A cruise ship and 3,000 men – it is a universe without heteros and women that usually remains a mystery to the outside world. Once a year the Dream Boat sets sail for a cruise exclusively for gay men where most passengers are united by the wish to live life authentically as themselves in a protected place.
Startups are using AI to create avatars that allow relatives to talk with their loved ones after they have died. An exploration of a profound human desire and the consequences of turning the dream of immortality into a product.
A deep dive into the hidden industry of digital cleaning, which rids the Internet of unwanted violence, porn and political content.
In 1914 Sir Ernest Shackleton's Imperial Trans Antarctic Expedition headed for the South Pole and disaster. Shackleton's Captain reveals the truth behind the spectacular survival of all the crew and shows how one man's extraordinary skill and unsung heroism made it possible: Frank Worsley, Captain of the expedition ship, Endurance.
GAZA brings us into a unique place beyond the reach of television news reports to reveal a world rich with eloquent and resilient characters, offering us a cinematic and enriching portrait of a people attempting to lead meaningful lives against the rubble of perennial conflict. Throughout its entire history the Gaza Strip has been witness to conflict and upheaval. From ancient times this tiny coastal territory, located at a crossroads between continents, has been a pawn whose fate rested in the hands of powerful neighbours.
The story of how Aurora Mardiganian (1901-94), a survivor of the Armenian genocide perpetrated by the Ottoman Empire (1915-17), became a Hollywood silent film star.
A group of Kuchi children are living in a minefield around Bagram airfield, Afghanistan. They dig out anti-personal mines in order to sell the explosives to child workers mining in a Lappis Lazulli mine. The trajectory of the blue precious stones goes towards Tajikistan and China, through an area controlled by child soldiers. When they are not waging their own mini-wars in the daily madness of life in Afghanistan, the children are fleeing away in their personal fantasies and dreams, while the American soldiers are planning their retreat...
Documentary following the new board of FC Barcelona as they attempt to turn around the club's business performance.
August 1942: Amidst the unimaginable suffering inflicted during the blockade of Leningrad by the German Wehrmacht, an orchestra director was given an almost impossible task: to stage the premiere of Dimitri Shostakovitch's "Leningrad Symphony". The performance became a symbol of the brief triumph of culture over the barbarism of war.
April 1945. In a dramatic operation the SS transports 139 special prisoners, and kin of the prisoners, into the Alps. The plan: to use the prisoners as bargaining chips in possible negotiations with the Allies. During the journey a number of prisoners plan their escape and experience six days between liberty and death, their fates in the hands of ruthless and increasingly nervous criminals. But the hostages band together and turn the tables with a clever ploy: they call in the Wehrmacht to aid them…
A documentary detective film about the construction of a 870 kilometres long highspeed railway line that started with a dream to connect the Baltic States to rest of the Europe when in 1991 Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania regained their independence from Soviet Union. Filmmaker Kārlis Lesiņš becomes a ‘citizen-investigator’ and goes on the road to find out why after 30 years and with only few years before the intended launch of the Rail Baltica railway line, the construction of this EU-funded project is significantly behind the schedule, over the budget and may never be finished at all. Kārlis follows the trail of Rail Baltica project, trying to get the answers - what has happened and what is happening? Traveling through all the involved countries, he meets officials, military personnel, investigative journalists, people whose land will be expropriated, employees implementing the project and potentially benefiting entrepreneurs, who open up to him with their versions of the story.
In times of rampant populism and increasing distrust of the elite, the filmmaker accompanies the 81-year-old founder of the controversial World Economic Forum over the period of one year in his efforts to implement his leitmotif: to improve the state of the world. Can the WEF contribute to solving global problems? Or is it rather an integral part of the problem?
At the bottom of the world is a place of wild isolation. Antarctica. Its vastness and extremes defy description. From volcanoes to glaciers... and peaks that scrape the sky, its geography is like nothing else in the world. Its wildlife embraces harsh, alien landscapes. And the people that make their home there for part of the year survive amidst unbelievable conditions, thanks to some of the most creative problem-solving on the planet. Filmed principally in the Sub-Antarctic and Ross Sea region as a series of vignettes - each based around one astonishing location after another - viewers will explore one of the most remote, and least-visited parts of the continent; less than 500 tourists make the journey to this region each year. Few places on earth capture the imagination like the great white continent. Now see it as it’s never been viewed before.
The production of phones has a dark, bloody side. The main part of minerals used to produce phones is coming from the mines in the Eastern DR Congo. The Western World is buying these so-called conflict minerals and thereby finances a civil war that, according to human rights organisations, has been the bloodiest conflict since World War II: During the last 15 years the conflict has cost the lives of more than 5 million people and 300,000 women have been raped. The war will continue as long as armed groups can finance their warfare by selling minerals. The Documentary Blood in the Mobile shows the connection between our phones and the civil war in the Congo. Director Frank Poulsen travels to DR Congo to see the illegal mine industry with his own eyes. He gets access to Congo s largest tin-mine, which is being controlled by different armed groups, and where children work for days in narrow mine tunnels to dig out the minerals that end up in our phones.
It is an unknown chapter of the German post-war history: On April 23rd, 1949, the kingdom of the Netherlands occupied German soil as a pledge for demanded war reparations. Part of the annexed territories was also the small municipality of Elten. While the people of Elten were initially afraid of the occupation, the time “with Holland” actually became a miracle of prosperity and economy about which many people from Elten still rave today. The occupation period ended with the largest organized smuggling in the history of the federal republic of Germany. The Documentary shows this in never before released 8 mm footage!
When Gaia the bear kills Andrea Papi in Trentino, Italy, the region’s inhabitants sound the alarm: could the tragedy have been avoided? Gaia is one of several problem children from a “troublesome bear family.” Her brother Bruno achieved questionable fame in Germany and met his death there. Can humans and bears coexist at all in the densely populated Alpine region?
Khalo Matabane spent two years making the film, interviewing those who knew and loved Mandela, and also those who criticised him. Global thinkers, politicians and artists including the Dalai Lama, Henry Kissinger and Ariel Dorfman talk about the effect of his policies and his decision making. Their thoughts are weighed equally with ordinary South Africans like Charity Kondile, who refuses to forgive her son's apartheid operative murderer. Through these interviews, completed in the last months of Mandela's life, Matabane interrogates for himself the meaning of freedom, reconciliation and forgiveness. By doing so he challenges Mandela's enduring impact in today's world of conflict and inequality. Thought-provoking and reflective, Mandela, the Myth and Me is a moving film which frames Mandela from a fresh, deeply personal perspective. (Storyville)
