Fascinating India
★ 8.2 · 2014 · 90m · Documentary
"Fascinating India" spreads an impressive panorama of India’s historical and contemporary world. The film presents the most important cities, royal residences and temple precincts. It follows the trail of different religious denominations, which have influenced India up to the present day. Simon Busch and Alexander Sass travelled for months through the north of the Indian subcontinent to discover what is hidden under India’s exotic and enigmatic surface, and to show what is rarely revealed to foreigners. The film deals with daily life in India. In Varanasi, people burn their dead to ashes. At the Kumbh Mela, the biggest religious gathering of the world, 35 million pilgrims bathe in holy River Ganges. This is the first time India is presented in such an alluring and engaging fashion on screen.
More Like This
Riverboom
2024 · ★ 8.4
In the year following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, young journalist Claude Baechtold finds himself in the war zone of Afghanistan. Not entirely voluntarily, the avowed anti-militarist is dragged by two fearless reporters on a round trip through the entire country.
More info →
Planet Food: Spice Trails
2012 · ★ 7.5
In this remarkable journey, Planet Food travels the world to see how control of the spice trails, over the last five millennia, has made great cities and destroyed ancient civilizations. Our guides travel from the Molucca Islands of Indonesia, the original home of cloves and nutmeg, to the Indian province of Kerala, with its native pepper and cardamom. Additional stops include Venice, Beirut, Cairo and other significant places in the spice trade that created and toppled empires.
More info →
Anthony Bourdain: A Cook's Tour - Australia and Japan
2002
Cooking and dining with Anthony Bourdain! Australia and Japan - 5 episodes. When Tony's car breaks down in the outback, he is found by a veteran of the bush who brings him back to camp and feeds him a slap-up meal of bush tucker, including kangaroo and wattleseed-bush tomato.
More info →
The Karma Killings
2016 · ★ 6.9
"The Karma Killings," is a modern-day crime thriller mixed in with Indian mythology and class warfare. The documentary delves into India's most infamous serial killings and its impact on a nation. Told through the people directly involved, the film unravels the complexities of the case and goes beyond the sensational headlines to present a suspenseful and scary mystery. And has a huge twist - one of the killers maybe innocent?
More info →
The Kali of Emergency
2017
During social and political turmoil, what is the manifestation of divine intervention? How do the gods and goddesses act in the volatility of the contemporary world? If they walk on earth as men and women, how do they endure the chaos of modernity? Centering on the terrible and majestic incarnations of Goddess Kali and her celestial avatars, this film is a metaphysical contemplation in times of perpetual emergencies. Avikunthak’s remarkable sense of forms finds expression in the extraordinary combination of performance and essayistic cinematic practices.
More info →
the days we'll look back on
2025 · ★ 10
A story about 6 kids who grew up together and stayed together, once strangers, then friends, now family. Both a video diary and a travelogue, this coming-of-age film explores the fleeting moments of youth, reflecting on nostalgia, connection, and the bonds that endure as we grow older. A chapter in the story we've been writing since we were kids, these are the days we'll look back on.
More info →
Life in the Andes
1952 · ★ 6
The Andes Mountains travel the western side of South America. Unlike many other mountain ranges of their altitude, the Andes do support human life on their high altitude slopes. Modern life is slowly making its way to the high altitude Andes, but the natives for the most part continue with the traditional ways of their ancestors, growing limited crops such as beans and potatoes - where the crop originated - raising sheep and pigs, and living in crude huts. The llama is the most useful of their work animals. The most conspicuous aspect of the native dress is their derby hats, the origins which are unknown. Further down the slopes, agriculture and ranching is more productive and is carried out by descendants of the Spanish settlers. There is a famous lake district in the Chilean part of the Andes, where resort hotels are located.
More info →Jamna - The River Story
2023 · ★ 8
The river Yamuna, known to the locals as 'Jamna', the lifeline of Delhi, is going through a major crisis due to pollution, mismanagement and sheer ignorance. A documentary crew tries to make sense of the situation by talking to different stakeholders and Shyam - a boatman who relies on the river for his livelihood.
More info →
Picturesque New Zealand
1952 · ★ 5
This Traveltalk series short visit to New Zealand starts in Auckland, a bustling, modern city. Next is Christchurch, home of Canterbury University, where rowing teams participate in a regatta. Nearby is Lake Wakatipu, which inspires artists to put their impressions on canvas. We then visit Rotorua, a city famous for its geysers, hot springs, bubbling mud pools, and other geothermal activity. At Ferry Springs there is lots of trout for fishing. Later, a group of natives performs a canoe dance.
More info →
The Drunkmen’s Marseillaise
2024 · ★ 8
In the summer of 1961, a group of young Italian anthropologists made a clandestine journey through Spain, in order to record popular songs that supported anti-Franco resistance. As a result of their work, they were prosecuted and their recordings were censored. Sixty years later, and guided by Emilio Jona, aged 92, the last living member of that group of travellers, we recover the unpublished recordings and reconstruct the journey, today, across an emotional and political landscape, regaining historical memories through these songs, as relevant today as they were then.
More info →
I Crossed Earth for Animation Trivia
2024
Follow along as “budding YouTuber” Jack Carlin makes the hilariously unnecessary trip to the UK (over 3,000 miles) for a single day in order to compete in an animation quiz.
More info →