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- What is consciousness? Is it in all living beings? What happens when we die? Why do we seem to be hardwired for mystical experience? In these times of existential crisis, there has been an explosion of research into consciousness. After four centuries of silence, scientists are confronting the "Big Questions", cutting a window into a realm previously held tight by philosophy and religion: AWARE follows six brilliant researchers, approaching the greatest of all mysteries from radically different perspectives, from within and without: through high-tech brain research and Eastern meditation, by scientifically exploring inner space through psychedelic substances and by investigating the consciousness of plants. Scientists are arriving at new insights - some have been integral to Indigenous knowledge for millenia. AWARE opens as a science film but emerges well beyond the explicable, ultimately leading one on a voyage upon the ocean of consciousness, a contemplative, sensual, cinematographic meditation. The networks of consciousness are reflected in 'grand' imagery revealing the vast interconnectedness of Nature - from the smallest organisms, to the world of plants and animals and on to the cosmos. It invites one to experience the awe and mystery of life as the researchers do, to dive in with them, returning to see the world anew, to review long-held beliefs and assumptions and initiate one's own oceanic journey. Ultimately, to be aware one is aware. With Richard Boothby, Monica Gagliano, Roland Griffiths, Josefa Kirvin Kulix, Christof Koch, Matthieu Ricard and Mingyur Rinpoche.
- When former pro swimmer Sara and her sister Yusra arrived in Germany from war-torn Syria they were Europe's most celebrated refugees. Now Sara is facing a 20-year prison sentence for volunteering with a Greek NGO, helping other refugees.
- Locals emerge from their shelters, corpses are lying in the streets of Bucha. The trauma is clear to see. But life needs to go on. At first, all is despair-But these Ukrainians reveal their resilience.
- The film explores the only known case in the history of post-WWII era of concentration camp survivors helping the SS Commandant of the Auschwitz and Ravensbruck camps to escape prison and justice in Nazi trial.
- A star dancer at the Cambodian royal court lovingly raises her husband's little brother as her own son. Decades later, as a forced laborer under the oppressive rule of Khmer Rouge, she discovers that her foster son is none other than Pol Pot. The mass purges of the regime (spanning from 1975 to 1979 - Pol Pot annihilated 25% of Cambodia's population) are intertwined with painful memories of the relatives of the bloodthirsty dictator, who today stage an impressive dance performance depicting an encounter between the leader of the Khmer Rouge and his foster mother. In this stunning documentary, valuable archival material is seamlessly combined with the images of the dancers, the traditional costumes, and the descriptions of the deep significance behind this major cultural expression of the Cambodian people, offering a flawless outcome, one that is profoundly melancholic, beautiful, and yet at the same time tragic. Art serves as pain relief for the greatest open wounds of History.
- Countries - People - Adventure.
- Assange remains a remand prisoner at U.K.'s maximum security Belmarsh Prison as he appeals an extradition order to the U.S. where he could face 175 years in prison for his role in the release of classified U.S. diplomatic files.
- An inspiring portrait of Margaret Bourke-White, Martha Gellhorn and Lee Miller, three pioneering journalists who made history as the first female correspondents to report on the Second World War.
- Since the uprising of a pro Russian insurgency in eastern Ukraine in 2014, hundreds of woman joined the army. Only a few made it to the front line. Filmmaker Masha embeds herself in the war zone to follow the daily life of three of them. By sharing the intimacy of these fighters, Masha soon becomes a victim of this brotherhood conflict jeopardizing this film and her life.
- Exploration and documentation of the global effects of the male potency enhancer Viagra, 20 years after the launch of the substance.
- 45 years ago, with the victory of the revolution in Nicaragua, an era of hope begins. A young generation takes over the government with the ambitious goal of building a fairer and more socially just society. In the 1980s, 15,000 "brigadists" from West Germany alone traveled to Nicaragua to help rebuild the exhausted country: liberals, Greens, trade unionists, social democrats, leftists and church representatives harvested coffee and cotton, built schools, kindergartens and health stations. No other movement has mobilized so many people. Director Petra Hoffmann is also involved. 45 years after the victory of the revolution, she asks what has become of the wishes and dreams of the revolutionaries and their supporters.
