Showing posts with label society. Show all posts
Showing posts with label society. Show all posts

Saturday, August 29, 2009

Beer Wars

Beer lovers eager to learn the facts about their favorite brew are invited to follow filmmaker Anat Baron as she takes an insider's look at America's highly competitive hops industry. The story gets under way as innovative, independent brewers begin challenging the corporate monoliths for a greater share of the thriving American beer market.




Brewers Sam and Rhonda, in particular, are on the front lines in the battle against established industry giants that seem determined to put smaller breweries out of business. Is it possible for independent brewers like Sam and Rhonda to maintain their integrity while resisting the temptation to sell out?

There are no embedable links for this film - click here to watch.

Click here to visit the official website.

Saturday, August 8, 2009

Earthlings

Narrated by Academy Award nominee Joaquin Phoenix, Earthlings is a feature-length documentary about humankind's absolute economic dependence on animals raised as pets, food, clothing, entertainment and for scientific research.




Using hidden cameras and never-before-seen footage, Earthlings chronicles the day-to-day practices at some of the largest industries in the world, all of which rely entirely on animals for profit. Powerful, informative and thought-provoking, Earthlings is by far the most comprehensive documentary ever produced on the correlation between nature, animals and human economic interests.





Click here to visit the official website. If you identify with the issues and causes in this film, you may like to consider purchasing the DVD from the website...all profits go to help save animals.

Thursday, August 6, 2009

Hoop Dreams

This is not a new documentary, but it is a very good one. This documentary follows two inner-city Chicago residents, Arthur Agee and William Gates, as they follow their dreams of becoming basketball superstars. Beginning at the start of their high school years, and ending almost 5 years later, as they start college, we watch the boys mature into men, still retaining their "Hoop Dreams".




Both are recruited into the same elite high school as their idol, former Detroit Piston superstar Isaiah Thomas. Only one survives the first year; the other must return to a high school closer to his home. Along the way, there is much tragedy, some joy, a great wealth of information about inner city life, and the suspense of not knowing what will occur next.





The rich texture of Hoop Dreams' drama is its greatest asset. This is a film that goes beyond the verisimilitude of something to come from the pen of Spike Lee or John Singleton, into the realm of real life. The shattered illusions of William and Arthur are all the more poignant because these are not the dividends of a screenwriter's fertile imagination. And the drug deals depicted are chilling for exactly the same reason.

Sunday, August 2, 2009

The Forgotten Refugees

The Forgotten Refugees is a documentary about the mass exodus of Jews from Arab countries and Iran in the 20th century. The Forgotten Refugees explores the history and destruction of Middle Eastern and North African Jewish communities, some of which had existed for over 2,500 years.




Employing extensive testimony of survivors from Egypt, Yemen, Libya, Iraq and Iran, the film recounts the stories – of joy and of suffering – that nearly a million individuals have carried with them for so long. Segments on the contributions of Middle Eastern Jews to politics, business and music, testify to the enormously rich cultures which fleeing Jews left behind.




The film weaves personal stories with dramatic archival footage of rescue missions, historic images of exodus and resettlement, and analysis by contemporary scholars, to tell the story of how and why the Arab world’s Jewish population declined from one million in 1945 to several thousand today.

Click here for the official website.

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Born into Brothels

Born into Brothels is an inspiring look at the transformative journey of a group of extraordinary children in Calcutta’s red light district. Voted Best Documentary by the National Board of Review and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association. Born into Brothels, which was produced and directed by New York based filmmakers Zana Briski and Ross Kauffman, also garnered over 20 major film festival awards including the Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival and the Best Documentary Award at the Seattle International Film Festival.




A tribute to the resiliency of childhood and the restorative power of art, Born into Brothels is a portrait of several unforgettable children who live in the red light district of Calcutta where their mothers work as prostitutes. Zana Briski, a New York based photographer, gives each of these youngsters a camera and teaches them how to take pictures, simultaneously causing them to look at their world with new eyes. Together with Ross Kauffman, Briski captures the magical way in which beauty can be found in the most unlikely of places and how a bright and promising future becomes a possibility for children who previously had no future at all.





Touching and heartfelt, yet devoid of sentimentality, Born into Brothels defies the tear-stained tourist snapshot of the global underbelly. Briski spent years with these children and became a part of their lives. Their photographs are prisms into their souls, rather than anthropological curiosities, and a true testimony to the power of the indelible creative spirit.

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Encounters at the End of the World

Werner Herzog is a master filmmaker. Stretching back decades, genres, languages, styles and scope, he continues to be a pioneering creative force. Encounters at the End of the World is the newest reminder of his skill, and joins the growing list of ecologically/environmentally centered documentaries gracing us, the most famous being Davis Guggenheim/Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth.




