Renouer avec le vivant

道頓堀よ、泣かせてくれ! DOCUMENTARY of NMB48

Launched in 2011 as a sister group to girl band behemoth AKB48, the Osaka-based NMB48 has become a musical force itself. With a string of No.1 hit singles and albums, not to mention sell-out performances, NMB48 continues Japan’s pop-music phenomena. Director Funahashi Atsushi, whose documentary work has previously chronicled such harrowing events as the Fukushima nuclear meltdown, pulls back the curtain on the life and struggles of the band members and the workings of the idol-making industry.

Cult People

In interviews, various actors and directors discuss their careers and their involvement in the making of what has come to be known as "cult" films. Included are such well-known genre figures as Russ Meyer, Curtis Harrington, Cameron Mitchell and James Karen.

Who Killed Fourth Ward?

Originally founded as Freedman’s Town after the Civil War, The Fourth Ward is one of the oldest and most culturally significant black communities in Houston, Texas. In the 1970s, the city along with big business interests planned to redevelop the Fourth Ward in order to revitalize the dilapidated real estate and freshen the image of downtown Houston. The price of progress in this case would be the removal of many poor black families. The film explores a complex series of encounters with elected city officials, businessmen and the people of Fourth Ward in order to better understand how a city like Houston works. Who makes the decisions about where resources are spent and so determines the growth and wealth of the community.

Chasing Bonnie & Clyde

'Don't build prisons, they cost too much!' In this era of Great Recession, the conservative and tough-on-crime State of Texas takes an unprecedented path by becoming a social justice leader with programs that rehabilitate offenders. Looks like rape, abuse and death are no longer parts of the solution for modern-day Bonnie and Clyde...

Killing for Culture: The Birth of Atrocity Cinema

A feature-length documentary film adaptation of the 1994 non-fiction book of the same name, chronicling the history of Mondo cinema and the "death film".

Floral Japan

This Traveltalk visit to Japan starts with a look at the country's cherry blossom trees, tulips, and ubiquitous gardens. We then see the proper manner for preparing a woman's hair and wearing a kimono.

Wanda Gosciminska - wlókniarka

The life of a female weaver is thrown onto the socio-political canvas of pre-war and post-war communist Poland through the use of expressive allegorical and symbolic imagery in this imaginative take on the documentary form.

Samurai Headhunters

A documentary on the dark and brutal side of the Samurai warrior clans featuring the life of peasant Masa who is pressganged into the ruthless world of the Samurai.

La face cachée des énergies vertes

Faced with climate change, many countries have embarked on the energy transition. Since the COP21 in 2015, which set demanding targets for reducing greenhouse gases, green energies have been on the rise. The electric car has thus become the mascot of this revolution. But manufacturers remain discreet about the carbon footprint of their cars marked "zero emission". Because not only do they consume electricity that is not always clean, but they also consume rare metals such as cobalt or lithium, the extraction of which causes havoc on the other side of the world. In China, for example, champion of rare metals, in Heilongjiang province, a carpet of toxic dust covers agricultural regions.

A Cam Life

An undaunted look into the cam business from performers and clients to website and studio owners.

HyperNormalisation

We live in a world where the powerful deceive us. We know they lie. They know we know they lie. They do not care. We say we care, but we do nothing, and nothing ever changes. It is normal. Welcome to the post-truth world. How we got to where we are now…

Sete Anos em Maio

One night seven years ago, Rafael came home after work and discovered that people he did not know had come looking for him. He immediately fled, without looking back. From that moment on, his life changed, as if that night had never ended. One evening, around an improvised fire near a factory, he decides to confide his journey to a stranger. Rafael’s intimate account meets the collective testimony of an entire nation oppressed by poverty, police repression and institutional corruption.

理大圍城

In 2019, Hong Kong was swept by demonstrations against the controversial extradition bill. At the Polytechnic University, a group of students also takes a stand for freedom and democracy. Negotiations with the police are chaotic and aggressive, conducted via megaphones and politically charged music played over loudspeakers. The colorful umbrellas which the young people use to protect themselves against the brutal police actions emphasize the group’s bravado, which borders on recklessness. What begins as an energetic battle against the establishment turns into a lopsided game of cat and mouse when the police decide to surround the building. Within its red brick walls, the university building becomes a prison. Over the nearly two weeks that follow, as fear and exhaustion grow among the hundreds of students, so does the uncertainty. Should they hang on inside, or leave the building to face the armed police?

A Taste of Whale

In the Faroe Islands, hundreds of pilot whales are slaughtered each year in a hunt known as the “Grind.” This gruesome tradition has drawn outrage from activists, most notably the international conservation group Sea Shepherd, who routinely sail to the islands to try to block whaling boats. Yet the Faroese are equally determined to maintain their tradition, defending the practice as more sustainable and less cruel than getting meat from slaughterhouses. Director Vincent Kelner spends time with both Faroese hunters and Sea Shepherd crusaders, building to a nuanced look at a disturbing event with much larger implications for the way humans relate to other creatures.

Pactes de silenci

Due to the increasing privatization of basic public services in Spain, companies such as BB Serveis are accused of misappropriating several million euros of public money intended to finance care for the elderly and other dependent persons.

La Fabrique de l'ignorance

Tobacco, climate change, pesticides,... Never has scientific knowledge seemed so vast, detailed and shared. And yet it appears to be increasingly challenged. It is no longer surprising to see private corporations put strategies in place to confuse the public debate and paralyze political decision-making. Overwhelmed by excess of information, how can we, as citizens, sort out fact from fiction? One by one, this film dismantles the workings of this clever manoeuvre that aims to turn science against itself. Thanks to declassified archives, graphic animations and testimonies from experts, lobbyists and politicians, this investigation plunges us into the science of doubt. Along with a team of experts (philosophers, economists, cognitive scientists, political men, or even agnotologists), we explore concrete examples of doubt making and try to understand the whole process and the issues behind it.

Im Reich der Hormone: Mythos und Wirklichkeit

Hormones – without them, nothing would work in our body: the messenger substances control our physical and mental state. New studies show how complex the connection between hormones, feelings and behavior really is. Surprisingly, the body's own hormone production is also apparently influenced by a person's behavior.

Burn, Baby, Burn! - Wie Aerobic die Welt zum Schwitzen brachte

Risky Drinking

Are you a risky drinker? Nearly 70% of American adults drink alcohol and nearly 1/3 of them engage in problem drinking at some point in their lives. Produced with The National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), Risky Drinking is a no-holds-barred look at a national epidemic through the intimate stories of four people whose drinking dramatically affects their relationships.