The Volunteer Archivists (2022)

A Life's Work

What’s it like to dedicate your life to work that won’t be completed in your lifetime? Fifteen years ago, filmmaker David Licata focused on four projects and the people behind them in an effort to answer this universal question.

Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project

Marion Stokes secretly recorded television 24 hours a day for 30 years from 1975 until her death in 2012. For Marion taping was a form of activism to seek the truth, and she believed that a comprehensive archive of the media would be invaluable for future generations. Her visionary and maddening project nearly tore her family apart, but now her 70,000 VHS tapes are being digitized and they'll be searchable online.

Nani Ma

Musamoni Panigrahi (1920s–2017), fondly called “Nani Ma” by her neighbours, appears in the centre of this first film in the Baleswari dialect of India's Odia language. The story revolves around folklore and folk songs narrated by Nani Ma. Born in the 1920s in pre-independent rural India in a coastal village in the Balasore district of Odisha, she never got to go beyond the first few days of school. The film is an alternate history of a society broken through colonization, Brahminical patriarchy and a post-famine (Orissa famine of 1866, killing nearly 5 million people, one-third of the population), and the dominance of formal writing over spoken tongues. Three academics -- Damayanti Beshra, PhD (recipient of India’s fourth civilian award, “Padma Shri”), Panchanan Mohanty, PhD (noted linguist), and Laxmikanta Tripathy, PhD, DLitt (anthropologist and author) -- also appear in the film to provide contextual commentary on patriarchy, oral history and the sociolinguistic diversity.

Beyond Paper

At a critical moment in the history of the written word, as humanity’s archives migrate to the cloud, one filmmaker goes on a journey around the globe to better understand how she can preserve her own Romanian and Armenian heritage, as well as our collective memory. Blending the intellectual with the poetic, she embarks on a personal quest with universal resonance, navigating the continuum between paper and digital—and reminding us that human knowledge is above all an affair of the soul and the spirit.

Die Schweiz von oben

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Blow It to Bits

A mix of Rock and Roll and Blues are the secret for successful rebellion. When I took my camera to the middle of France where the GM&S factory was threatened by a permanent shut down, I felt like something extraordinary was about to take place. And it did. The lyrics were written by workers who have had enough! The tune was composed by people not afraid to go against even the rules of revolt! The volume was loud enough to attract the media. Their working-class concert spread across France like wild fire. I sat out of sight, camera in hand, filming like catching fish in a barrel.

The Sea of Itami Jun

"Hello. I'm Itami Jun. I apologize for my poor Korean." Itami Jun (Yoo Dongryong), a Korean architect who was born in Japan. This film follows his life through heartwarming architectures for people that he had tried for all his life. The architecture of time that exists for the people, space and the story of an architect who walked his own way between Korea and Japan, Shimizu and Jeju.

Frank Lloyd Wright: Phoenix From the Ashes

A portrait of Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959), a genius of modern architecture, whose life passed between glory, scandal and tragedy.

Leonardo da Vinci and the Bust of Flora

Acquired in July 1909 by art collector Wilhelm von Bode (1845-1929), director general of the Prussian Art Collections and founding director of the Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum, now the Bode-Museum, the Bust of Flora, Roman goddess of flowers, has been the subject of controversy for more than a century.

Sacred Cow: The Nutritional, Environmental and Ethical Case for Better Meat

A film about the current debate on eating and raising cattle for food, showing that animal-sourced foods are nutritious for humans, and can be raised in a way that is beneficial for the environment.

Jean Rochefort, l'irrésistible

If Jean Rochefort remains so dear to our hearts, it is because this extraordinary actor alone embodies a cinema and a France imbued with freedom and carelessness. Through his films, archives and the testimony of those close to him, we discover a complex man, a sad clown saved by his taste for words and for fun.

The Exhibitionists

Four friends dare to get locked in the National Gallery and discover only 25 per cent of art in the Australian collection is by women. Raiding the vaults, they uncover forgotten works of art and scandalous tales of sexism.

Germany: A Regional Geography

A BAFTA award nominated documentary intended for secondary schools exploring the three distinct geographical regions of Germany from a British perspective.

Horses Die at Dawn

When Ione moves into the house of the deceased García siblings, she discovers that their rebel spirit still remains in the many objects they left behind. Antonio worked as a comic book artist for the Bruguera publishing house and Rosita was a pianist and opera singer. Both, together with their brother Juanito, transformed their home into a space dominated by fiction, to escape the dark reality imposed by the Franco dictatorship.

The Spanish Flu: The Invisible Enemy

In April 1918, a disease of unknown origin swept across the five continents. In 18 months, millions of lives that had not been taken by the war were swept away by a virus that would cause the worst pandemic in history: the Spanish flu.

Andrew Lloyd Webber at the BBC

To mark his 75th birthday, Andrew Lloyd Webber takes a nostalgic journey through the BBC archives, looking back on some of his biggest and best-loved songs.