- He was an icon, flamboyant pianist, egomaniac, showman par excellence: Liberace - the King of Bling, led his life in the fast lanes between Hollywood, Las Vegas and Palm Springs. In the middle of the Californian desert, where Hollywood stars celebrated wild parties around private pools, he lived a paradoxical life of spectacle and secrecy, illusion and reality. His success is closely linked to the growing popularity of television and the American TV era. Scores of American housewives adored the musician who could play everything from jazz to classic. His public life was as paradoxical as his performances were glamorous. No other artist cultivated such an openly camp persona on America's biggest stages while at the same time vehemently refusing to come out as gay, a facade Liberace kept up until his death. He was one of the first celebrities to die of complications from the AIDS virus, although his death was officially attributed to "heart failure" in order to preserve the memory of the one-man Disneyland. We examine his stellar career and its abrupt end in the context of America's social and media history. Liberace's story reflects the American dream - but also the country's bigotry and the divisions of a rapidly growing society.
- We tell the story of a man who dedicated his life to preserving the Church, but instead led it into its greatest crisis: Joseph Ratzinger, Pope Benedict XVI. During his 30 years working within the Vatican he was the key figure in restoring fundamental Catholic doctrine after a brief period of modernization in the 1960s. Our interview partners, who have all worked within the clerical system, describe how Ratzinger's policies contributed to the dramatic loss of moral authority that the Church suffers from today. We deal with Ratzinger's past to understand his mind-set. We treat his key advisers - many of whom were involved in the cover-up of the global child sex abuse crisis and were implicated in corruption scandals. An epic story, with a tragic hero in the central role. Ratzinger, who believed that truth could exclusively be found in the teachings of the Church and that contemporary society was lost if it did not rediscover its Catholic values, was forced to acknowledge that his greatest enemies were inside the Church, even among his inner circle. By the time that he became aware of his errors, he found himself surrounded by chaos and enemies, his world crumbling around him.
- What happens when eco-minded, city-dwelling Berliners move in with Polish farmers in the country? Is there something tangible and enlightening to the substantive changes healthy living can offer, and who decides what is a healthy life? Take a charming, extraordinarily funny look at how friendship and communication can overcome boundaries, and how nourishing the mind, body, and spirit begins with love and respect for Mother Earth.
- Director Mina Keshavarz recently discovered a family secret about her grandmother's death. Her grandmother, forced to marry at a young age, gave birth to seven children and took her own life at the age of 35 during her eighth pregnancy. Domestic violence against women is an impractical concept under Iranian law that regards daughters and wives as the property of patriarchs. Mina sees her grandmother's suicide as "revenge for all injustice" and goes out onto the streets with five female lawyers who have raised their voices on gender equality and criminalization of domestic violence. The Art of Living in Danger retraces the past and present status of Iranian women with the director's intimate voice-over.
- Maximilian Grünfeld spoke Yiddish, lived in Czechoslovakia, lost his family to Nazi concentration camps, and had no business experience. Martin Greenfield lives in Brooklyn, speaks English, hand-tailors suits for U.S. presidents, and runs a bespoke clothing empire with high society clients and friends. This is one and the same man, who is now a 91-year-old fashion legend, tailor to U.S. presidents and stars, and bon vivant about town. Mr. Greenfield is a feature documentary telling the story of how one man became the other, against all odds, and how he now grapples with his own legacy.
- The adventurous saga of the Swiss bridge builder Othmar H. Ammann, who moved to America as a young engineer - and created modern icons in New York with his visionary suspension bridges.
- After a defining experience on the Lofoten islands, German filmmaker Steffen Krones starts building buoys to track the path of plastic waste from Dresden through german and international waters.
- After sustaining serious injuries, MOSES (28) - a former premier league player from Nigeria - is forced to accept that his football career has come to an end. In order to stay in the game, he transforms himself into a talent scout and embarks on a mission to bring young and aspiring African players to Europe. Tempting them with big promises that seem impossible to keep, Moses soon finds himself entangled in football's infamous player trade, a system he once loathed himself. Because Moses once too was one of the thousands of African football play- ers that come to Europe to follow in the footsteps of their heroes Sadio Manee, Yaya Touree, Didier Drogba and many others. But only a happy few will succeed in building a professional career on a European football pitch. For every successful African football player, thousands remain in the shadows, not making it professionally, and not able to return to Africa, out of shame and fear of disappointing their families back home. They keep roaming around Europe, with no papers and no safety net. You can find these stranded players on fields in the suburbs of large European cities. There, they train to stay fit, hoping as yet for their breakthrough.
