Expedition Niger: Real Africa (2023)

Hampi

A ritual vase, the hampi, is placed in the center of the Musée de plein air de la République du Niger in Niamey, during a ritual ceremony featuring possession dances. With this film, Jean Rouch continues his ethnological and cinematographic study of Songhay ritual objects. He demonstrates that, in a particular context, the transfer of a hampi vase to a museum requires the organization of a ritual ceremony to obtain the gods' approval. At the time, however, reservations about filming a possession dance for the opening of a shrine in a museum made the move "questionable from a museological point of view".

Niger Festivals: December 1961 - Niger Independence Days

Commemorative celebrations of the independence of the Republic of Niger filmed in December 1961 and 1962.

Zomo et ses frères

A portrait of Zomo, the second of Damouré Zika’s many children. Employed at the zoo of the National Museum of Niger in Niamey, he offers us a tour, showing us the animals he takes care of. Then, when the work is finished, he invites us to an impromptu concert by “Jeunesse Gawey,” the “popular music” orchestra he forms with his brothers and sisters, who sing and dance for us pretty songs about their lives, their family, and Nigerien youth.

L'Afrique et la recherche scientifique

This documentary offers an overview of French scientific research in Africa French scientific research in Africa: hydrology, botany, biology oil palm and coconut cultivation, industrial sea fishing and and urban planning. Film montage taking stock of scientific research research in Africa, mainly in the fields of hydrology hydrology, botany, biology and agriculture. The film is a compilation of extracts from several short films made by Jean Rouch in Mali, Niger and Côte d'Ivoire between 1962 and 1963: Abidjan, port de pêche, Le Mil, Le Cocotier and Le Palmier à l'huile. l'huile.

Horendi

A seven-day initiation ceremony is documented in which two women undergo ritual healing following a diagnosis of spirit possession, presented without narration, intertitles, or explanatory commentary.

Pam Kuso Kar (Breaking Pam's Vases)

In February 1974, Pam Sambo Zima, the oldest of the priests of possession in Niamey, Niger, died at the age of seventy-plus years. In his backyard, the followers from the possession cult symbolically break the dead priest's ritual vases and cry for the deceased while dividing up the clothes of the divinities.

Morir un Poco

A film-truth document. It presents the life of Luis, a man who wanders the streets of the city, going to and from work, contemplating the windows of a world he can never have and that invite him to consume, to dream.

Sisters in the Struggle

This documentary features Black women active in politics as well as community, labour and feminist organizing. They share their insights and personal testimonies on the double legacy of racism and sexism, linking their personal struggles with the ongoing battle to end systemic discrimination and violence against women and people of colour.

Lot Lizard

Lot Lizard is a feature documentary about truck stop sex workers in America. There are three million truck drivers and thousands of truck stops throughout the United States. Many of them are frequented by sex workers who truck drivers refer to as lot lizards. The film follows Jennifer, a recovering sex worker who is trying to get her life back on track, Bobby, a man struggling to come to grips with his girlfriend's livelihood, and Betty, an aging sex worker who makes no apologies for her lifestyle. These intimate portraits hint at a broader story about America, how it deals with its 'derelicts,' and how we are implicated as consumers.

Gravitation - Urkraft des Universums

Plot unavailable

Deep Blue

Deep Blue is a major documentary feature film shot by the BBC Natural History Unit. An epic cinematic rollercoaster ride for all ages, Deep Blue uses amazing footage to tell us the story of our oceans and the life they support.

London Recruits

The story of the Londoners recruited to be freedom fighters during the South African apartheid during the 1960s.

Stick Together

After their hunger strike in Berlin's government district, 5 climate activists reunite. While Lina has joined the "Last Generation," her comrades prepare for the eviction of Lützerath, a village facing demolition for mine expansion. How far will they go for their ideals?

Against the Tide

Two friends, both Indigenous fishermen, are driven to desperation by a dying sea. Their friendship begins to fracture as they take very different paths to provide for their struggling families.

The Stroll

The history of New York’s Meatpacking District, told from the perspective of transgender sex workers who lived and worked there. Filmmaker Kristen Lovell, who walked “The Stroll” for a decade, reunites her community to recount the violence, policing, homelessness, and gentrification they overcame to build a movement for transgender rights.