Le Grec - Georges Livanos

Georges Livanos, nicknamed the Greek but pure child of Marseille, amateur mountaineer, opened more than 500 routes in the Calanques, 40 in the Dolomites, and repeated many of the greatest routes in the Alps in the company of the best climbers of his time, d friends, and especially his wife Sonia. He is also the author of the classic "Beyond the vertical". This report follows for a day the legend, still 71 years old, of his apartment in the Marseille city in the Calanques. As a true Provençal, he speaks without filter of the exploits that made him famous, gives his opinion on modern climbing and on life in general: the portrait of a great climber and above all of a fascinating character with a sense of humor sharp.

Fiona Apple: MTV Unplugged

Aired on July of 1997, this installment in MTV's "Unplugged" series sees the legendary Fiona Apple performing a live acoustic show. The performance includes the songs "Shadowboxer", "Sleep to Dream", and "Criminal" off her debut album "Tidal", and a cover of "Angel" by Jimi Hendrix.

Black Wings

For early aviators, conquering the forces of gravity was a daunting challenge. But black aviators had an additional challenge - conquering the forces of racism. Meet the men and women who took to the skies throughout the 20th century, proving to a segregated nation that skin color doesn't determine skill level. From biplanes to commercial jets, and from barnstormers to war fighters, meet the path-breaking pilots who opened the skies for all -- and contributed in countless ways to the development of aviation.

Pitlochry Welcomes You

Visit Pitlochry, a “busy, bustling town” in the heart of the Scottish Highlands featuring boozing stags, ladies lunching, tweed and whisky galore!

The Workshop of the World: Birmingham

Spellbinding images of Birmingham between the wars.

Neo-fascism in Italy

Neo-fascists are chanting their slogans louder and louder in the squares and streets of Italy from north to south. The electoral victory of politician Giorgia Meloni of the right-wing Fratelli d'Italia party, whose flag bears the flame symbol in honor of Benito Mussolini, and her post-fascist government have given them a boost. A hundred years after the Duce seized power, the word fascist is becoming socially acceptable again. Among many young people in Italy, being far right is considered cool. The identitarian movement "Fortress Europe" attracts them in droves. Fascism nostalgists make pilgrimages to Mussolini's tomb and hold rallies. Right-wing rock concerts but also intellectual "meetings for tradition and identity" form the ideology. A constant support is the ultra-fan scene of the football clubs. The documentary illuminates the facets of neo-fascism in Italy, lets activists have their say, but also a journalist who has been writing about the neo-fascist scene for 20 years.

CARA-B

A desktop documentary that focuses on the Golden Record that NASA sent into space in the late 1970s. The piece reflects on issues such as the power of scientific discourse to produce revisions of the world, the evolution of the concept of the archive and the resignification of borders in the rhetoric of space colonialism.

Journey into Amazing Caves

Journey into Amazing Caves is an extraordinary IMAX adventure into the depths of the earth to uncover the secrets to life underground.

Endgame: Blueprint for Global Enslavement

For the New World Order, a world government is just the beginning. Once in place they can engage their plan to exterminate 80% of the world's population, while enabling the "elites" to live forever with the aid of advanced technology.

MUM Misunderstandings of Miscarriage

At age 31, after experiencing her second miscarriage, Tahyna MacManus was devastated, lost, angry and, despite those around her, felt terribly alone. She picked up a camera and started to record her story and in doing so found her tribe. Resilient, courageous women speaking of their sadness, their shame and their guilt while still holding onto hope. Tahyna discovers that 1 in 4 Australian women experience miscarriage so why aren’t we talking about it? In this highly intimate journey, Tahyna is on a mission to lift the lid on all that shame, provide some answers and make sure that women no longer walk this path alone. But first, she has to face her own fears.

Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea

For Ona, a young woman from the small Indonesian island of Kaledupa, the struggle to receive an education and marry a decent man is hard won. Her dream is to become a marine biologist and she has the drive to do it, despite no one in her family believing in her. However, her focus on her studies is interrupted when the man she is betrothed to marry is released from prison and rapes her, leaving her no choice but to demand he marry her, so she can protect the good name of her unsupportive family.

La fabuleuse histoire du restaurant

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Willie

Documentary about Willie O'Ree, the first black hockey player to play in the National Hockey League. O'Ree played winger for the Boston Bruins during the 1957-58 and 1960-61 seasons.

VICE Special Report: The Future of Work

The next Industrial Revolution is upon us, and scientists, entrepreneurs and policymakers are warning of an imminent paradigm shift in the future of work. In partnership with the Council on Foreign Relations, VICE talks to industry leaders and laborers to learn how radical developments in automation and artificial intelligence are set to change the world of work as we know it.

A Tribute To Buddy Holly And The Crickets

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