The Charcoal People
★ 8 · 2000 · 64m · Documentary
This deeply human documentary examines the subject of environmental destruction, highlighting the impoverished migrant workers who are chopping down the Amazon rainforest to create charcoal for pig iron production used primarily in the automobile industry. The film examines the children and elders and their daily lives and work as they burn timber in igloo-looking huts, their bodies charred gray for $2 a day, struggling to survive.
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Born into Brothels: Calcutta's Red Light Kids
2004 · ★ 6.8
Documentary depicting the lives of child prostitutes in the red light district of Songachi, Calcutta. Director Zana Briski went to photograph the prostitutes when she met and became friends with their children. Briski began giving photography lessons to the children and became aware that their photography might be a way for them to lead better lives.
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Life on the Tracks
2003 · ★ 8
Riles is a documentary about the life of a riles resident, Eddie, in a squatter area along the railroad tracks within the downtrodden section of Balic-balik, Manila.
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Wagon21
2018 · ★ 10
Maura is a black woman, mother of 7 children and recyclable material collector in one of the largest cities in Latin America. While she works hard to maintain herself, she has to deal with prejudice, invisibility and the ignorance of those who do not recognize the value and important role of the recyclable material collector bring to the city, as an environmental agent.
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March of the Penguins
2005 · ★ 7.1
Every year, thousands of Antarctica's emperor penguins make an astonishing journey to breed their young. They walk, marching day and night in single file 70 miles into the darkest, driest and coldest continent on Earth. This amazing, true-life tale is touched with humour and alive with thrills. Breathtaking photography captures the transcendent beauty and staggering drama of devoted parent penguins who, in the fierce polar winter, take turns guarding their egg and trekking to the ocean in search of food. Predators hunt them, storms lash them. But the safety of their adorable chicks makes it all worthwhile. So follow the leader... to adventure!!
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Écoutez La Bourse Du Travail De Paris
1982 · ★ 10
Since its opening in 1882, the Paris Bourse du Travail (Labor Exchange) has remained a nerve center of the labor movement. Once a hotbed of revolutionary syndicalism, and now a meeting place for the main labor federations, history is etched into the walls of the Bourse. It is from the rooms bearing the names of illustrious figures—Eugène Varlin, Fernand Pelloutier, Jean Jaurès, Léon Jouhaux—that historians (Jean Bruhat, Bernard Georges, Jacques Julliard, Jean Maitron, Madeleine Reberioux, Denise Trintant) and the Bourse's general secretary, Jean Braire, have sought to bring to life a century of social history. The general secretaries of the five major labor federations (André Bergeron, Jean Bornard, Edmond Maire, Jacques Pommateau, Georges Seguy) discuss the origins of the Bourses du Travail, but also address the present and the future.
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The Corporal's Diary
2008 · ★ 7
Jonathan Santos, 22, documented his 37 days in Iraq on video and in writing; never knowing that day 38 would be his last. From high explosives to clandestine home brew, his video footage and witty narrative combine personal musings on life, death, and the future he imagined but would never see. His charming buddy, Matthew, who barely survived, brings the war home. Through Jonathan's handwritten words and videotape, the film tells a personal and profound story.
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Donna Haraway: Story Telling for Earthly Survival
2016 · ★ 6.2
In Fabrizio Terranova’s film, Donna Haraway – an original thinker and activist, one of the founders of cyberfeminism and the author of A Cyborg Manifesto, which proposed a number of innovative theories about the existence of scientific knowledge – calls for the abandonment of the idea of human exceptionalism and for a conception of the world as complex web of interconnections between people, animals and machines. Jellyfish can be seen flying around her home while she discusses the stories that are necessary for Earth’s preservation and reads her fantastic tale of the art of survival on a broken planet, and of fusion and care between the species.
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Da Terra
2025
Emília Pedro e Fernanda Jorge revisit childhood memories to identify over 70 land parcels inherited from their father. As physical traces fade, memory and oral tradition become the only way to 'see' what is no longer visible.
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The Man Who Wanted to Change the World
2016
Peter Westerveld, artist and visionary, doesn’t want institutions to resolve the problems linked to earth’s problems. Growing up in Africa, he witnessed the advance of the desert and dedicated himself to finding solutions for the ongoing erosion and desertification of the land. The film follows Peter and the NGO working with him to realise his project; to build contour trenches that capture and store rain water under the surface and replenish the desert land.
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Štreit – I photograph, therefore I am
2024 · ★ 8
A creative and personal retrospective of the renowned photographer Jindřich Štreit, accompanied by a selection of his photographs, footage from exhibitions, and encounters with those closest to him.
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