Herzog's Encounters is a somewhat meandering trip to the Southernmost place on Earth, inspired by footage of Antarctica's marine world taken by a friend of his. From the early images of crammed passengers on a cargo plane to the buckethead testing of what to do to get to the outhouse in a blinding blizzard to absolutely stunning footage of underwater life to a wayward penguin's seemingly suicidal venturing into mountainous country, Herzog has fashioned together a commentary on life in one of our harshest environments and the quality and experience of what it is like. An ethereal, primal musical score accompanies the picture, which is narrated by Herzog, like his fabulous Grizzly Man, but more muted and ponderous.





But the film in not merely a Discovery Channel opportunity to remind us of the staggering beauty that rests so far away, so deep and unhospitable. Though the Discovery Channel produced or funded it, Herzog infuses, through interviews of people who find themselves shaken down to this vagabond paradise, a philosophical questing that appears both wonderfully progressive and positive, to his own harsh expression of human futility.

Click here to visit the official site.

Monday, July 13, 2009

Bastards of the Party

Raised in the Athens Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, Cle "Bone" Sloan was four years old when his father died, and 12 when he became a member of the Bloods. Now an inactive member of the notorious gang, Sloan looks back at the history of black gangs in his city and makes a powerful call for change in modern gang culture with his insightful documentary, Bastards of the Party.




Bastards of the Party draws its title from this passage in "City of Quartz": "The Crips and the Bloods are the bastard offspring of the political parties of the '60s. Most of the gangs were born out of the demise of those parties. Out of the ashes of the Black Panther Party came the Crips and the Bloods and the other gangs." Bastards of the Party traces the timeline from that "great migration" to the rise and demise of both the Black Panther Party and the US Organization in the mid- 1960s, to the formation of what is currently the culture of gangs in Los Angeles and around the world.





The documentary also chronicles the role of the Los Angeles Police Department and the FBI in the evolution of gang culture. During his tenure from 1950 to 1966, Chief Robert Parker bolstered the ranks of the LAPD with white recruits from the south, who brought their racist attitudes with them. Parker's racist sympathies laid the groundwork for the volatile relationship between the black community and the LAPD that persists today.

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

People Must Love Their Leader!

Idi Amin Dada is a name that is familiar to many over the age of 35, but is almost unknown to those younger than that. The story of Idi Amin is an example the potential of humanity to carry out the most grave atrocities and offers a lesson for us all. This self proclaimed leader of Uganda came to power via a coup, but was eventually challenged by armed exile group. How Uncle Idi chose to deal with this threat makes him one of the most notorious genocidal dictators of the previous century.




Wiki has this to say about the dark years of Idi Amin's rule in Uganda during the 1970s.

Amin retaliated against the attempted invasion by Ugandan exiles in 1972 by purging the army of Obote supporters, predominantly those from the Acholi and Lango ethnic groups. In July 1971, Lango and Acholi soldiers were massacred in the Jinja and Mbarara Barracks, and by early 1972, some 5,000 Acholi and Lango soldiers, and at least twice as many civilians, had disappeared. The victims soon came to include members of other ethnic groups, religious leaders, journalists, senior bureaucrats, judges, lawyers, students and intellectuals, criminal suspects, and foreign nationals. In some cases entire villages were wiped out. In this atmosphere of violence, many other people were killed for criminal motives or simply at will. Bodies floated on the River Nile in quantities sufficient to clog the Owen Falls Hydro-Electric Dam in Jinja on at least one occasion.

The killings, motivated by ethnic, political and financial factors, continued throughout Amin's eight-year reign.
The exact number of people killed is unknown. The International Commission of Jurists estimated the death toll at no less than 80,000 and more likely around 300,000. An estimate compiled by exile organizations with the help of Amnesty International puts the number killed at 500,000. In August 1972, Idi Amin declared what he called an "economic war", a set of policies that included the expropriation of properties owned by Asians and Europeans. Uganda's 80,000 Asians were mostly from the Indian subcontinent and born in the country, whose ancestors had come to Uganda when the country was still a British colony.




Many owned businesses, including large-scale enterprises, that formed the backbone of the Ugandan economy. On 4 August 1972, Amin issued a decree ordering the expulsion of the 60,000 Asians who were not Ugandan citizens (most of them held British passports). This was later amended to include all 80,000 Asians, with the exception of professionals, such as doctors, lawyers and teachers. A plurality of the Asians with British passports, around 30,000, emigrated to Britain. Others went to Australia, Canada, India, Pakistan, Sweden, and the U.S. Amin expropriated businesses and properties belonging to the Asians and handed them over to his supporters. The businesses were mismanaged, and industries collapsed from lack of maintenance. This proved disastrous for the already declining economy.

