When NBC News assigned Alexandra Pelosi to cover Texas Governor George W. Bush’s presidential campaign, she decided to take her video camera along. Together with a pack of fellow journalists, she is led from one phoney photo op to another, in chartered planes and buses, to feed the media machine’s insatiable appetite for US election
In this despairing, yet enthralling view of the Brazilian justice system, Ramos’s fly-on-the-wall documentary covers all aspects of trial in Rio’s overcrowded judicial system; pristine courtrooms contrast dramatically with the vile and heaving remand conditions where prisoners chant songs on the many merits of justice. Perceptively filmed, Ramos interviews a career-oriented judge, a sympathetic and
Featuring crisp B&W images and with a minimal monotone voice-over, Cole records the cross-Sahara journey that, 11 months and 8 dead camels later, earned him a place in the Guinness Book of Records. This ‘achievement’ was not what drove him to it. Rather, it was his obsessive need to conquer death that made him put
Peter has decided to give up smoking. To strengthen his resolve, he embarks on a strict smokeless walk across country from Zurich to the town of his (and his smoking addiction’s) origin, St Gallen. Although Peter fails to throw off the addiction twice and has to return to St Gallen by increasingly obscure routes, this
A portrait of the women’s organization in India, called SEWA, that holds to the simple yet radical belief that poor women need organizing, not welfare.
An intimate glimpse into the life of one of the greatest concert pianists alive, the Argentinian Martha Argerich. Talent and dedication don’t require histrionics: Argerich comes across as deeply sensitive and intelligent, in awe of her craft and those who have gone before her, paying particular homage to her teacher, Friedrich Gulda, as well as
The Mexican border town of Ciudad Juarez is a prime example of globalisation spun out of control. After a slew of US companies set up shop there, workers especially young women flooded in from the impoverished countryside. In the last decade 200 to 400 women fitting the same description have been abducted and killed. In
Three black Britons taking part in a groundbreaking genetic study into the ancestry of the UK’s African Caribbean community embark on an epic journey to the Motherland. Beaula is a youth worker from Bristol who traces her ancestry to a tiny island off Equatorial Guinea. She becomes an instant local celebrity when her reunion with
“I remember the forbidden back yard living quarters into which I often transgressed. My secret journey from our tiled and odourless kitchen into the enfolding smell of suurpap, lifebouy soap and bodies contained in that room.” This personal and evocative film is an eloquent testimony to the relationships that developed between young whites and their
My Body invites you on an interactive adventure of awareness which reveals how a society, obsessed with the physical attributes of women, breeds fears and anxieties that can cause crippling ailments. A funny and moving visual diary of one woman’s road to recovery, and an eloquent testimony to men and the healing powers of the mind.
Raising one disabled child is too onerous a burden for many parents, which must make Susan Tom something of a Mother Theresa. This Californian single mum cares for no fewer than nine special-needs children she fosters. They include two legless girls who like bouncing on a trampoline and flirting with the boys at school; another,
Yulie Cohen Gerstel was once a staunch Israeli nationalist. She grew up in Ariel Sharon’s neighbourhood, served as an Israeli army officer and was shot by a PLO terrorist. Two decades later, Gerstel is a disillusioned patriot who blames her government for fuelling Palestinian hatred with brutal reprisals in response to suicide attacks. Determined to
An intriguing glimpse of a community of Iranian heroin addicts living in a cemetery. Outcasts from society, these men and women have found a place where they can ride their ecstatic dreams while huddling in underground tombs and sunken graves, or lying supine on sun-baked slabs. Some are resigned to an imminent death, even seeking
A gritty, hard-hitting account of the war between Brazil’s drug runners and police which exposes the explosive forces underlying this deeply divided society. The film takes viewers into the homes and minds of Rio’s favela dwellers – from ordinary housewives to hardened killers – where children are turned into gun-toting thugs. Armed to the teeth
When Barry Stevens was 18, he found out he was conceived by artificial insemination. A detective story with a difference, Offspring documents Barry’s often hilarious efforts, more than 30 years later, to find out who his real father was. In looking for possible DNA matches with sperm donors, Barry edges closer to the truth about
This is an extraordinary film about an extraordinary spectacle: bullfighting. The film challenges the audience to look beyond their preconception of this vainglorious pastime and accept bullfighting for what it is. The man who grows and loves the bulls, the strutting torero and his fearful mother, the women who sew the sequins and brocade, the
1989 marked an unprecedented event in modern history, it was the first time a country put to the vote whether or not it wanted an army. While celebrations for the 50-year commemoration of the outbreak of World War II are well under way, a more liberal Swiss element collects thousands of signatures to support the
Radio technician Ricardo Martinez left his home and family in the 1950s to join Castro’s forces fighting to overthrow the Batista regime and remained committed to the revolution. His daughter Miriam, disillusioned by modern Cuba, abandons her homeland to begin anew in America. Frei trails Miriam as she takes leave of friends and family, capturing
Employing her trademark fly-on-the-wall style, this time in a shelter for runaways in Tehran, award-winning director Kim Longinotto returns to the subject of Iranian women living in a society which is modernising its public institutions, yet still essentially patriarchal at a domestic level. With often painful persistence the camera records runaways recounting harrowing tales of
As part of the genocide enacted on the Cambodian people by Pol Pot in the 1970s, guards at the infamous detention centre S21 (code name for Tuol Sleng) interrogated and executed over 17,000 “threats to the state”. Survivor Panh, whose ability to paint saved his life, invites two survivors to meet with four guards at
In 1967 Che Guevara was captured in the Bolivian jungle and shot dead. Ever since, history books have held his former lieutenant Ciro Bustos responsible. Now, for the first time, Bustos tells his side of the story. In a relentless effort to get to the truth behind the myth, Gandini and Saleh track down key
The visually dazzling contrasts of horizon-less snowy expanses and lush seasonal vegetation of the Tundra is the setting for this unusual film. Director Lapsui weaves a number of legends and her own experiences into stories that document and describe the life of the Nenets, the nomadic people who hunt and fish in the Russian tundra.
A provocative romp through the life of self-proclaimed sex performance artist Annabel Chong, who set a world record by having intercourse with 251 men during a marathon 10-hour session. Although the film includes graphic footage of the event, it goes beyond simply being porn dressed up as art. During interviews and chat-show clips, Chong presents
The lines between documentary, reality and fiction blur in this voyeuristic journey into the underworld. A Cape Town film crew is hired and told that the assignment is a profile of a juvenile Cape Flats gang member. Meanwhile, a behind-the-scenes camera captures crew members hotly debating the moral issues raised, particularly the dilemma that they