling their illegally printed music album without permission. When Anoosh is arrested, there seems to be no hope left. But then they receive a phone call from the biggest techno festival in the world. Once landed in Switzerland, the haze of the instant euphoria evaporates quickly when the seriousness of the situation starts to dawn on them.
Addicted to breaking records, this former world champion puts his mind and body on the line one last time. 20 years after his last world record he is in the American desert looking for purpose and salvation on a speed machine he built in his Scottish kitchen. Will his ageing body and fragile psyche cope with the pressure he will find on Nevada’s State Route 305?
Park Ranger Don Morgan is torn from his routine life, when he stumbles upon a UFO visitation in the arid, deserted Park Area where he resides. An inexplicable, bizarre power outage knocks out all electronics and communications, stranding a carload of hikers in the park, and downing a small plane. Searching for hydration in the blistering heat, Don must lead the survivors across an apparently abandoned Military Testing area called “ZONE-X”.
Can You Dig This explores the urban gardening revolution currently taking place in South Central Los Angeles, one of the largest food deserts in the country. We follow the inspirational personal journeys of five ‘gangster gardeners,’ all planting the seeds for a better life.
Death Valley is a place where drunk college kids can run wild on weekends without fear of the police shutting them down. This small desert town is home to a local Biker gang known as the Legion of Outlaws, an MC who traffic drugs and prostitution through this quiet community. Death Valley is also a place where getting attacked by a werewolf is nothing out of the ordinary especially during a full moon.
“Radioactive Veteran” is a documentary short about Marine Corps veteran Donald Guy and his widow Mary. When Donald was serving in the early 1950s, the military ordered him to the Nevada Test Site, where they had begun conducting nuclear testing. Along with thousands of other Marines and soldiers, Donald was assured he was safe as he gazed at the billowing mushroom cloud and marched through the desert toward the atomic blast. Within only a few years, however, Donald began experiencing serious medical issues resulting from radiation exposure and soon became disabled. For the rest of his life, he fought for disability benefits with Veterans Affairs, but in 2009 he died before receiving his due compensation. Over the next seven years, his widow Mary continued his fight for justice, as documented in “Radioactive Veteran.”
TGu Ye was born in a family of intellectuals, from small to generate a strong interest in history, especially during the Tang Dynasty princess Gao Yang is particularly obsessed with the legend. Because of his father’s paranoia, he has entered the University of Gu Ye have been unable to enter their favorite historical archeology. By chance, Gu Ye Xie Chunan and friend for many years led the expedition club also sponsors mysterious boss Qiu went into a deserted tomb of the Tang Dynasty …… a vajra, a piece of jade Jue, a few broken incomplete Tomb diary, actually opened a period of thousands of years of love and hatred disputes, it will also be the tomb of a pedestrian into an unprecedented crisis
The Coalition of Planets, a young alliance of worlds led by Earth, is at war with the Romulan Empire. Desperate for a chance to gain the upper hand in the war, the Coalition forms an alliance with T’mar, a Romulan deserter, in the hopes that she can provide valuable intelligence on her former masters.
Ah-Zhou, who is about to be honorably discharged from the military service, has a surreal dream. In the dream he sees the dead body of Shing-Shing Chen, a classmate in elementary school from years back. Is this dream implying that Shing-Shing Chen might have died? Soon afterwards, Ah-Zhou gets an unexpected five-day vacation and decides to look for Shing-Shing Chen. Nevertheless, he quickly learns that the special vacation is for him and another soon-to-be-discharged solider, Xiao-Gui, to go after a deserter, Kuen-He, who ran away with weapons two days ago. Both of them are worried about this assignment because they, the old birds, used to pick on Kuen-He, a spring chicken. And Kuen-He is now a deserter, armed and dangerous.
When an accident temporarily robs her of her voice, Diva J flees to a small deserted village to heal both her mental and physical wounds. Her life changes when she meets and falls in love with the blind Hu Ming, who inspires her to make a comeback. But, in her absence, a new diva has risen. R has become an overnight sensation that everyone sees as the main contender for J’s crown. Yet, their successes have come at a high price. J is secretly pining for a forbidden love that seems destined to wither, and R has found that the road to stardom is littered with estranged friends and painful break-ups. But in the midst of this, both divas rise to find their own voice.
At the Kingburger Drive-In, the food is fast, the service is sexy, and the price is right. But tonight, terror is on the menu when the Kingburger’s cantankerous boss, Odi Buckmeyer, leaves the late shift employees to wait for Donnie the delivery driver. On his way back, Donnie is attacked by an unknown animal in the woods on an deserted road. Under the full moon, he transforms into a vicious creature of the night – descending from the darkness and back to the Kingburger! It’s babes, brawn and burgers versus fur, fangs and fury in this gory, action-packed monster thriller!