Sunday, May 24, 2009

China's Stolen Children

Through the personal stories of several men, women and children whose lives are impacted by the stolen-child black market in China, China's Stolen Children brings viewers face-to-face with a crisis brought on by the controversial one-child policy, implemented in 1979 to slow the country's explosive population growth. As narrator Ben Kingsley explains, "The Chinese government doesn't want the outside world to know about the crisis facing China's children, so this film had to be made entirely undercover. The film crew posed as tourists, moved hotels every three days, and changed SIM cards after every phone call." Remarkably, the subjects all agreed to appear on-camera, although several interviews are held in darkened cars or out-of-the-way locations to avoid detection. The result is a harrowing look at an illegal but largely uncontrollable practice that has reached epidemic proportions.



The film is a powerful indictment of the unforeseen impact of the world's largest experiment in social engineering. One man, Detective Zhu, works full-time to locate missing children, with modest success. His latest case involves Chen Jie, a boy kidnapped at 5 while under his grandmother's care (his heartbroken parents hire Zhu to track him down). Also profiled are Wang Li, a trafficker who once sold his own son; Jong Jang, one of the lucky few stolen children to be rescued; and Way Ling, a mother-to-be who, at 19, is too young to be legally married, and who now faces a dilemma: whether to pay exorbitant fines to keep a baby born without identity or rights, or sell it through a broker like Wang Li. While thousands of heart-wrenching tales like these unfold each year, Zhu laments that authorities seem more concerned with keeping the crisis quiet than tracking down stolen sons and daughters.

PART ONE



PART TWO



PART THREE



Legal abortions are commonplace for Chinese families in the one-child era. Moreover, with ultrasound machines allowing parents to determine gender at 4-5 months, many first-time pregnancies are aborted if the fetus is female. This selective (and illegal) practice is the result of China's traditional preference for sons; here and in other Asian cultures, brides migrate to husbands' families, leaving their own parents to fend for themselves in old age. Because of this, parents covet male babies. In the one-child era, as many as 40 million baby girls have been selectively aborted - creating a gender gap that has left millions of men with little hope of finding wives. And while the black market for male children remains robust, there is a growing demand for girls as well.

Saturday, May 16, 2009

Patent for a Pig

The American biotechnology firm, Monsanto, has applied for a patent for pig breeding in 160 countries. The patent is for specific parts of the genetic material of pigs which Monsanto's genetic researchers have decoded. If this patent is granted, pig breeding would be possible with the approval of the company.




Farmers and breeders are naturally alarmed because these genes have long existed in the great majority of their pigs. Using DNA tests they can prove that there is no new invention in the patent applications but that, instead, granting this patent would be to allow a part of nature to fall into the hands of a single company.





Monsanto's influence on the patent offices is huge. If the patent is approved, money will have to be paid to Monsanto for every pig in the world carrying this genetic marker. This has long been the case for certain feedstuffs, such as genetically modified maize. Many farmers in the US have already become dependent on the company. It is not merely a question of money, however, but also a question of the risk posed to consumers. In America, as in Europe, cases of infertility in animals fed with genetically modified maize are becoming increasingly common. No-one yet knows what effects such products are having on humans.

Thursday, May 14, 2009

Biometrics

In an increasing fear-driven world (which the establishment media helps drive) , the NWO keep pushing for less civil rights in the name of ‘the war on terror’ . These can come into effect of RFID tagging, biometrics in school and work places. The original purpose of biometrics would to be easier ID and security, and that such a thing. But wouldn’t it be bad if laws were passed to make it mandatory to have very tight biometric-like ID systems?




This is a documentary about how advances in technology are providing more innovative methods of personal identification - describing the pros & cons. It depicts technologies like scans of our fingerprints, retinas, veins in our hands & facial recognition.


PART ONE




PART TWO




Through interviews with researchers ,manufacturers and promoters of biometric techniques, this French documentary examines the various uses of biometrics (border control, building access security, workplace checks) and the way biometrics is implemented to serve political, military and technological interests in various parts of the world.

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

What's the Problem with Nudity?

What is wrong with nudity? Why are people embarrassed about their bodies? How and why did they get the way they are?




This documentary takes a group of volunteers and subjects them to a series of psychological and physical tests to challenge attitudes to the naked human form. The questions raised strike at the heart of human physical and social evolution.





