Riding the Rails (1997)
Similar movies
TURTLE: THE INCREDIBLE JOURNEY is the story of a little loggerhead turtle, as she follows in the path of her ancestors on one of the most extraordinary journeys in the natural world. Born on a beach in Florida, she rides the Gulf Stream up towards the Arctic and ultimately swims around the entire North Atlantic across to Africa and back to the beach where she was born. But the odds are stacked against her; just one in ten thousand turtles survive the journey. She faces many hazards, her siblings are lost in the doldrums of the Sargasso Sea, she comes face to face with creatures of the deep and nearly dies at the hands of fishermen. She travels up north but she drifts from her life current, the Gulf Stream, into dangerously cold waters.
The Bridge is the controversial documentary that shows people jumping to their death from the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. Director Eric Steel staked out for a year under the infamous bridge filming 23 suicides. The footage was then compiled along with interviews from family, friends, witnesses, and survivors to create this disturbing yet very intriguing documentary.
Riding Solo is a film about filmmaker Gaurav Jani's brave solo motorcycle journey from Mumbai to one of the remotest places in the world, the Changthang Plateau in Ladakh bordering China. The film is even more extraordinary for the fact that Jani was a one man camera crew unit who loaded his bike with 300 kg of equipment/supplies and set off on a journey to one of the world's most difficult terrains.
Riding Giants is story about big wave surfers who have become heroes and legends in their sport. Directed by the skateboard guru Stacy Peralta.
Irish director John T Davis stashes a camera in his bedroll, catches out, and rides the rails from Minneapolis to Seattle with Beargrease, a part-time hobo and full time philosopher, who narrates their way through the incredible scenery of the Northwest and gives us his views on life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The pair meet up several other men living life on the margins: in particular a scene in which Duffy - an ex-corporate executive now living under a bridge in Spokane & collecting cans - describes how he got there is riveting.
AMERICAN MOVIE is the story of filmmaker Mark Borchardt, his mission, and his dream. Spanning over two years of intense struggle with his film, his family, financial decline, and spiritual crisis, AMERICAN MOVIE is a portrayal of ambition, obsession, excess, and one man's quest for the American Dream.
This dryly funny mockumentary about the lost work of a pioneering New Zealand film genius is probably one of the best examples of the faux-documentary genre. In fact, it was so successful that when it originally aired on New Zealand television, hundreds of viewers bought the premise hook, line, and sinker. If you didn't know any better yourself, it's entirely possible you might be duped into believing the extremely tall tale of one Colin MacKenzie, an ambitious filmmaker who made the world's first talking movie (years before The Jazz Singer), invented color film, and created a huge biblical epic that would put Cecil B. DeMille and D.W. Griffith to shame. Filmmaker Peter Jackson (Heavenly Creatures) shrewdly inserts himself into the film via his documentation of the "discovery" of McKenzie's lost epic, which for years was preserved in a garden shed.
A 1988 documentary film directed by Alexander Sokurov, about the later life and death of Soviet Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky. The film was originally intended to mark the 50th birthday of Tarkovsky in 1982, which would have been before his death. Controversy with Soviet authorities about the film's style and content led to significant delays in the production.
A chronicle of the production problems â including bad weather, actors' health, war near the filming locations, and more â which plagued the filming of Apocalypse Now, increasing costs and nearly destroying the life and career of Francis Ford Coppola.
Unlike the films "World Trade Center" and "United 93", which are dramatizations of the events of September 11, this is an on-the-scene documentary following the events of September 11 from an insider's view, through the lens of two French filmmakers who were in Manhattan on that fateful day. Filmmakers James Hanlon and Jules and Gedeon Naudet were filming a documentary about a rookie New York City firefighter when they noticed a plane fly overhead and hit the World Trade Center. Being with those firefighters who where the first to respond to the tragedy, James Hanlon and the Naudets accompanied them and continued filming from the firemen's perspective. It later became known that their presence allowed them to capture the only known footage of the first plane strike, and from inside the Twin Towers.
In this crazy, chaotic gospel of chance, aspiring filmmakers Chris Stamp and Kit Lambert set out to search for a subject for their underground movie, leading them to discover, mentor, and manage the iconic band known as The Who and create rock 'n' roll history.
Since the invention of cinema, the standard format for recording moving images has been film. Over the past two decades, a new form of digital filmmaking has emerged, creating a groundbreaking evolution in the medium. Keanu Reeves explores the development of cinema and the impact of digital filmmaking via in-depth interviews with Hollywood masters, such as James Cameron, David Fincher, David Lynch, Christopher Nolan, Martin Scorsese, George Lucas, Steven Soderbergh, and many more.