This “Best Fiction Film Winner”* follows Valentine, a female assassin who is trapped in a room with one of her marks during the last few minutes of his life. The moment changes her own life as she vows to give up the business and seek redemption by finding the son of the man she has killed. But once in the small desert town of “Godfree”, which may or may not be stranger than the world she has just left, her old life returns to haunt her. Convinced she has joined forces with an elusive ex-assassin named “Cupid”, her former comrades hunt her down and soon discover that some things are not what they appear…. *Hollywood Documentary And Fiction Film Festival (2006)
Inspired by the true story of the first giraffe to visit France, Zarafa is a sumptuously animated and stirring adventure, and a throwback to a bygone era of hand-drawn animation and epic storytelling set among sweeping CinemaScope vistas of parched desert, wind-swept mountains and open skies. Under the cover of darkness a small boy, Maki, loosens the shackles that bind him and escapes into the desert night. Pursued by slavers across the moon-lit savannah, Maki meets Zarafa, a baby giraffe – and an orphan, just like him – as well as the nomad Hassan, Prince of the Desert. Hassan takes them to Alexandria for an audience with the Pasha of Egypt, who orders him to deliver the exotic animal as a gift to King Charles of France.
After his love (Amina) is snatched from a dream by a powerful and evil Djinn, a man (Imad) must overcome the three great vices of man – Fear, Greed, and Lust, in order to save her. His journey will take him through the “Black Desert” and beyond, with only the guide of an angel, fortune-teller, and his own inspiration for Amina to help him.
Jessie Valiquette follows her scribe boyfriend of 3 years Dale Morrow on a search for his long lost Father last heard from on a deserted island in the Philippines. Along with a group of unwitting friends, the young couple encounters more than they bargained for when they discover not only was Dale’s father part of a top-secret government project testing the depth of people’s fears, but also that he had very good reason for not wanting to be found. Written by In-Motion Pictures
The Xbox Originals documentary that chronicles the fall of the Atari Corporation through the lens of one of the biggest mysteries of all time, dubbed “The Great Video Game Burial of 1983.” Rumor claims that millions of returned and unsold E.T. cartridges were buried in the desert, but what really happened there?
An advocate of sex, but not of marriage, bachelor Daegyu (played by singer-turned-actor Im Changjeon), 26, produces bootleg music albums for a living. One day, he comes across a plucky, nine-year-old boy named Jeon Ingwon (played by Lee Inseong) who insists that he is Daegyu’s son born out of wedlock. Daegyu tries every possible means to send the bold boy back to where he came from, including reporting him to the police, deserting him on the street and even pretending not to have known him, but to no avail. Ingwon makes an offer to Daegyu: he will leave him forever if they first travel across the country together. During the journey, Daegyu comes to learn Ingwon’s secret and finds a reason not to continue their cross-land journey.
A small film crew tracks three extreme runners across the Sahara desert, capturing their incredible journey on camera, recording this landmark moment in athleticism, in humanitarianism, and in history. The “Running the Sahara” expedition is a documentary film narrated by Academy Award™-winner Matt Damon and directed by Academy Award™-winner James Moll. The “Running the Sahara” documentary explores the physical and emotional impact of this tremendous test of strength and determination. The film’s narrative follows the runners on their quest, each step toward the finish line building in great anticipation of answering the question: Can this amazing human feat truly be possible?
Yul Brynner plays political leader Sharif who is sprung from a police van on his way to a firing squad by young loyalists led by Sal Mineo. Yul and the other prisoners kidnap an ambulance and head into the Arabian desert with the police in hot pursuit. All the performances are magnificent: Sal Mineo showing his acting talents, Jack Warden in a wiseguy performance as an employee of Zahrain oil who was involved in embezzlement, Anthony Caruso as a slimy psychotic and the underrated Madlyn Rhue as a nurse who becomes emotionally involved in the proceedings.
Patch Town, inspired by the award-winning short film of the same name. After years in a loving home, Jon, a toy, was forgotten, deserted and ultimately betrayed by his adoptive mother. He returns to live a sad life as a worker on the line; a life of factory work and oppression in a place where hundreds of cabbage babies are born every day. The thankless task of shucking, picking, and processing these newborns to go out into the world and to their new mothers has taken its toll on Jon. With each new birth, Jon slips deeper into sadness, lamenting the days when life was good and he was loved.
Filmmaker Talya Lavie steps into the spotlight with a dark comedy about everyday life for a unit of young female Israeli soldiers. The human resources office at a remote desert base serves as the setting for this cast of characters, who bide their time pushing paper, battling for the top score in Minesweeper, and counting down the minutes until they can return to civilian life. Amidst their boredom and clashing personalities, issues of commitment—from friendship to love and country—are handled with humor and sharp-edged wit. In Hebrew with subtitles.