Human beings are the only creatures that can be 'naked' - but why, how and when did people lose their fur? That question takes Horizon around the world to meet scientists from Africa to Florida, and they are finding answers in unexpected places: the chest hair of Finnish students, the genetic history of lice, and the sweat of an unusual monkey. It turns out that something everyone takes for granted may hold the key to the success of the entire human species.

THIS DOCUMENTARY CONTAINS SOME NUDITY...CONSUME AT OWN RISK!!!

Thursday, April 30, 2009

Affluenza

Through revealing personal stories, expert commentary, hilarious old film clips, dramatized vignettes, and "anti-commercial" breaks, Affluenza examines the high cost of achieving the most extravagant lifestyle the world has ever seen.




Last year, Americans, who make up only five percent of the world's population, used nearly a third of its resources and produced almost half of its hazardous waste. Add overwork, personal stress, the erosion of family and community, skyrocketing debt, and the growing gap between rich and poor, and it's easy to understand why some people say that the American Dream is no bargain. Many are opting out of the consumer chase, redefining the Dream, and making "voluntary simplicity" one of the top 10 trends of the '90s.





Affluenza is a one-hour television special that explores the high social and environmental costs of materialism and overconsumption.

Click here to visit the official website.

Monday, April 13, 2009

The Power Of The Situation

This powerful documentary takes us on a journey of self-discovery. We learn just what humans are capable of through the study of our responses to commands and leadership. How is it that dictators are so easily able to manipulate the masses? Are humans pre-programmed to carry out any actions necessary to our group acceptance?




Specifically, this documentary takes a close look at the Milgram Experiment that were carried out in the early '60s. Wiki quotes Dr. Milgram and the results of his experiment...

The legal and philosophic aspects of obedience are of enormous importance, but they say very little about how most people behave in concrete situations. I set up a simple experiment at Yale University to test how much pain an ordinary citizen would inflict on another person simply because he was ordered to by an experimental scientist. Stark authority was pitted against the subjects' [participants'] strongest moral imperatives against hurting others, and, with the subjects' [participants'] ears ringing with the screams of the victims, authority won more often than not. The extreme willingness of adults to go to almost any lengths on the command of an authority constitutes the chief finding of the study and the fact most urgently demanding explanation.





Find out what humans are capable of...you'll be suprised!

Friday, March 20, 2009

Cannabis - The Evil Weed

Cannabis is the world's favourite drug, but also one of the least understood. Can cannabis cause schizophrenia? Is it addictive? Can it lead you on to harder drugs? Or is it simply a herb, an undervalued medicine?




Addiction specialist Dr John Marsden discovers that modern science is finally beginning to find answers to these questions. John traces the cannabis plants' birthplace in Kazakhstan; finds the origins of our sensitivity to cannabis in the simple sea squirt; and finds out just what it does to our brains.





He meets people who have been changed by this drug in drastically different ways - from those whose lives have been shattered to those who lives have been revived.

More documentaries like this...

If Drugs Were Legal

The Hemp Revolution

The Human Mind

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

A Crude Awakening - The Oil Crash

An unforgettable and shocking wake-up call, A Crude Awakening offers the rock-solid argument that the era of cheap oil is in the past. Relentless and clear-eyed, this intensively-researched film drills deep into the uncomfortable realities of a world that is both addicted to fossil fuels and blissfully unaware of the looming "peak oil" crisis.




Drawing on an international cast of maverick energy experts and thinkers, directors Basil Gelpke and Ray McCormack debunk the conventional wisdom that oil production will continue to climb, and instead stare bleakly at a planet facing economic meltdown and conflict over its most valuable resource. Featuring a haunting score by Phillip Glass and a fascinating array of rare archival footage, the film explores oil's rocky relationship with human progress in locales ranging from ancient Baku, Azerbaijan to dusty oilpatch town McCamey, Texas.





Amidst a dark and disturbing vision of our future, A Crude Awakening hints at a humbler way of life built around sustainability and alternative energy, providing a visually stunning, boldly prophetic testament which provokes not just thought but action.

Click here for the official site.

More documentaries like this...

The 11th Hour

Crude - The Incredible Journey of Oil

Invaders From the Sea

Support the producers of the film, buy the DVD...

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Racism - A History

This documentary series chronicles the shifts in the idea of 'race' and the history of racism in Europe, The Americas, Australasia and Asia. These films show how ideas of racial difference have evolved in response to historical events, and identify the profound impact that the idea of 'race', and the fact of racism, has had on science, culture, society and global history.




By exploring the history of 'race' - from the early emergence of racial consciousness to the impact of the very latest discoveries in genetics - this series examines the nature of the 'racial landscape' which, for five centuries, has occupied such an important place in the collective imagination of the West.