A feature length documentary on the acclaimed work and eclectic career of maverick filmmaker Larry Cohen (BLACK CAESAR, GOD TOLD ME TO, Q THE WINGED SERPENT, THE STUFF, PHONE BOOTH)
In the film, we see subjects instructed to administer electric shocks of increasing severity to another person, and observe both obedient and defiant reactions. After the experiment, we witness subjects explain firsthand their actions. Obedience is as relevant today as it was at its publication. As we as a society witness suicide bombings, torture, and gang atrocities, we wonder just how far people will go. Fifty years later, this experiment still resonates as people ask themselves, âWould I pull that lethal switch?â This is the only authentic film footage of Milgramâs famous experiment and is essential to all foundational work in social psychology at the graduate, undergraduate, and high school level.
Documentary about the life of avant-garde filmmaker Maya Deren, who led the independent film movement of the 1940s.
Take a trip back to a time when New York City wasn't all glitz and glamour as filmmaker Celine Danhier offers a look at the birth of "No Wave Cinema" and the vibrant art scene that exploded out of the East Village in the late '70s. In the years before Ronald Reagan took office, Manhattan was in ruins. But true art has never come from comfort, and it was precisely those dire circumstances that inspired artists like Jim Jarmusch, Lizzy Borden, and Amos Poe to produce some of their best works. Taking their cues from punk rock and new wave music, these young maverick filmmakers confronted viewers with a stark reality that stood in powerful contrast to the escapist product being churned out by Hollywood. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
A revolutionary film about the cinematic genius of North Korea's late Dear Leader Kim Jung-IL, with a groundbreaking experiment at its heart - a propaganda film, made according to the rules of his 1987 manifesto. Through the shared love of cinema, AIM HIGH IN CREATION! forges an astonishing new bond between the hidden filmmakers of North Korea and their Free World collaborators. Revealing an unexpected truth about the most isolated nation on earth: filmmakers, no matter where they live, are family.
Zeitgeist: Moving Forward, by director Peter Joseph, is a feature length documentary work which will present a case for a needed transition out of the current socioeconomic monetary paradigm which governs the entire world society. This subject matter will transcend the issues of cultural relativism and traditional ideology and move to relate the core, empirical "life ground" attributes of human and social survival, extrapolating those immutable natural laws into a new sustainable social paradigm called a "Resource-Based Economy".
China's greatest living filmmaker Jia Zhangke (Platform, The World) travels with acclaimed painter Liu Xiaodong from China to Thailand as they as they meet everyday workers in the throes of social turmoil. Liu Xiaodong is well-known for his monumental canvases, particularly those inspired by China's Three Gorges Dam project. In DONG, Jia Zhangke visits Liu on the banks of Fengjie, a city about to be swallowed up by the Yangtze River. The area is in the process of being "de-constructed" by armies of shirtless male workers who form the subject of Liu's paintings. Liu and Jia next travel to Bangkok, where Liu paints Thai sex workers languishing in brothels. The two sets of paintings are united in their subjects' shared sense of malaise in the face of the dehumanizing labor afforded them.
Fighters is often cited as the definitive documentary film on the subject of boxing. It brilliantly captures both the romanticism and the agonising, sweat-dripping discipline inherent in this hardest game of all.
Part concert footage, part fly-on-the-wall video documentary of the ups and downs of a road tour, Lamb of God: Killadelphia could easily entertain the most stubborn of metal haters with its lively peek at the band at work and play between shows. Whether dealing with rental truck breakdowns, show delays, radio interviews, in-store appearances, late arrivals of equipment, or dazzled fans, the members of Lamb of God and their handful of assistants keep their cool with fluent wit, easygoing camaraderie, and unabashed romanticism (meeting up with band members' spouses is one of the highlights of Killadelphia). Meanwhile, Lamb of God's grinding, apocalyptic wall of sound, especially singer Randy Blythe's croaking, monster vocals, whip a Philadelphia crowd into a hellbound fury. Special features include three music videos, including an uncensored "Now You've Got Something to Die For."
You loved the book; now see the places bestselling author Patricia Schultz captured so well. Join newlyweds Albin and Melanie Ulle as they embark on a transformational journey around the globe. Using Schultz's book as a guide, the Ulles explore the breathtaking beauty of the Himalayas, the eternal romanticism of Paris, the exotic mysteries of Peru and much more you won't want to miss.
