Smoke Signals (2024)

The Salt of the Earth

During the last forty years, the photographer Sebastião Salgado has been travelling through the continents, in the footsteps of an ever-changing humanity. He has witnessed the major events of our recent history: international conflicts, starvations and exodus… He is now embarking on the discovery of pristine territories, of the wild fauna and flora, of grandiose landscapes: a huge photographic project which is a tribute to the planet's beauty. Salgado's life and work are revealed to us by his son, Juliano, who went with him during his last journeys, and by Wim Wenders, a photographer himself.

Breaking Boundaries: The Science of Our Planet

David Attenborough and scientist Johan Rockström examine Earth's biodiversity collapse and how this crisis can still be averted.

The Wild Forest

“Let nature be nature” is the philosophy of the Bavarian Forest National Park. Despite massive resistance, this vision has become a groundbreaking showcase project. Because humans do not interfere with nature, the former commercial forests grow into a primeval forest, a unique ecosystem and a refuge for biodiversity. People from all over the world come here. They are looking for answers to the question of why we need more wild nature and what we can learn from it to preserve forests for future generations in times of climate change.

Sparni

It’s the second semester of junior year for Pierce “Sparni” Sparnroft, a gifted jazz vibraphonist studying at Montclair State University in New Jersey. Sparni’s prospects on the vibes were rejuvenated by their new professor, the world-renowned Steve Nelson, and are to be showcased during a student-driven recital in May 2023. But all the while, Sparni must face a crisis within.

The Magic Behind 'd'ILLUSION: The Houdini Musical - The Audio Theater Experience'

A special behind-the-scenes look at the making of the audiobook edition of "d'ILLUSION: The Houdini Musical" and how it did its part in helping keep theater and the arts alive during the COVID-19 pandemic.

I'll Never Forget the Last Time

A movie that portrays a reflection about sense of being self, to love and to be loved.

Makayla's Voice: A Letter to the World

A teen with autism unlocks a joyous world of self-expression as she shares her voice for the first time using a letter board.

Bigger Than Us

For six years, Melati, 18, has been fighting the plastic pollution that is ravaging her country, Indonesia. Like her, a generation is rising up to fix the world. Everywhere, teenagers and young adults are fighting for human rights, the climate, freedom of expression, social justice, access to education or food. Dignity. Alone against all odds, sometimes risking their lives and safety, they protect, denounce and care for others. The earth. And they change everything. Melati goes to meet them across the globe. At a time when everything seems to be or has been falling apart, these young people show us how to live. And what it means to be in the world today.

Animal

16-year-old Bella and Vipulan are part of a generation convinced its very future is in danger. Between climate change and the 6th mass extinction of wildlife, their world could well be inhabitable 50 years from now. They have sounded the alarm over and over, but nothing has really changed. So they’ve decided to tackle the root of the problem: our relationship with the living world. Over the course of an extraordinary journey, they come to realize just how deeply humans are tied to all other living species. And that by saving them… we’re also saving ourselves. Humans thought they could distance themselves from nature, but humans are part and parcel of nature. For man is, after all, an Animal.

I'm So Sorry

In a quiet forest, a sign warns of radiation hazard. “Is this the past or the future?” muses the masked figure who appears like a kind of ghost in nuclear disaster areas. At a time when nuclear power may be re-emerging as an alternative to fossil fuels, this calmly observed and compelling tour takes us to places that may serve as a warning.

9/11

An on-the-scene documentary following the events of September 11, 2001 from an insider's view, through the lens of two French filmmakers who simply set out to make a movie about a rookie NYC fireman and ended up filming the tragic event that changed our lives forever.

Koyaanisqatsi

Takes us to locations all around the US and shows us the heavy toll that modern technology is having on humans and the earth. The visual tone poem contains neither dialogue nor a vocalized narration: its tone is set by the juxtaposition of images and the exceptional music by Philip Glass.

Miss Italia Mustn't Die

Behind the glitz of Miss Italia, director Patrizia Mirigliani fights to save the iconic pageant, now wavering amid scandals and changing beauty standards.

