Karl Marx und seine Erben

Over the past hundred years, dramatic social upheavals have taken place in the name of Karl Marx's theories. In Western Europe, the student movement of 1968 and the Eurocommunists were inspired. And in recent times, the thinker has experienced a renaissance.

2018-04-28 | de

Surviving Progress

Humanity’s ascent is often measured by the speed of progress. But what if progress is actually spiraling us downwards, towards collapse? Ronald Wright, whose best-seller, “A Short History Of Progress” inspired “Surviving Progress”, shows how past civilizations were destroyed by “progress traps”—alluring technologies and belief systems that serve immediate needs, but ransom the future. As pressure on the world’s resources accelerates and financial elites bankrupt nations, can our globally-entwined civilization escape a final, catastrophic progress trap? With potent images and illuminating insights from thinkers who have probed our genes, our brains, and our social behaviour, this requiem to progress-as-usual also poses a challenge: to prove that making apes smarter isn’t an evolutionary dead-end.

2011-11-04 | en

Women's Private Parts

Barbara Wong interviews HK women (of all ages (even 4 year olds), all walks of life, all sexual preferences, singles, wives, mistresses, prostitutes) with an all women crew and gets some wild and frank responses. The documentary is bold, honest, funny and touching. Highly recommended to any man who wants to understand women better and any woman who wants a fun girls' night out.

2000-11-03 | zh

Mass-market retailing: The end of a system?

The supermarket chains used to seem unbeatable, capturing the lion’s share of the grocery market. But for some years now they have been in crisis. In the wake of a fierce price war, retailers are resorting to increasingly aggressive commercial negotiation methods at the expense of suppliers, farmers and producers. Further competition is coming from the tech giants as Amazon and Alibaba invest in the food industry. What are the implications of all these changes on working conditions, the quality of our food and the future of our planet?

2021-09-30 | fr

1428

The "Great Sichuan Earthquake" took place at 14:28 on May 12, 2008. In the days after, ordinary people salvage destroyed pig farms in the mountains, collect cheap scrapped metals, or pillaging other victims' homes. Behind the media circus of official visits is an inconsolable grief of families searching for loved ones. As the Lunar New Year approaches, vagabonds and family tell of the ill-handling of rebuilding schemes and misuse relief funds. As they prepare for another visit from a high official, the refugees are swept out of the town and into tent cities. The promise to put a roof over their heads before winter seems impossible to keep.

2009-06-01 | zh

Stay Awesome, China!

To really understand China, you have to get to know its people! Winston "SerpentZA" Sterzel travels across China’s first tier cities – Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen – meeting the cities’ most fascinating people, including a racy nude photographer, a mosquito breeding scientist and a DIY maker challenging gender and tech stereotypes.

2019-01-12 | en

First Vote

A soon-to-be first-time voter, the filmmaker’s thought-provoking journey into the Rust Belt and South captures four Asian American voters’ ardent first time grassroots political participation ignited by the 2016 rise of “Chinese Americans for Trump.” FIRST VOTE is a character driven cinema verité style film chronicling the democratic participation of four Asian American voters from 2016 through the 2018 midterm elections.

2020-05-05 | en

China - Treasures of the Jade Empire

2015-10-18 | en

Starring Jerry as Himself

Jerry, an ordinary immigrant dad, retired in Orlando, is recruited to be an undercover agent for the Chinese police. Jerry’s family recreates the events on film and his three sons discover a darker truth. True crime meets spy thriller in this genre-bending docufiction hybrid about an immigrant’s search for the American dream. A Slamdance Film Festival Grand Jury and Audience Award winner.

2024-11-06 | en

The Way of the Shaman Drum

During the Cultural Revolution in China in the late 20th century, ethnic Manchu people were persecuted and forced to give up such cultural traditions as the shaman dance (tiao tchin, meaning "spirit-jumping" or "god's dance"). However, on Changbai Mountain in Northeast China, a farmer named Guan Yunde decided to start designing and building traditional Manchu shaman drums. At age 70, he is one of a minority of ethnic Manchu people in China's Jilin province, and one of the few people keeping the Manchu shamanic tradition alive.