AUM: The Cult at the End of the World

The shocking story of Aum Shinrikyo, the doomsday cult that unleashed a deadly nerve gas in Tokyo’s subway system in 1995. Founded by disillusioned yoga teacher Shoko Asahara, Aum transformed into a terrorist organization while Japan’s police and media turned a blind eye. Featuring rare archival footage and an interview with one of Asahara’s former high-ranking disciples. A Sundance premiere.

Bad Press

When the Muscogee Nation suddenly begins censoring its free press, a rogue reporter fights to expose her government's corruption in a historic battle that will have ramifications for all of Indian country.

Gush

An embodied rumination of both male and female power, healing and haunting, all within an apocalyptic world. A transformation that courses through unknown terror to untamed collective joy.

Last Things

Evolution and extinction from the point of view of rocks. A humid take on minerals, where sci-fi meets sci-fact. The geo-biosphere is a place of evolutionary possibility, where humans disappear but life endures.

Deep Rising

The fate of the planet’s last untouched wilderness, the deep ocean, is under threat as a secretive organization is about to allow massive extraction of seabed metals to address the world’s energy crisis.

The Circles of Remembrance

The Circles of Remembrance is an 82 minute journey into what is usually a hidden world of Sufism. This documentary explores "zikr" ceremonies in Cairo, Istanbul, Morocco, and the U.S., along with interviews with some of the most prominent Sufi scholars and musicians, on the outer and secret meaning of the remembrance of God. Martin Lings, Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Gai Eaton, Sheikh Ali Gomma, T.J. Winter,and Tosun Bayrak are among those interviewed.

The Deepest Breath

Bonded by their love of freediving, a record-setting champion and a heroic safety diver try to make history with a remarkable feat, ready to risk it all.

The Disappearance of Shere Hite

Shere Hite’s 1976 bestselling book, The Hite Report, liberated the female orgasm by revealing the most private experiences of thousands of anonymous survey respondents. Her findings rocked the American establishment and presaged current conversations about gender, sexuality, and bodily autonomy. So how did Shere Hite disappear?

Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project

Intimate vérité, archival footage, and visually innovative treatments of poetry take us on a journey through the dreamscape of legendary queer poet Nikki Giovanni as she reflects on her life and legacy.

And the King Said, What a Fantastic Machine

From the first camera to 45 billion cameras worldwide today, the visual sociologist filmmakers widen their lens to expose both humanity's unique obsession with the camera's image and the social consequences that lay ahead.

Food and Country

America's policy of producing cheap food at all costs has long hobbled small independent farmers, ranchers, and chefs. Worried for their survival, trailblazing food writer Ruth Reichl reaches out across political and social divides to uncover the country's broken food system and the innovators risking it all to transform it.

Going Varsity in Mariachi

A year in the life of an underdog competitive high school mariachi band in the Texas borderlands.

Lost in Manboo

A four-square-metre box with a screen and computer. This is what Japanese cyber-cafes offer, around the clock. Most customers just spend an hour or two here. But there are thousands who spend their lives in them. The Manboo in Tokyo has its own permanent residents: Masata and Hitomi. It is a home for them, even though they sleep on the floor.

I Want to Live in My Name

As an early exponent of a new wave of auto-fictional writing, Tomas Espedal has established himself as one of Norway's most influential contemporary writers. We follow charming Espedal through life and writing, from hiking in the french mountains, journeys to Gran Canaria and Provence and at home with his aging father, always via his typewriter at home in Bergen. A portrait that lives up to Espedal's self-proclaimed goal, to see what is beautiful.

Germany: A Summer's Fairytale

A documentary of the German national soccer team’s 2006 World Cup experience that changed the face of modern Germany.

Riding Giants

Riding Giants is story about big wave surfers who have become heroes and legends in their sport. Directed by the skateboard guru Stacy Peralta.

Dave Chappelle's Block Party

The American comedian/actor delivers a story about the alternative Hip Hop scene. A small town Ohio mans moves to Brooklyn, New York, to throw an unprecedented block party.

They Call Me Babu

In the 1940s, Alima decides to flee from an arranged marriage to work as a nanny for a Dutch family. Through all her new impressions and thoughts, she looks critically at colonial society and her own position.

