Mesopotamia: The Rise of Cities (2024)

Hold Out

End of a trilogy started with Hold up and continued with Hold On, Hold out questions the official narrative about the COVID-19 pandemic.

Nostalgia

A young college student is given a disturbing ultimatum when a dark secret from his past is resurrected.

Johan Falk: The Outlaws

Johan is a two-fisted Gothenburg cop who finds himself in a shoot-out with jewel robbers. After the smoke has cleared, one robber, shot by his accomplice, and an innocent bystander, are dead. Three witnesses, including Helen, identify thug extraordinaire Leo Gaut as being the dead crook's trigger-happy colleague. Gaut soon threatens the three witnesses, and only Johan, the badge-wearing hero, can save them.

64: Part 2

1989: 64th and last year of the Showa era. A girl is kidnapped and killed. The unsolved case is called Case 64 ('rokuyon'). 2002: Yoshinobu Mikami, who was the detective in charge of the Case 64, moves as a Public Relations Officer in the Police Affairs Department. His relation with the reporters is conflicted and his own daughter is missing. The statute of limitations for the Case 64 will expire in one year. Then a kidnapping case, similar to the Case 64, takes place. The rift between the criminal investigation department and police administration department deepens. Mikami challenges the case as a public relations secretary.

But Why?

An elegy to time and life, condensing Terence Davies' profoundly humane poetics into little more than one minute, enveloping the viewer in an atmosphere of light and (Davies’ own) words.

12th edition FFE competition evening

We have selected 17 short films on the environment divided into 4 different categories: amateur, animation, fiction and documentary. These short films are in competition for the prize on each category.

way

San Francisco filmmaker Konrad Steiner took 12 years to complete a montage cycle set to the late Leslie Scalapino’s most celebrated poem, way—a sprawling book-length odyssey of shardlike urban impressions, fraught with obliquely felt social and sexual tensions. Six stylistically distinctive films for each section of way, using sources ranging from Kodachrome footage of sun-kissed S.F. street scenes to internet clips of the Iraq war to a fragmented Fred Astaire dance number.

Cruel Optimism

Music by Lawrence English, 16mm film by Paul Clipson.

The Wedding Dress

When Hannah Pinkham's fiancé writes he's finally shipping home, her mother makes a fairy tale wedding dress, but while she's fitting it the knock on the door is not him, but the dreaded officer-messenger. Years later she sends it to her nephew, photographer Travis Cleveland, but his model-bride Cass only pretends to like it to get rid of his loyal assistant. After he walks off with it, his car gets stolen with the dress in it... And it keeps passing on from person to person, but will anybody actually get married in it or does it just keep bringing bad luck to couples?

Portrait Of My Father

A labor of love documentary, in which a daughter, with the help of various talking heads, looks back on the life work of her father.

The Amorous Adventures of Moll Flanders

A bawdy story of how a poor damsel surrenders her virtue again and again to get to the top of society.

Invisible Mom

A family's life is thrown into comical chaos after mom accidentally drinks her inventor husband's latest concoction, an invisibility potion.

Tacoma

On their last night of spring break, four old friends, now all college freshmen, realize their small town has more meaning than they ever imagined.

My Mother Is A Woman

The young Vera arranges a romantic date for her mother, Natalia Petrovna, with the capital’s lady’s man so she will find her femininity again. But things go not quite according to plan...

Backlight

In 1970s Onomichi, Akira invites his crush Yoshioka to spend summer break at his home. But when Yoshioka falls for Meeko, tension brews beneath the heat.

NOVA: First Face of America

During risky expeditions in an underwater cave in Mexico, scientists unearth the skeleton of a 13,000-year-old prehistoric teenager to gain insight into the earliest known humans in America.

The Society of the Spectacle

Guy Debord's analysis of a consumer society.

The Sea Stares at Us from Afar

Huelva, Spain, an isolated region lost in time. The grass, the sand and the sky are the same that those foreigners saw in the spring of 1895, when they crossed the sea from a distant country to mark the unspoiled terrain and extract its wealth, when the tower was new, when people could climb to the top of the highest dune and imagine that the city of Tartessos was still there, in the distance, almost invisible in the morning brume.