Filmmaker Adam Scorgie explores the illegal marijuana industry in British Columbia, revealing how the international business is most likely more profitable than it would be if it was lawful in this enlightening documentary. Marijuana growers, law enforcement officials, physicians, politicians, criminologists, economists and celebritiesâincluding comedian Tommy Chongâshed light on this topical subject in a series of compelling interviews.
Among the most important films from the post-war American independent scene are Lionel Rogosinâs On the Bowery and Come Back, Africa â two incredible documents of bygone eras that still resonate today. From the beginning, Rogosinâs style as an independent filmmaker was straightforward and compassionate. His films, made âfrom the insideâ showed the subjects he chose in their normal surroundings and allowed them to speak in their own words. By choosing ordinary people caught up in universal problems â homelessness, racial discrimination, war and peace, labor relations, and poverty â Rogosin made his point poignantly. The Oscar®-nominated On the Bowery is a masterpiece of the American blend of documentary/fiction.
Guy Maddin, who has been nicknamed the Canadian David Lynch, is undoubtedly one of the last remaining Magi of cinema. Despite living in the middle of the digital age, this heretical director hailing from the snowy plains of Canada has spent 25 years transposing the uncommon and the uncanny onto screens over-saturated with naturalistic imagery. A lover of primitive cinema, he has cunningly summoned the light-and-shadow techniques and experimentations of the Golden Age of film to resuscitate a unique cinematographic language which plays with the spectatorâs unconscious by means of visual trickery as disturbing as it is absurd. In an attitude as playful at that Maddinâs films this documentary follows the mediumistic experiments of this master of illusion, filmed during the ââspiritââ shootings he presented in Europe.
Five million Americans suffer from Alzheimer's disease and dementiaâmany of them alone in nursing homes. A man with a simple idea discovers that songs embedded deep in memory can ease pain and awaken these fading minds. Joy and life are resuscitated, and our cultural fears over aging are confronted.
A visit to the Louvre in Paris commentated by an actor reading Cézanne.
About a filmmaker not only revisiting, but also recreating (not in a conventional sense) one of his first films, The Perfect Human / Det perfekte menneske (1967)
A colorful and provocative survey of anarchism in America, the film attempts to dispel popular misconceptions and trace the historical development of the movement. The film explores the movement both as a native American philosophy stemming from 19th century American traditions of individualism, and as a foreign ideology brought to America by immigrants. The film features rare archival footage and interviews with significant personalities in anarchist history including Murray Boochkin and Karl Hess, and also live performance footage of the Dead Kennedys.
A feature length documentary about the Free Kevin movement and the hacker world.
Wolves have been demonized for centuries, blood thirsty beasts haunting our nightmares. We were determined to dispel this myth and show the true nature of wolves. Compassionate family animals, both playful and affectionate. For six years in a tented camp in the wilderness of Idaho, we lived among a pack of wolves, listening to them, earning their trust.Now in "Living With Wolves," we share more of the story of The Sawtooth Pack, first told in our two-time Emmy Award-winning documentary, Wolves at Our Door. Our own lives, brought together by a devotion to wildlife, were forever changed by these elusive, intelligent animals who accepted us. Overcoming forest fires, marauding mountain lions and sub-zero winters, we share with you a heart-warming and unique partnership of human and predator, built on trust and defying the storm of controversy surrounding the wolf.
A documentary film about atheism in the USA, dispelling the myths and untruths following ordinary American atheists on their journey through life.
An exhilarating documentary film that celebrates the unsung hero of aviation - the local airport - by tracing the life, history,and struggles of an airport icon: Southern California's Van Nuys Airport. Featuring thrilling aerial photography and a sweeping original score, the film dispels common misconceptions and opposes criticism of General Aviation airports. Through the love story of one airport
Guy Debord's analysis of a consumer society.
In girum imus nocte et consumimur igni is a 1978 film by the situationist Guy Debord, the title of which is a medieval Latin palindrome meaning âwe turn in the night and are consumed by fireâ.
The 10 Conditions of Love follows the personal and political struggle of Rebiya Kadeer, the most galvanizing leader of the Uyghur people in 60 years. The Uyghur are China's Muslim minority. From poverty to wealth, protest to imprisonment, Rebiya now lives in exile in the United States. Here she is quickly gaining influential friends and media coverage to help her campaign for her people's human rights. As a result, her children are in prison in China This is a story about the ruthless oppression of 20-million people; of Super Power politicking; and of the pain of a deeply loving family torn violently apart.
The Hour of the Furnaces (Spanish: La hora de los hornos) is a 1968 film directed by Octavio Getino and Fernando Solanas. It addresses the politics of the 'Third worldist' films and Latin-American manifesto of the late 1960s.