Grand Canyon Adventure: River at Risk

A documentary about a 15-day river-rafting trip on the Colorado River aimed at highlighting water conservation issues.

ciao Aracà

"...a charming depiction of life as I knew it with my grandparents in my own village..." Clara Caleo Green, Cinema Italia UK "The sum of the individual fates and life choices paints a picture, the validity of which extends far beyond this village." Joachim Manzin, Black Box This documentary records the thoughtful and emotional confrontation with time, change, loss and hope related by the members of a small community in the idyllic Ligurian countryside who are dealing with a rapidly changing agricultural industry, transformed by globalisation and technological advances and an increasing number of foreigners buying the empty houses in their village. Forgoing the use of music and voice over, the film lets Aracà's inhabitants tell their own stories and allows the audience to dive into the rich soundscape of the ligurian alpine countryside.

Horizon

From the turtles of the Farasan Islands to the ibex that dot the Asir Mountains, this documentary captures Saudi Arabia's diverse wildlife and scenery.

Baraka

A paralysingly beautiful documentary with a global vision—an odyssey through landscape and time—that attempts to capture the essence of life.

Qatar, une dynastie à la conquête du monde

For three decades now, Qatar, this small desert kingdom, has not stopped being talked about; because of its financial power and the secrecy that surrounds it, the royal family that runs it fascinates as much as it frightens.

Aquaman: Heroines of Atlantis

Amber Heard and Nicole Kidman discuss their characters Mera and Atlanna.

Supervolcan Yellowstone : Menace sur la planète ?

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Anthropocène, l’implacable enquête

For several decades, geoscientists have been observing that the Earth is changing rapidly due to human intervention. This action has such a great impact on the biological, geological and atmospheric processes of the Earth that some scientists speak of the dawn of a new epoch: the Age of Man or the Anthropocene.

Invisible Revolutions

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Johatsu - Into Thin Air

In Japan, thousands of people disappear voluntarily every year. And there are companies ready to help those who want to disappear without a trace and start a new life somewhere else. Meet some of them in a film that soberly examines a modern phenomenon.

Megafires: The Global Threat

For more than a decade, wildfires of unprecedented force have been devouring our lives, homes and forests at a steady pace. Each year, 350 million hectares of forest go up in smoke, the equivalent of six times the size of France. In the US, the fire season now lasts up to two months longer than a generation ago, and the surface burnt annually has multiplied by three. This film sets out on a gripping journey of investigation from Europe to the US, Canada, Brazil and Indonesia to follow the work of a global team of dedicated firefighters, scientists and fire experts as they investigate why our forests are going up in flames, and act on an unexpected discovery: if we want to save our forests, homes, health and our climate, we need to radically change our attitude towards fire and the way we fight wildfires.

Fracking the System: Colorado's Oil and Gas Wars

Fracking the System is a political thriller documentary from the front lines of climate justice activism in Colorado. When a fracking mega-site gets moved from a White neighborhood to a BIPOC neighborhood, a concerned mother fights to try and stop it. This is an investigative exposé about the harms of fracking, the lengths to which the government is complacent with industrial pollution, and the nefarious tactics that the oil and gas industry uses to undermine democratic elections.

Refugee Poetry

The Kurdish Iraqi poet and actor Zeravan Khalil travels with his dog through an Alpine gorge after fleeing from IS war and genocide. As he remembers the abomination, he writes a poem with the title “You drive me mad” in Kurmanji Kurdish. In his home country, Yazidic Kurds are forbidden to work in his profession. Then he eats his apple and wanders through Europe’s middle with more hope.

The 11th Hour

A look at the state of the global environment including visionary and practical solutions for restoring the planet's ecosystems. Featuring ongoing dialogues of experts from all over the world, including former Soviet Prime Minister Mikhail Gorbachev, renowned scientist Stephen Hawking, former head of the CIA R. James Woolse

Choppers, let's ride

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Rise of the Warrior Apes

Filmed over 23 years, Rise of the Warrior Apes tells the epic story of an extraordinary troop of chimpanzees in Ngogo, Uganda – featuring four mighty warriors who rule through moral ambiguity, questionable politics, strategic alliances and destroyed trust.