Stonehenge: The Lost Circle Revealed

Professor Alice Roberts follows a decade-long historical quest to reveal a hidden secret of the famous bluestones of Stonehenge. Using cutting-edge research, a dedicated team of archaeologists led by Professor Mike Parker Pearson have painstakingly compiled evidence to fill in a 400-year gap in our knowledge of the bluestones, and to show that the original stones of Britain’s most iconic monument had a previous life. Alice joins Mike as they put together the final pieces of the puzzle, not just revealing where the stones came from, how they were moved from Wales to England or even who dragged them all the way, but also solving one of the toughest challenges that archaeologists face.

La véritable histoire de D'Artagnan

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The Rise and Fall of the Etruscans

For eight centuries, between the 9th and 1st century BC, the Etruscans, inhabitants of the Italian peninsula, were one of the most powerful peoples of the Mediterranean basin, and when they disappeared they left behind impressive necropolises, vestiges of sanctuaries and even entire cities. How did they attain such power? How far did they extend their dominion and influence? What were the causes of their decline?

Hitler's Battle Against the Press

As early as 1920, the journalists of the "Münchener Post" recognized the danger posed by Adolf Hitler. Consistently and boldly they wrote about National Socialism. The brave journalists and their newspaper are almost forgotten today. A single book has been published about them - in Brazil.

Millennial Peru: The Unexplored History

In the Formative Period 4,000 years before the Incas and the arrival of the Conquistadors, Peru’s earliest civilizations - the Chavín, Caral, Ventarrón, Sechin, Cupisnique, and Cajamarca cultures - built centers of learning and technological achievements, including the largest work of hydrological engineering in the ancient Americas: the Cumbemayo canals.

The Moche Route

Starting from the colonial city of Trujillo, this documentary reveals natural and archeological features along the north coast of Peru, where the Moche culture thrived from the 1st Century BC to the 6th Century AD.

Apollo 11 : Retour vers la lune

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De Charles de Gaulle à Emmanuel Macron, les gardiens de l'empire

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Titanic's Final Mystery

The sinking of the RMS Titanic remains one of the most enduring and mysterious tragedies of the 20th century. For decades, investigators and amateurs alike have floated theories for why it occurred and who was to blame for the extraordinary loss of life, but no one answer could fully explain what happened. Until now. To mark the 100th anniversary of the infamous disaster, Smithsonian Channel will premiere Titanic's Final Mystery. The two-hour special investigates a century of theories and uncovers astonishing new forensic evidence that proves the most likely theory for the case.

Dark Side of the Moon

A French documentary or, one might say more accurately, a mockumentary, by director William Karel which originally aired on Arte in 2002 with the title Opération Lune. The basic premise for the film is the theory that the television footage from the Apollo 11 Moon landing was faked and actually recorded in a studio by the CIA with help from director Stanley Kubrick.

Adolf Island

Caroline Sturdy Colls, a world leader in the forensic investigation of Nazi crime scenes, is chasing clues to an unsolved case: a concentration camp that existed on the British island of Alderney. Witnesses and survivors claimed that thousands died there, but only 389 bodies have ever been found. Under heavy restrictions imposed by the local government, which may not want its buried secrets revealed, Colls must uncover the truth using revolutionary techniques and technologies.

Storm Front in Mayo

Ireland, June 1944. The crucial decision about the right time to start Operation Overlord on D-Day comes to depend on the readings taken by Maureen Flavin, a young girl who works at a post office, used as a weather station, in Blacksod, in County Mayo, the westernmost promontory of Europe, far from the many lands devastated by the iron storms of World War II.

Château d'If : La Prison du comte de Monte-Cristo

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Pythéas, l'astronome voyageur

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Solidarność: How Solidarity Changed Europe

Gdańsk, Poland, September 1980. Lech Wałęsa and other Lenin shipyard workers found Solidarność (Solidarity), the first independent trade union behind the Iron Curtain. The long and hard battle to bring down communist dictatorship has begun.

La vie au temps de Cro-Magnon

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Une si belle époque ! La France d'avant 1914

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The Phoney War

September 3rd, 1939. Britain and France declare war on Nazi Germany, only two days after the Wehrmacht invades Poland. This day, the sad date when the fate of the world changed forever, the Phoney War began: eight months of uncertainty, preparations, evacuations and skirmishes.

1212. The Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa

On 16 July 1212, a Crusader army made up of Castilians, Aragonese and Navarrese (but also French, English and Germans) confronted the army of the Almohad Caliph an-Nasir at the foot of the Sierra Morena mountain range. The Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa, as the battle is known, is considered the most important battle of the Middle Ages on the Iberian Peninsula and is a key event in the history of Spain. More than 800 years later, a group of archaeologists and specialists have begun an archaeological study of the battlefield. Is everything that has been said about the battle true? What secrets does the terrain hide? And, above all, what can we learn today about events that took place hundreds of years ago and that pitted tens of thousands of people against each other in the south of our country?

