Surviving Progress
★ 7.4 · 2011 · 86m · Documentary
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.
More Like This
The cats, the sea, and everything in between.
2025
In 2022, when the economic crisis in her native country was at its peak, she decided to visit her family there. She turned her short trip into a collage-like diary in which she reflects on her relationship with her homeland, which is in a state of protracted decay. The film is composed of spontaneous snapshots capturing the author's stay, interspersed with inserted captions serving as personal, often poetically formulated comments and observations. As a result, the film does not hide its strongly subjective perspective, but at the same time builds on it to make an important statement that shows the transformation of Lebanese society in everyday details such as the appearance of the city itself or in the intimate sphere of the author's family life.
More info →
The Take
2004 · ★ 7.8
In suburban Buenos Aires, thirty unemployed ceramics workers walk into their idle factory, roll out sleeping mats and refuse to leave. All they want is to re-start the silent machines. But this simple act - the take - has the power to turn the globalization debate on its head. Armed only with slingshots and an abiding faith in shop-floor democracy, the workers face off against the bosses, bankers and a whole system that sees their beloved factories as nothing more than scrap metal for sale.
More info →
Visions Cinema: Film as a Way of Life: Hong Kong Cinema - A Report by Tony Rayns
1983
Examines the early 1980s Hong Kong filmmaking community. Tony Rayns interviews some of the new generation of filmmakers and figures from the wider film culture.
More info →
From Tesla to SpaceX, the World According to Elon Musk
2022 · ★ 8
In just a few years, Elon Musk has become one of the most influential and wealthy men on the planet. Although the Tesla brand has revolutionized the image of the electric car, Elon Musk remains a great innovator in the business world. For him, there are no limits: satellites, houses, urban tunnels... But what attracts Elon Musk the most is space, which remains his favorite playground. Recently, he developed reusable rockets that have transformed space travel.
More info →
Crocodile in the Yangtze
2012 · ★ 10
Crocodile in the Yangtze follows China's first Internet entrepreneur and former English teacher, Jack Ma, as he battles US giant eBay on the way to building China's first global Internet company, Alibaba Group. An independent memoir written, directed and produced by an American who worked in Ma's company for eight years, Crocodile in the Yangtze captures the emotional ups and downs of life in a Chinese Internet startup at a time when the Internet brought China face-to-face with the West. Crocodile in the Yangtze draws on 200 hours of archival footage filmed by over 35 sources between 1995 and 2009. The film presents a strikingly candid portrait of Ma and his company, told from the point of view of an “American fly on a Chinese wall” who witnessed the successes and the mistakes Alibaba encountered as it grew from a small apartment into a global company employing 16,000 staff.
More info →
Little Proletarian
2012 · ★ 8
A Rebel Without a Cause for a new generation, and one of the most defiant children to ever grace the big screen, 14-year-old Hai is a teenage terror, a high school dropout and an all-around badass. He is also entirely irresistible. You cannot take your eyes off this kid, complete with a motorbike and an everpresent cigarette butt drooping from the corner of his mouth. (Dorothy Woodend, DOXA Documentary Film Festival)
More info →Huhu
2014
Lao Zha’s film examines rural life in Haiyuan County, in Ningxia Province. Unlike the rapidly globalizing urban centres, here life remains largely unchanged for the Hui people, a Muslim ethnic group, whose diverse cultural roots incorporate Arabic and Persian influences that arose out of the Hui’s proximity to the Silk Road. In a remote Hui village, a little boy named Huhu is growing up under the watchful eye of his grandparents, and, occasionally, his less-than-reliable mother. (Dorothy Woodend, DOXA Documentary Film Festival)
More info →
Stars in Brazil
2014 · ★ 7.3
The ultimate guide to the players on the road to Rio. Ahead of the world football tournament in June & July, Stars in Brazil celebrates ten of the world’s most talented players on the road to Rio. From Cristiano Ronaldo’s breathtaking skills to the brillance of Wayne Rooney, Stars in Brazil offers detailed player profiles, fantastic footage and exclusive interviews with football experts.
More info →
Capturing the Killer Nurse
2022 · ★ 6.5
Charlie Cullen was an experienced registered nurse, trusted and beloved by his colleagues at Somerset Medical Center in New Jersey. He is also one of history’s most prolific serial killers, with a body count potentially numbering in the hundreds across multiple medical facilities in the Northeast.
More info →
It's Yours: A Film on Hip-Hop and the Internet
2020 · ★ 2
By the dawn of the 21st century, hip-hop sales had reached an all-time high, but one thing has remained the same. The doors were still locked, and the music industry held the keys. Young artists began to self-market on the Internet, ultimately helping to collapse the music industry as we knew it. It’s Yours explores how it became possible to become a rap star through a Twitter account, YouTube site or Myspace page. It tells this story through the unique perspectives of numerous artists, producers, record industry insiders, and music and cultural critics.
More info →
The Shaolin Kid: A Boy In China
★ 10
The story of a six year old boy from Phoenix, Arizona whose dreams of becoming a Kungfu master lead him to the birthplace of martial arts - the legendary Shaolin Temple in China. His father must now face a heartbreaking decision and follow his son to China leaving the mother behind in America... a choice few parents could ever imagine.
More info →