Something to Say

Bryan Charles Kimes has a lot to say, but the power of language escapes him. Lost in a public-school system that does not suit his needs, his parents fight to help him find his voice.

The Venerable W.

A view of the religious tensions between Muslims and Buddhist through the portrait of the Buddhist monk Ashin Wirathu, leader of anti-Muslim movement in Myanmar.

Time

Fox Rich, indomitable matriarch and modern-day abolitionist, strives to keep her family together while fighting for the release of her incarcerated husband. An intimate, epic, and unconventional love story, filmed over two decades.

Hold on Tight

A short documentary exploring the ways LGBT couples show affection, and how small interactions like holding hands in public can carry, not only huge personal significance, but also the power to create social change.

A Bit of a Stranger

Svitlana, a Russian-speaking Ukrainian, examines the colonised part of her consciousness and tries to find answers to the question of how Soviet totalitarianism and Russification influenced the relationships within her family.

Earth: Muted

Three farming families in Hanyuan, China, strive to give their children a good life in the midst of an ecological crisis, as widespread use of pesticides leads to a dramatic decline in bees and other pollinating insects in the valley.

Space Station 3D

Some 220 miles above Earth lies the International Space Station, a one-of-a-kind outer space laboratory that 16 nations came together to build. Get a behind-the-scenes look at the making of this extraordinary structure in this spectacular IMAX film. Viewers will blast off from Florida's Kennedy Space Center and the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Russia for this incredible journey -- IMAX's first-ever space film. Tom Cruise narrates.

Apolonia, Apolonia

When Danish filmmaker Lea Glob first portrayed Apolonia Sokol in 2009, she appeared to be leading a storybook life. The talented Apolonia was born in an underground theater in Paris and grew up in an artists’ community—the ultimate bohemian existence. In her 20s, she studied at the Beaux-Arts de Paris, one of the most prestigious art academies in Europe. Over the years, Lea Glob kept returning to film the charismatic Apolonia and a special bond developed between the two young women.

Die Flotte der Römer

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FIT Hives: Sustainability - The Secret to Survival

A documentary that introduces FIT Hives, a student-run organization whose mission is to educate the FIT community about the importance of bees to the environment, the use of bee-derived resources in the industries related to the majors at FIT and its goal to put a beehive on the roof. FIT Hives is a recipient of an FIT Innovation Grant which also supported the making of this documentary.

Global Metal

In GLOBAL METAL, directors Scot McFadyen and Sam Dunn set out to discover how the West's most maligned musical genre - heavy metal - has impacted the world's cultures beyond Europe and North America. The film follows metal fan and anthropologist Sam Dunn on a whirlwind journey through Asia, South America and the Middle East as he explores the underbelly of the world's emerging extreme music scenes; from Indonesian death metal to Chinese black metal to Iranian thrash metal. GLOBAL METAL reveals a worldwide community of metalheads who aren't just absorbing metal from the West - they're transforming it - creating a new form of cultural expression in societies dominated by conflict, corruption and mass-consumerism.

The Cosmic Hoax: An Exposé

This documentary is Dr. Steven Greer’s answer to the current government and media disinformation campaign promoting 3 big lies: 1. We do not know what these UAPs/ UFOs are. WE DO. 2. Humans cannot make craft that can maneuver like UFOs. WE CAN and WE DO. 3. The UFOs are a threat. THEY ARE NOT.

The Giza Pyramids: Reaching for the Stars

Explores the Pyramids of Giza as Egyptologists try to unravel the mysteries and decipher the clues behind these stone giants built over 4,500 years ago.

9/11: Cleared for Chaos

On September 11, 2001, the unimaginable transpired when devastating attacks on the World Trade Center forced the shutdown of the entire U.S. airspace. Thousands of kilometres away in Gander, Newfoundland, a group of Nav Canada air traffic controllers suddenly had the lives of 33,000 people in their hands and had to think fast to find a place for them to go. Discovery uncovers how these unsung heroes managed to safely land 224 planes in four hours, without incident.