Greg Davies: Looking for Kes

Comedian, actor and ex-English teacher Greg Davies is a lifelong fan of Barry Hines's classic novel A Kestrel for a Knave, the story of Billy Casper training a kestrel as an escape from his troubled home and school life. In this documentary, Greg goes in search of the book's enduring appeal, travelling to Barnsley, where the book was set and where Ken Loach's famous adaptation, Kes, was filmed.

Gonorrhea

Diagnosis of gonorrhea should be done by clinical and laboratory investigation. The physician and patients are shown in the physician's office and examining room. The patients remove their clothing, and the physician takes samples from the end of the penis and makes thin smear slides from them. The techniques for stripping gonococci from male and female patients with chronic gonorrhea are shown in drawings and live footage. The physician is shown getting and preparing a urine sample for laboratory testing for the presence of gonococci, including using a hand-cranked centrifuge. The material is packaged to be sent away for laboratory diagnosis by gram stain and culture.

O.J. Simpson: The Interview

OJ Simpson speaks out in this explosive unrehearsed uncut no-holds-barred interview.

The Spanish Children of Russia

About 3000 children which were evacuated to the Soviet Union by the authorities of the Second Spanish Republic during the Spanish Civil War.

Everybody knew

In 2023, the Ombudsman presented a report on sexual abuse in the Church in Spain. Victims' accounts reached the European Parliament. Among them were the abuse suffered by two brothers at the boarding school where they attended as children.

Seve

Despite being blocked at almost every turn in pursuit of the sport he loved, Seve Ballesteros fought against adversity to become the most spectacular and charismatic golfer to ever play the game.

Little Richard: Keep on Rockin'

Keep On Rockin', aka Little Richard: Keep On Rockin' (USA video title) is a film of a 1969 Little Richard concert at the Sweet Toronto Peace Festival, originally released in 1970. Richard performs a number of his greatest hits, including "Good Golly Miss Molly," "Long Tall Sally," and "Tutti Frutti." The film is in color.

Displaced Perssons

Per Persson left Sweden 40 years ago. In Pakistan he fell in love and became the father of two daughters. Trouble starts when the girls grow up and the family decides to emigrate to Sweden. When they end up living in a caravan outside Hässleholm, all their expectations are dashed.

Parajanov Triptych

Three short films by Sergei Parajanov, Hakob Hovnatanyan (1967), Kyiv Frescoes (1966) and Arabesques on the Theme of Pirosmani (1986). Scanned and restored from the original camera negatives in 4K by Fixafilm. Produced in association with National Cinema Centre of Armenia (NCCA), Dovzhenko Centre and Georgian Film. Scans for Hakob Hovnatanyan and Arabesques on the Theme of Pirosmani financed by Kino Klassika.

Gamer Girl

Gamer Girl follows Allison Drouillard, a college freshman and top ranked Valorant player. While fighting off virtual enemies, she’ll recount her battles with very real ones as she balances her interest and skill in collegiate esports with everyone else’s expectations.

Kufi Krew: An American Story

Fast friends and founders of the first Muslim fraternity in the United States struggle with forbidden love, cultural taboos and generational conflict in this heart-warming story about coming-of-age in America.

My Dead Body

The extraordinary moving story of Toni Crews, a young mum with a rare terminal cancer who charted her illness online before donating her body for medical research and public dissection.

What Did You Take?

Stresses recognition and treatment of drug abuse emergencies, accurate identification of symptoms, and immediate clinical procedures. Presents scenes of actual cases in the emergency room and adjoining physician's offices of Beth Israel Medical Center in New York City. Viewers observe emergency treatment of patients in the major classes of drugs commonly abused, opiates, depressants, stimulants, and hallucinogens. The film demonstrates to health professionals that successful management of drug overdoses can save most lives and avert additional organic and psychiatric complications.

Jesus Christ Saviour

Klaus Kinski has perhaps the most ferocious reputation of all screen actors: his volatility was documented to electrifying effect in Werner Herzog’s 1999 portrait My Best Fiend. This documentary provides further fascinating insight into the talent and the tantrums of the great man. Beset by hecklers, Kinski tries to deliver an epic monologue about the life of Christ (with whom he perhaps identifies a little too closely). The performance becomes a stand-off, as Kinski fights for control of the crowd and alters the words to bait his tormentors. Indispensable for Kinski fans, and a riveting introduction for newcomers, this is a unique document, which Variety called ‘a time capsule of societal ideals and personal demons.’