- British surrealist Leonora Carrington was a key part of the surrealist movement during its heyday in Paris and yet, until recently, remained a virtual unknown in the country of her birth.
- The fruit of long reflection and a personal quest for understanding, this essential documentary aims to highlight the discrimination suffered by gay people in Cameroon, where same-gender sexual orientation is considered a crime and is punishable by law, with a maximum sentence of six years in prison. In 2013, the young journalist Eric Lembembe was murdered in Cameroon. He was tortured and beaten to death because he was gay and had fought for gay rights. Shocked by this gruesome murder in his home country, filmmaker Appolain Siewe sets off for Cameroon to find out more about the situation of LGBTQI+ people there. He soon realizes that Lembembe's murder is no isolated case. Same-gender sexual orientation is still a criminal offense in Cameroon, as it is in almost all African countries. Being gay is completely taboo and is considered an embarrassment for families. While making the film, Siewe examines his own homophobic upbringing and seeks contact with members of his family. Since living in Europe, his outlook has changed. For his father, on the other hand, making a film on the subject is enough for him to break off all contact. Why is homophobia so firmly anchored in Cameroon's society? What role does colonization have to play in this? Siewe's own experiences, moving encounters with activists who fight for tolerance in their country despite all the risks, and his conversations with Cameroonian scientists, sociologists, and human rights activists offer a comprehensive insight into society in Cameroon.
- March 5, 1953. Stalin is dead. One day later, he is lying in state in an open coffin as more than 1.5 million mourners make their way through the streets of Moscow to pay their last respects.
- Marimekko's philosophy of life emerged from the fabric designs of Maija Isola, reaching architectural heights together with Maija's large scale prints. Today, Maija Isola's fabric designs have conquered the whole world. But who was Maija Isola? What were the values at the centre of this vagabond's life, and what kind of a legacy did she leave us?
- When war came to their home, thousands of Ukrainian women took it upon themselves to become soldiers and lay their lives on the line for peace and freedom in their country. This feature documentary follows three of those women and the lives they never expected to lead.
- The Russian revolutionary year narrated from the point of view of the involved artists.
- "The Virgin Obsession" - In traditional Islam, like in so many other religions, sex is something that is reserved for marriage. What does this mean for young Muslims living in western secularized societies? The film maker himself has had a free upbringing, as there are many who do not share. And the fixation of honor and virgin is far from just girls. We can meet some of the film makers' friends, but also a psychologist, a lawyer and women's rights activists.
- Rising seas will be one of the biggest challenges we face in the next few centuries. Island states will disappear, coastlines will shift. On the basis of scientists' predictions, billions of dollars are being invested in coastal protection measures. But not everything can be protected.
- The film follows the everyday life of five actresses in Los Angeles at the bottom of the career ladder.
- A journey in time. Once a cosmopolitan city and religious and cultural melting pot, the former Jerusalem of the Balkans (Thessaloniki) experienced its decline in the 20th century. A shock that defines the city to this day.
- Venice embodies the original and ideal idea of a city: a place of meeting, social life and exchange. The city has remained a village, with its small stores, narrow streets and hidden courtyards, places where it is still possible to meet the few remaining inhabitants. A village that is now ruled by the tourism industry, which doesn't seem to have eyes for the city's hidden treasures. The documentary tells of Venice beyond tourism and cliches, seen through the eyes of those who have been called "the last Venetian", artisans and historical inhabitants of the lagoon who live the city with passion, culture and memory.
- Freddy Lim is a founder and singer of the famous black metal band Chthonic from Taiwan. Apart from that, he has been a member of the Taiwanese parliament since 2016, sitting on the committees for National Defence and Foreign Affairs. He is a member of a coalition working closely with Taiwan's first-ever female president. The film accompanies the rock star politician for his first year in political office as he opposes China's policy towards Taiwan and Tibet. As an activist fighting for human rights, he meets with the Dalai Lama, but also takes part in Donald Trump's inauguration even though he has many reservations about him. Freddy Lim is on the front line. But he still occasionally puts on his face paint and sings in a diabolical voice at the front of his black metal band. Strangely, the two worlds are coming together.