2017-01-01 | zh

Packed In A Trunk: The Lost Art of Edith Lake Wilkinson

The story of artist Edith Lake Wilkinson, a painter who was committed to an asylum in 1924 and never heard from again. All her worldly possessions were packed into trunks and shipped to a relative in West Virginia where they sat in an attic for 40 years. Edith's great-niece, Emmy Award winning writer and director Jane Anderson, grew up surrounded by Edith's paintings, thanks to her mother who had gone poking through that dusty attic and rescued Edith's work. The film follows Jane in her decades-long journey to find the answers to the mystery of Edith's buried life, return the work to Provincetown and have Edith's contributions recognized by the larger art world.

2015-07-20 | en

Undercover: Inside China's Digital Gulag

2019-07-15 | en

Death By China

In 2001, China joined the World Trade Organization with the strong support of a Democratic President and Republican Congress. Before the ink was dry on this free trade agreement, China began flooding U.S. markets with illegally subsidized exports while the big multinational companies that had lobbied heavily for the agreement rapidly accelerated the off shoring of American jobs to China. Today, as a result of the biggest shell game in American history, China has stolen millions of our jobs, corporate profits are soaring, and we now owe over $3 trillion to the world's largest totalitarian nation. This film is about how that happened... and why the best jobs program for America is trade reform with China.

2012-08-17 | en

Stories We Tell

Canadian actress and filmmaker Sarah Polley investigates certain secrets related to her mother, interviewing a group of family members and friends whose reliability varies depending of their implication in the events, which are remembered in different ways; so a trail of questions remains to be answered, because memory is always changing and the discovery of truth often depends on who is telling the tale.

2012-10-12 | en

Timber Gang

Yu Guangyi's stunning debut explores a grueling winter amongst loggers in Northeast China as they employ traditional practices through one last, fateful expedition. For generations, the lumberjacks of Heilongjiang, China have made their living harvesting timber amidst a barren, wintry landscape. These woodcutters confront the elements, living in makeshift cabins surrounded by snow and ice. Hand tools, sleds and horses are the only technology they employ to drag massive trees down the perilous slopes of Black Bear Valley. At constant risk of injury and death, they attempt to appease the mountain gods with ancient rituals and sacrifices. Despite their heroic efforts to subsist, the deforestation caused by their decades-long customs may lead to their ultimate demise.

2006-01-01 | zh

Behind the Walls of the Forbidden City

Secluded from view by nine-meter-high walls and composed of 980 buildings, the Forbidden City in Beijing is the largest imperial palace ever built in the world. Three majestic structures form its center and host the city's ceremonies, each of which is considered an architectural masterpiece. In 1406, construction of the Forbidden City was launched at the initiative of one of China's most powerful sovereigns and founder of the Ming dynasty: Yongle. Endowed with divine power, the construction has already resisted more than 200 earthquakes.

2024-03-05 | fr

Born in China

Venturing into the wilds of China, "Born in China" captures intimate moments with a panda bear and her growing cub, a young golden monkey who feels displaced by his baby sister, and a mother snow leopard struggling to raise her two cubs.

2016-08-12 | zh

Petition

The dysfunctional Chinese justice system allows citizens with grievances against their local governments to petition the court to clear or correct their record. Yet in order to do so, the petitioners must travel to Beijing to file paperwork and wait an indefinite period to plead their case. Following the saga of a group of petitioners over the years of 1996 and 2008, Petition unfolds like a novel by Zola or Dickens. This was filmed surreptitiously from the point of view of the petitioners, and not the justice officials, the police, or those heavies sent by the municipalities.

2009-05-22 | zh

Get To Know Mbatik

Alex, a wealthy and handsome man living a meaningless life, meets Tika, a beautiful and refined woman from a different background. He falls in love with her and pretend to learn Batik at Tika's mother's gallery to win her heart.

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Heaven

Tomáš Etzler worked for seven years as a foreign correspondent in China. He came to know a country that was developing at an admirably fast pace, was swayed by its energy, and for a moment believed that modernity could bring about political change as well. Before long, it dawned on him that many people would continue to be severely punished, and the regime would still keep most of the nation in a state of indecision and ignorance. Without neglecting that face of China today, Etzler chose to tell a story of hope in his personal documentary. Using the example of an orphanage for disabled children, he shows that the answer to collectivist brutality and ruthlessness can be mutual assistance, tolerance and empathy.

2021-06-14 | cs