Tutankhamun: The Truth Uncovered

What killed King Tutankhamun? Ever since his spectacular tomb was discovered, the boy king has been the most famous pharaoh of all ancient Egypt. But his mysterious death, at just 19 years old, has never been explained. In this BBC One special, presenter Dallas Campbell reveals new scientific research and carries out unique experiments to get to the truth. For the first time, a virtual autopsy of Tut's mummified body reveals astonishing secrets about the pharaoh. Using CT scan data, the programme creates the first ever full size, scientifically accurate image of the real Tutankhamun. Brand new DNA analysis uncovers a shocking secret about Tut's family background, and the genetic trail of clues leads to a radical and revolutionary new theory to explain Tut's sudden and unexpected death. This is an epic detective story that uncovers the extraordinary truth of the boy behind the golden mask.

Titanic's Fatal Fire

The sinking of the Titanic sent shockwaves around the world and started debates that continue to this day. But new, explosive evidence from the most unlikely of sources may finally lay all arguments to rest and reveal, for the first time, the full story of what possibly doomed the "unsinkable" liner. Join us as we unveil recently discovered and never-before-seen photographs of the super ship that exposes shocking clues that investigators and historians once dismissed but can no longer ignore.

Eastbound Westbound: A Winemaker’s Story From Bordeaux and California

A modern and fast-paced cinematic documentary that aims to trace, understand and demonstrate the historical and unwavering links between the United States, Bordeaux and its wines. An investigation like no other, Eastbound Westbound lets the viewer understand how this Franco-American friendship around Bordeaux wines had its starting point in the 18th century around the greatest connoisseur of fine wines and lover of Bordeaux, the American Thomas Jefferson, US Ambassador to Paris and third President of the United States. To better demonstrate Thomas Jefferson’s legacy, this intimate relationship between the two winegrowing continents is illustrated through interlinked portraits of wine families, from many and varied backgrounds but all sharing a real passion for wine. Leading players in their field, they produce some of the best wines in the world.

Collapse

From the acclaimed director of American Movie, the documentary follows former Los Angeles police officer turned independent reporter Michael Ruppert. He recounts his career as a radical thinker and spells out his apocalyptic vision of the future, spanning the crises in economics, energy, environment and more.

The Conqueror: Hollywood Fallout

The story of one of the great environmental disasters to befall the United States, and the terrible movie that helped bring the catastrophe to light.

Viking Warrior Women

Drama-led documentary following the life of Signe, an orphaned Chief's daughter, who, driven by revenge, becomes an explorer and trader in the lands of the Rus Vikings.

Augustus und Livia - Liebe, Macht und Schwert

Augustus is reputed to have been a violent, adventurous, power-hungry and unscrupulous warlord. Yet as founder of the Roman Empire, he ushered in a period of peace and prosperity. Drawing on the analysis of several historians, this documentary traces an extraordinary destiny: posthumously adopted by his great-uncle Julius Caesar, Octavian, the future Augustus, accepted an inheritance fraught with consequences. Having made his own empire prosper, he wrote his political will at the age of 76, without naming an heir. How was the succession of this childless strategist organized?

Chicago 10

Archival footage, animation and music are used to look back at the eight anti-war protesters who were put on trial following the 1968 Democratic National Convention.

Shepherds in the Cave

An international team of art restorers and archaeologists begin work on the restoration of medieval frescoes inside a network of ancient caves. Faced with local bureaucratic challenges and systemic neglect of archaeological sites, the team encounters a community of shepherds and migrants that have used the caves for centuries and discover a living culture worth preserving most of all.

JFK Revisited: Through the Looking Glass

Thirty years after the release of his film JFK (1991), filmmaker Oliver Stone reviews recently declassified evidence related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, which took place in Dallas on November 22, 1963.

Hochelaga, Land of Souls

Mohawk archaeologist Baptiste Asigny engages in a search for his ancestors following a tragic terrain slump in the Percival Molson Stadium.

Caligula with Mary Beard

What is true and what is false in the hideous stories spread about the controversial figure of the Roman emperor Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus (12-41), nicknamed Caligula? Professor Mary Beard explains what is accurate and what is mythical in the historical accounts that portray him as an unbalanced despot. Was he a sadistic tyrant, as Roman historians have told, or perhaps the truth about him was manipulated because of political interests?