- How does dating and finding love work in an era where partnership has been radically redefined? All people share the yearning to connect and belong with others and the hope of experiencing genuine intimacy. Our three protagonists Sarah (Austria), Johanna (Germany) and Sampsa (Finland) search for love in very different ways and show that having faith in the most unusual of methods can open up undreamed of opportunities. MATCH ME! is a feature-length documentary, that follows the lives of the protagonists over a period of one year after their offline matching experiences. Interviews accompany the process of looking for and finding love throughout its various stages. In this way the film describes an experience that is simultaneously universal and uniquely personal.
- In 2013 an oil painting attributed to Leonardo da Vinci appears in Lugano: the portrait of Isabella d'Este, Marchioness of Mantua. The owner of the painting, Emidia Cecchini, is about to sell it for 140 million euros when Italy accuses her of illegal export. The painting is confiscated, but Switzerland does not release it. For 500 years it was not known whether Leonardo completed the portrait of Isabella d'Este, whose sketch is hanging in the Louvre. Experts' examinations of the painting show similarities with Leonardo da Vinci's way of working and estimate it was created during the Renaissance. For the first time, the photographs of these examinations are published in this film. The Italian Emidia Cecchini, who inherited the painting from her father, is sentenced to 14 months imprisonment by an Italian court for illegally exporting a cultural asset. Italy does not believe her that the painting has always belonged to her family and has been in Switzerland for many years and asks Switzerland for legal assistance and restitution of the painting. Will Switzerland follow Italy's request or protect the owner's property? The film tells the story of the painting and accompanies Emidia Cecchini in the struggle for her painting.
- Handmade utopias - a filmic search for the worldwide phenomenon of the micronation movement. Do-it-yourself states that have distanced themselves from the economic and political mainstreaming of globalization. A road movie covering land, water and the wildest realms of the imagination. Simultaneously creative documentary and pulsating cultural portrait, the film traces a new "unplugged" generation - their motives, their anxieties and their dreams. A film that shows how this generation realizes its escapist fantasies in new economic and political forms and how they collide with oppressive everyday realities.
- "Strange Fish" echoes Billie Holiday's song "Strange Fruit" in which, to general indifference, violence against coloured people is taken as normal, with « black bodies swinging in the southern breeze, strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees». In the South of the Mediterranean the feeling is the same. The fishermen in Zarzis, a Tunisian town on Libya's borders, set out each day wondering whether they will find a strange fish in their nets, the bloated corpse of a drowned migrant. But Strange Fish does not only show this drama, with its all-pervading indifference. It rather shows the deep and human response of the town's anonymous heroes. For 15 years, these fishermen have helped and saved thousands of people. "And if we find them already dead, we help them as well - we bury them", says Chamseddine Marzoug.
- He was a patron of science, a reformer, and might even be called the first modern ruler. Frederick II of Hohenstaufen, ruler of the Holy Roman Empire from 1212 to 1250, was an exceptional figure on the Roman-German imperial throne. Born and raised in the multi-ethnic state of Sicily, his reign was influenced by Byzantine and Norman traditions that allowed Jews and Muslims a large degree of freedom. All the royal houses in Europe are said to have looked up to him in awe. He saw himself as successor to the Roman emperors and ruler by the grace of God - a notion that was bound to collide with the Pope's claim to universal power. Frederick waged a bitter battle to maintain his power with five different popes. The Church excommunicated him several times and branded him a heretic and anti-Christ. Frederick responded with the sword, for the power-hungry emperor was prepared to resort to brutal violence to defend his supremacy. He even arrested his own son and left him to rot in the dungeon. A ruler rife with contradictions and a man who, 800 years after his death, has lost nothing of his fascination.
- Paula and Xana love horses and help out as often as possible on Lois' farm. Lois looks after neglected animals, which makes her all the more endearing. A touching filmic novella about a childhood in Spain and the first encounter with death.