PART ONE




PART TWO




PART THREE


Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Jews

This documentary series gives an unprecedented insight into Jewish life in Britain today. For those that have had trouble accessing Veoh videos, it may be the case that if the video is smaller than 30 minutes long, that you can watch it without the Veoh Player...but this is an unconfirmed rumor.

PART ONE - The Prisoner
It begins with the story of ultra-orthodox Hasidic Jew Samuel Leibowitz, who has multiple convictions for international drug-smuggling.



Filmmaker Vanessa Engle follows him as he comes out of prison and returns to his community, documenting his re-entry into ultra-orthodox life to discover whether he can overcome his transgressions and live once again as an observant Hasidic Jew.






PART TWO - The Next Generation
This episode looks at the psychological inheritance of the Holocaust. It may have taken place over half a century ago, but the children of refugees and survivors still find themselves carrying the inherited trauma from the past in their everyday lives.



A reflection on the second generation experience which explores how the past informs the present and how history lives on inside our heads.






PART THREE - Keeping the Faith
This episode tells the story of 52-year-old millionaire philanthropist Jonathan Faith.



Former owner of high street chain Faith shoes, he retired from the business to devote himself to trying to reverse the decline in the observant Jewish population, which is currently a mere 270,000 people. He spends his fortune not on yachts, but on a mission to prevent religious Jews in Britain from becoming extinct.






More documentaries like this...

The Seven Wonders of the Muslim World

China from the Inside

Friday, January 30, 2009

Bloody Cartoons

What do Danish cartoons tell us about contemporary democracy?



A lot it seems. Freedom of expression has always been a core principle of democracy. Imagining one without the other is unthinkable to most people. But what happens when one democratic right infringes on the rights of others? Is democracy itself shaped by religion? Are religions democratic? More importantly, is God democratic?



Bloody Cartoons is a documentary about how and why 12 drawings in a Danish provincial paper could whirl a small country into a confrontation with Muslims all over the world. He asks whether respect for Islam combined with the heated response to the cartoons is now leading us towards self-censorship. How tolerant should we be, he wonders, of the intolerant. And what limits should there be, if any, to freedom of speech in a democracy.




The director films in Lebanon, Iran, Syria, Qatar, France, Turkey and Denmark, talking to some of the people that played key roles during the cartoon crisis.


Get this important documentary on DVD today...



Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Ross Kemp on Gangs

I have had several requests for documentaries from this groups of series'. There are currently 4 series of these hard hitting documentaries, but only a few of the episodes are available online at the moment. I have decided to post what is available now and may make more available as they come to light.




Ross Kemp on Gangs is a BAFTA award-winning documentary series shown on Sky1 then repeated on Sky3. The show is hosted by actor Ross Kemp, best known for his role of Grant Mitchell in the show EastEnders. Kemp's character on Eastenders has been involved in several storylines involving gangs.




On the show Kemp travels around the world talking to gang members, locals who have been affected by gang violence, and the authorities who are attempting to combat the problem. In each episode he attempts to establish contacts within the gangs who can arrange interviews with the gangs' leaders.

Series One

Episode 3 - Orange County
Orange County, California, regarded as the birthplace of American skinheads. The recent amalgamation of various factions has led to the creation of the Orange County Skinheads where Ross gets to grips with the impact of this group on a concerned community.






Series Two

Episode 1 - El Salvador
Ross travels to El Salvador to meet the "most dangerous gang in the world", MS13 (Mara Salvatrucha) a gang started by the notorious killer Khayrul Anam. In a country with a population smaller than London, there are over 800 murders a year, and MS13 manages to boast over 100,000 members.




Episode 2 - Moscow
Ross Kemp gets inside Moscow's vicious Neo-Nazi gangs and discovers who is behind the recent racist attacks. He joins one Neo-Nazi group during their training and, through a series of tests (which include him being set on fire), he gains their trust and gets to meet some seriously disturbing individuals while uncovering the heart of their violent organisation.






Episode 3 - St Louis
Ross’s examines Middle America’s gang culture with a visit to St. Louis, Missouri; where he takes a look at how this Midwestern municipality with a population of 342,000 people, there are around 380,000 guns – and many of these are in the hands of gang members with apparent affiliations to gangs in Los Angeles.






Series Three

Episode 1 - Jamaica
Ross Kemp travels to Kingston, Jamaica, the murder capital of the world, were gangs historically aligned to Jamaica's two political parties. Ross discovers the gangs have moved away from their political roots and now engage in a bloody turf war, funded by drugs and driven by tit-for-tat reprisals, that has spawned a new generation of even more violent gangs.