A rockumentary profile of a true music original. Offstage he was withdrawn, almost shy. Onstage he strapped on his kiss-the-sky Stratocaster and shattered all notions of how a guitar could be played. In this thribute authorized by his estate, Jimi Hendrix comes to vivid life in funny and touching recollections by family, friends and other legends of rock like Eric Clapton, Mick Jagger ...
Titanica is a fascinating non-fiction drama which tells the story of the 1991 expedition to the wreck of the Titanic, the "unsinkable" luxury liner which collided with an iceberg and sank on April 15, 1912, losing 1,522 lives. Viewers experience the adventure, drama and danger of deep sea exploration through the activities of an international expedition team composed of unique and colourful characters, each with their own personal interest in the legendary wreck. Combining spectacular life-size images of the shattered remains on the ocean floor with recollections by survivor Eva Hart and computer-enhanced archival photographs, Titanica brings to life a remarkable tale of history, science and human ambition. IMAX
A documentary on the making of the three Godfather films, with interviews and recollections from the film makers and cast. This feature also includes the original screen tests of some of the actors for "The Godfather" film, and some candid moments on the set of "The Godfather: Part III."
Among the millions of victims of the Nazi madness during the Second World War, Pierre Seel was charged with homosexuality and imprisoned in the Schirmeck concentration camp. He survived this terrifying experience of torture and humiliation, and after the war he married, had three children, and tried to live a normal life. In 1982, however, he came to terms with his past and his true nature and decided to publicly reveal what he and thousands of other homosexuals branded with the Pink Triangle had undergone during the Nazi regime. Il Rosa Nudo (Naked Rose), inspired by the true story of Pierre Seel, depicts in a theatrical and evocative way the Homocaust, focusing on the scientific theories of SS Physician Carl Peter Værnet for the treatment of homosexuality, which paved the way for the Nazi persecution of gay men.
Prelude to War was the first film of Frank Capra's Why We Fight propaganda film series, commissioned by the Pentagon and George C. Marshall. It was made to convince American troops of the necessity of combating the Axis Powers during World War II. This film examines the differences between democratic and fascist states.
As an NYPD officer in the late 60s and early 70s, Frank Serpico blew the whistle on the corruption and payoffs running rampant in the department, was shot in the face during a drug arrest, and most famously became the subject of Sidney Lumetâs classic film SERPICO. Forty-plus years later, Serpico talks about his Southern Italian roots and upbringing, his time as an undercover officer, and his post-NYPD life in Europe and ultimately upstate New York. Adding their own recollections are his fellow officers, childhood friends, his West Side neighbors, and his admirers such as writer Luc Sante and actor John Turturro. With unprecedented access to its subject and augmented by original music by Jack White and an original score by Brendan Canty of Fugazi, Antonino DâAmbrosio creates a memorable, powerful portrait of an always-committed public servant who still walks the walk in his very own unique way.
Itâs simple math: we can burn less than 565 more gigatons of carbon dioxide and stay below 2°C of warming â anything more than that risks catastrophe for life on earth. The only problem? Fossil fuel corporations now have 2,795 gigatons in their reserves, five times the safe amount. And theyâre planning to burn it all â unless we rise up to stop them.
How could a civilization that mastered the planet suddenly Collapse? Inspired by the New York Times best-selling book "Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed", NGC time travels 200 years into the future to see what the world would look like after civilization as we know it collapsed. Guided by author Jared Diamond, we'll piece together the remarkable story of what on earth triggered our decline.
Dan Cruickshank explores the rich aesthetic of Ludwig II - from the mock-medievalism of Neuschwanstein the iconic fairytale castle, which became the inspiration for Walt Disney's Sleeping Beauty castle, to the rich Baroque splendour of Herrenchiemsee, Ludwig's answer to Versailles. Dan argues that Ludwig's castles are more than flamboyant kitsch and are, in fact, the key to unravelling the eternal enigma of Ludwig II.
The film follows the artist as she prepares for what may be the most important moment of her life: a major retrospective of her work at The Museum of Modern Art in New York. To be given a retrospective at one of the world's premiere museums is, for any living artist, the most exhilarating sort of milestone. For Marina, it is far more - it is the chance to finally silence the question she has been hearing over and over again for four decades: 'But why is this art?'
The story of the child refugees who were transported to Britain to escape the Nazi Holocaust.
"A Long Journey" tells the story of three siblings who reach adolescence in the late 1960's. The documentary's storyline follows the youngest brother's travels around the world. Worried that he would enter the struggle for freedom against the Brazilian dictatorship, his family sent Heitor to London. There however, he dives head on into the "Swinging London" and, just like the European and American youth of the time period, he experiments with drugs and the mystic allure of India. In the nine years he has traveled around the world, from 1969 to 1978, he has regularly written to his family. The documentary features interviews with Heitor today, his letters and off-screen comments of Heitor's sister, Lúcia Murat, the director of the movie.