Siberia. Late autumn. In taiga, in the deserted village there lives an old man Ivan & his seven-year-old grandson Leshia. A pack of feral dogs devours everything alive in the neighborhood. One of these dogs is Leshia’s best friend. Sometimes their relative uncle Yuri brings food to them. Once on his way back from Ivan’s village uncle Yuri is attacked by dogs & perishes. Ivan & Leshia stay without supply. Once Leshia witnesses Ivan shooting at ‘his’ dog & runs away. The old Man finds him in a dry well, but he fails to get him out on his own. Ivan sets out through taiga in search of help. Now the dogs are hunting him… And the boy is waiting for his father…
Julie, six months pregnant, and her boyfriend Trent arrive at a tiny Cape Cod cabin for some time to relax. The town is quiet and deserted during the off season… except for Sully, the creepy guy who’s keeping an eye on the couple from a distance. And then there’s Jonathan, Julie’s husband, who she thinks she sees across town. With the divorce still being finalized, he can’t find out that she’s on a romantic retreat with another man…
An imaginative teenage girl, living in a mystical and dangerous community built on a deserted drive-in movie lot along the Texas/Oklahoma border, struggles to realize her potential, and escape the world she was born into.
Writer, philosopher, alcoholic, and MMA fighter Evan Tanner died mysteriously in the desert of Clapp Springs, California. He was searching for treasure but not the material kind. This feature length biopic focuses on fifty people whose lives he forever changed as they try to figure out who he really was and the reason behind his untimely death.
Fran, an unemployed slacker and best friend The Lord of Evil and darkness are two lost souls on a road trip through the Southern California desert. They pick up a hitchhiker, who claims to be an Alien from the planet Zoltran.
Three young adults meet a charismatic stranger at closing time of the bar where they work. They accept an invitation to join a late night gathering he is attending with some friends in a secluded desert house. At first charmed by their interesting hosts, a violent encounter changes the tone of their evening, and the group begins to realize that all may not be as it seems with their new acquaintances. Faced now with a decision to either wait out the morning or plot an escape, they contend not only with the ambiguous true nature of their hosts, but also strange, unknown humanoid creatures roaming the desert who may pose a threat to all involved.
Germany, 1945. Soldier Willi Herold, become a deserter of the German army, stumbles into a uniform of Nazi captain abandoned during the last and desperate weeks of the Third Reich. Newly emboldened by the allure of a suit that he has stolen only to stay warm, Willi discovers that many Germans will follow the leader, whoever he is.
Harry and Beth wanted a different kind of holiday so they chartered a boat to drop them off on a remote coral island on the Great Barrier Reef. The island was idyllic, surrounded by a wide reef, covered in palms and full of birds and other wildlife. It was small and totally deserted or so they thought. But when things go missing from their camp site and they discover someone else’s footprints in the sand this quickly becomes disturbing as they realize the island has a ghost! Inspired by actual events.
From acclaimed documentary film director Dana Brown (Dust to Glory, On Any Sunday – The Next Chapter, Highwater and Step Into Liquid) comes Dust 2 Glory, the much-anticipated motorsports action documentary. This special one-night event will be the most in-depth and dramatic exploration of the world’s toughest point-to-point desert race ever created, the SCORE Baja 1000, and will feature exclusive interviews with Brown and legendary drivers.
Sonny Steele used to be a rodeo star, but his next appearance is to be on a Las Vegas stage, wearing a suit covered in lights, advertising a breakfast cereal. When he finds out they are going drug the horse in case its too frisky, he rides off into the desert…
In the year 3978 global warming has made a desert of the North Pole. Santa and Mrs. Claus battle angry skeletons who didn’t get what they wanted for Christmas. Evil aliens try to take over the world and a giant abominable snow man wants Santa for his next meal.
A group of family and friends on a camping trip through the Texas badlands are taken on a on-way ride to Hell after they inadvertently witness a ritual sacrifice at a deserted campsite. Pursued by the devil worshiping biker gang responsible, they hole up in an abandoned church near the border, only to discover that they are pawns in a decades-old battle between good and evil.
Set in 1845, this drama follows a group of settlers as they embark on a punishing journey along the Oregon Trail. When their guide leads them astray, the expedition is forced to contend with the unforgiving conditions of the high plain desert.
Our two-hour film highlights the life and career of Dr. Schreiber with respect and clarity. Raemer, his wife Marge, and young daughter Paula would move to the high-desert of New Mexico where he and other brilliant minds would change the world forever.
Jack is a wanderer whose aimless roaming leads him to a number of interesting locations and into the company of many interesting people, and despite his fascination with bullfighting he leads a largely peaceful existence. When a crime boss’ daughter is accidentally gored to death, Jack is implicated in the unfortunate event and singled out for termination by a seemingly unending army of lethal hitmen. As Jack wages an uphill battle for survival against the harsh desert terrain and a hail of gun smoke and lead, his will to live depends on his ability to exercise his demons and come to terms with the fact that he may not live to see another sunrise.
