California Company Town

Lee Anne Schmitt explores California's landscape and past to document the history of one-time boom towns built and abandoned by the industries that necessitated their creation. Sold as a limitless land expansive with free opportunity, California was actually, from its onset, fissured by the interwoven needs of private and public interests. Schmitt's film covers various locations through time, as the major industries of the early 20th century (mining, lumber, oil) give way to the military, eventually leading to multinational corporations, and the use of small towns as satellites for growing urban metropolises.

Dalangpanan

Despite being only a five-minute boat ride away from Cebu City, at the foot of the country’s record-breaking new expressway, Shell Island is an unfamiliar name to many Cebuanos today. “Dalangpanan” sheds light on the island, following a day in the life of one of its residents to uncover the stories and struggles of living on a forgotten, desolate land amidst progressive, bustling cities. Through the voices of the Shell locals, audiences learn why and how they ended up settling there, and what their future could possibly be. The documentary’s title, which literally translates to “refuge” in Cebuano, is a nod to what the island might mean to those living on it—a home, a source of hope, or even more.

Sea Spiders

A look at the everyday life of Tahitian natives.

The Mighty Quinn

Police chief Xavier Quinn investigates the gruesome murder of Donald Pater, one of the wealthiest residents on a Caribbean island. He was found decapitated in his Jacuzzi. Although the local political establishment, especially crooked Governor Chalk, insists that small-time thief Maubee is responsible, Xavier has his doubts. This view is complicated by the police chief's personal history with Maubee: The men have been friends since childhood.

The Living Sea

The Living Sea celebrates the beauty and power of the ocean as it explores our relationship with this complex and fragile environment. Using beautiful images of unspoiled healthy waters, The Living Sea offers hope for recovery engendered by productive scientific efforts. Oceanographers studying humpback whales, jellyfish, and deep-sea life show us that the more we understand the ocean and its inhabitants, the more we will know how to protect them. The film also highlights the Central Pacific islands of Palau, one of the most spectacular underwater habitats in the world, to show the beauty and potential of a healthy ocean.

Cuba, l'île bleue/verte

Will Cubans be able to safeguard their heritage of pristine Nature and preserved ecological treasures under this new era, as they are facing the combined pressure of money and tourism? What policies can be implemented to maintain the island’s spectacular wilderness?

Matewan

Filmed in the coal country of West Virginia, "Matewan" celebrates labor organizing in the context of a 1920s work stoppage. Union organizer, Joe Kenehan, a scab named "Few Clothes" Johnson and a sympathetic mayor and police chief heroically fight the power represented by a coal company and Matewan's vested interests so that justice and workers' rights need not take a back seat to squalid working conditions, exploitation and the bottom line.

An Island Invaded

Five Guamanians interviewed in the early 2000s recall the Japanese bombing of Guam on 7 December 1941, and the years of food shortages, abuses, and other hardships that followed. They describe their childhood lives before, during, and after the island's occupation by Japanese soldiers.

Osmi povjerenik

Siniša Mesjak, an arrogant and ambitious politician on the rise, finds himself in the middle of a scandal. To hide him from the public, the president appoints him as the commissioner of Croatian government on the furthest settled island Trečić, where he is tasked with the organization of local elections. The previous seven commissioners haven't succeeded.

김복남 살인사건의 전말

A disillusioned Seoul woman visits a remote island to reconnect with a childhood friend, only to find her trapped in an oppressive cycle of physical, mental, and sexual abuse. As tensions escalate, the situation spirals into a harrowing tale of survival and retribution.

La Corse, belle et méditerranéenne

The Goddess and the Computer

For centuries, rice farmers on the island of Bali have taken great care not to offend Dewi Danu, the water goddess who dwells in the crater lake near the peak of Batur volcano. Through an analysis of ritual, resource management practices (planting schedules, irrigation vs. conservation, etc) and social organization, anthropologist Steve Lansing and ecologist James Kremer discover the intricacy and sustainability of this ancient water management agricultural system.

Eylül Fırtınası

In the early days of the September 12 military coup, five-year-old Metin waits for his mother, singing to himself as he looks out the window. But his mother, Ayten, has been arrested and sent to prison. Since the child is alone at home, they take him to his mother in her cell, but despite all her jokes and games, Metin is aware of what is happening. The next day, Metin's grandfather Hüseyin Efe, who lives on Bozcaada, comes to take him, and Metin's days of freedom on the island begin. His friends exclude him because of the "communist" label his mother has been given. Yet Metin cannot even properly say the word "communist." Metin, affected by the exclusion, has another concern: his father’s photo is also on the “Wanted” posters hanging all over the island.

Heartwood

When a large corporation threatens to take over a small town's primary business and put half of the town's population out of work, sawmill owner Logan Reeser is the only one who can stand in their way.

L'énigme des éléphants d'Andaman

Le bruit des arbres

At 17, Jérémie dreams of a better place, far from the family sawmill and his native village in Bas-Saint-Laurent. The situation despairs his father Régis, who blames a small-time drug dealer for this disinterest. When the older brother leaves, the lives of Jérémie and Régis are turned upside down.

The Navigators: Pathfinders of the Pacific

In hand-built, double-hulled canoes sixty feet long, the ancestors of today's Polynesians sailed vast distances using only the waves, the stars, and the flights of birds to navigate. Anthropologist Sanford Low visits the Caroline Islands of Micronesia to meet Mau Piailug, the last navigator initiated on his island and one of few men still practicing this once-essential art. He demonstrates his skill by sailing a replica canoe 2500 miles from Hawaii to Tahiti with no modern navigational instruments.

자산어보

When the scholar Jeong Yak-jeon is exiled to Heuksando Island during the Catholic Persecution of 1801, he decides to write a fish-based encyclopaedia.

Oileán Eile

An Blascaod Mór, Great Blasket Island, is an islet off the southwest coast of the Irish mainland. For years, a declining population and treacherous waters had made life there risky. In 1953, the Irish government evacuated the 22 remaining residents of An Blascaod Mór to the nearby village of Dún Chaoin. This documentary examines aspects of the island's history and literary legacy, and features interviews with former islanders.

Guadeloupe, l’île Papillon