An intimate and moving meditation on the late musician and artist Kurt Cobain, based on more than 25 hours of previously unheard audiotaped interviews conducted with Cobain by noted music journalist Michael Azerrad for his book "Come As You Are: The Story of Nirvana." In the film, Kurt Cobain recounts his own life - from his childhood and adolescence to his days of musical discovery and later dealings with explosive fame - and offers often piercing insights into his life, music, and times. The conversations heard in the film have never before been made public and they reveal a highly personal portrait of an artist much discussed but not particularly well understood. Written by AJ Schnack
A man emerges from the slums of Rio to lead the nonviolent cultural movement known as Afro-reggae.
Gerrymandering is a 2010 documentary feature film written and directed by Jeff Reichert. The film explores the history and the ethical, moral and racial problems raised by redistricting, i.e., the drawing of boundaries of electoral districts in the United States.Gerrymandering covers the history of the redistricting practice, how it is used and abused, how it benefits the two major major political parties, Democrats and Republicans. The documentary draws on the perspectives from different individuals, reporters, pundits and politicians.
Based on the journal of Knud Rasmussen's "Great Sled Journey" of 1922 across arctic Canada. The film is shot from the perspective of the Inuit, showing their traditional beliefs and lifestyle. It tells the story of the last great Inuit shaman and his beautiful and headstrong daughter; the shaman must decide whether to accept the Christian religion that is converting the Inuit across Greenland.
The story of the Great War told from a unique new aerial perspective. Featuring two remarkable historical finds, including a piece of archive footage filmed from an airship in summer 1919, capturing the trenches and battlefields in a way that has rarely been seen before. It also features aerial photographs taken by First World War pilots - developed for the first time in over ninety years - that show not only the devastation inflicted during the fighting, but also quirks and human stories visible only from above.
A Sunday in Hell (original title: En Forårsdag i Helvede) is a 1977 Danish documentary directed by Jørgen Leth. The film is a chronology of the 1976 Paris-Roubaix bicycle race from the perspective of participants, organizers and spectators.
Did you know that the first open-heart surgery was performed by a Black doctor, Daniel Hale Williams? Not many people did in 1968, the year this eye-opening film, narrated by Bill Cosby, was first released. Many still don't today. "Black History: Lost, Stolen or Strayed" reviews the numerous contributions of African-Americans to the development of the United States. From the perspective of the turbulent late 1960s, the fact that their positive roles had not generally been taught as part of American history, coupled with the pervasiveness of derogatory stereotypes, was evidence of how Black people had long been victims of negative attitudes and ignorance. Viewing this film today offers students and adults an opportunity to explore their own perspectives - to examine how things have changed in their lives and those of their parents, as well as how troubling stereotypes still persist four decades later.
Far outside what's normally taught as "history", this 6-hour documentary attempts to explain what's normally glossed over - Germany's actions prior to WWII, Hitler's popularity, the support of the Nazis by the Germans, the basis for hardline Nazi stances against Jews, and why Nazism was such a danger to the established world powers. It chronicles the German WWI defeat, communist attempts to take over Germany; hyperinflation during the Weimar Republic, widespread unemployment and misery that served as the foundation of Nazi principles, and Hitlerâs amazing rise to power. It also reveals a personal side of Hitler: his family background, his artwork and struggles, and what motivated him to pursue a career in politics. While open to criticism for being "pro-Nazi" in its perspectives, the documentary does present many factual foundations for those perspectives, highlighting an endless list of hypocrisies and double-standards imposed on Germany in the years before, during, and after WWII.
A youthful perspective on the 1992 presidential campaign with a witty, cautionary message to young Americans to start participating in democracy or get the kind of government they deserve. Appearances by Sean Penn, Oliver Stone, Jerry Brown, Spike Lee, Oliver North, Bill Clinton, Peter Jennings and more.
20 years after Calvin and Hobbes stopped appearing in daily newspapers, filmmaker Joel Allen Schroeder has set out to explore the reasons behind the comic strip's loyal and devoted following.
Afghanistan, immediately post-9/11: Small teams of Green Berets arrive on a series of secret missions to overthrow the Taliban. What happens next is equal parts war origin story and cautionary tale, illuminating the nature and impact of 15 years of constant combat, with unprecedented access to U.S. Special Forces.
© Valossa 2015–2024