In the Frozen Tomb of Mongolia

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The Egypt Code Breakers

By decoding ancient hieroglyphic texts, Jean-François Champollion gave voice to an enigmatic civilization, but behind his legendary feat is a mysterious brother who made it possible. The recent discovery of correspondence between Jean-François Champollion and his brother Jacques-Joseph now allows us to fully understand how a young, self-taught genius was able to make one of the most important discoveries of the 19th century. Without the ingenuity and unfailing support of his older brother, Jean-François would never have succeeded in solving this enigma, which had international repercussions. With animated sequences of their private correspondence, and with the help of archives and expert analysis, this film revisits this unique scientific, human and intellectual adventure to celebrate the bicentenary of the decoding of hieroglyphics.

Shoah

Director Claude Lanzmann spent 11 years on this sprawling documentary about the Holocaust, conducting his own interviews and refusing to use a single frame of archival footage. Dividing Holocaust witnesses into three categories – survivors, bystanders, and perpetrators – Lanzmann presents testimonies from survivors of the Chelmno concentration camp, an Auschwitz escapee, and witnesses of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, as well as a chilling report of gas chambers from an SS officer at Treblinka.

L’épopée des vignerons

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La Ligne de démarcation, une France coupée en deux (1940-1943)

Between June 1940 and March 1943, the 1,200 kilometer long demarcation line broke France in two. For almost three years she controlled the daily newspaper of 40 million French people. In the north the zone occupied by Hitler's soldiers, in the south the zone administered by Marshal Pétain's Vichy regime. This film lifts the veil in this theater on the shameful mistakes of the collaboration, but also on the most courageous and noble deeds. Archive images and film recordings at places where the border used to be crossed are alternated with interviews with the last witnesses of this time.

Tokyo Phoenix

In 150 years, twice marked by total destruction —a terrible earthquake in 1923 and incendiary bombings in 1945— followed by a spectacular rebirth, Tokyo, the old city of Edo, has become the largest and most futuristic capital in the world in a transformation process fueled by the exceptional resilience of its inhabitants, and nourished by a unique phenomenon of cultural hybridization.

De Gaulle, l'homme à abattre

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Narbonne: The Second Rome

More than 2.000 years ago, Narbonne in today's Département Aude was the capital of a huge Roman province in Southern Gaul - Gallia Narbonensis. It was the second most important Roman port in the western Mediterranean and the town was one of the most important commercial hubs between the colonies and the Roman Empire, thus the town could boast a size rivaling that of the city that had established it: Rome itself. Paradoxically, the town that distinguished itself for its impressive architecture, today shows no more signs of it: neither temples, arenas, nor theaters. Far less significant Roman towns like Nîmes or Arles are full of ancient sites. Narbonne today is a tranquil town in Occitania

Le mystère de l'homme de Denisova

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The Fabulous History of Skiing

The history of skiing is an amazing journey through small and big events starring strong and avant-garde people who were not afraid to break with the prevailing social prejudices of their time and invented a new sporting discipline.

The Fog of War

Using archival footage, cabinet conversation recordings, and an interview of the 85-year-old Robert McNamara, The Fog of War depicts his life, from working as a WWII whiz-kid military officer, to being the Ford Motor Company's president, to managing the Vietnam War as defense secretary for presidents Kennedy and Johnson.

Paris, le mystère du palais disparu

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The Damned of the Paris Commune

Exclusively created with period engravings, this animated feature explores the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 and the ensuing Paris Commune revolution in 1871.

La Révélation des Pyramides 2 : l'Équateur penché, l'enquête continue...

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Dawn of Humanity

Nova and National Geographic present exclusive access to an astounding discovery of ancient fossil human ancestors.

What They Found

The story of two soldier-cameramen, Sgt Mike Lewis and Sgt Bill Lawrie, who witnessed the liberation of Belsen during the closing days of World War II.

Peru - Sacrifices in the Kingdom of Chimor

In northern Peru, the unprecedented archaeological discovery of the largest known mass child sacrifice in the world opens the doors to the kingdom of Chimor. This international archaeological investigation carried out like a criminal investigation reveals the mysteries of the last civilization of the Andes before the arrival of the Incas.

Christspiracy

The moral dimension of humanity's interaction with nonhuman animals and the industries that profit from their exploitation, as informed by world religions. A historical explanation of how the current global situation came to be.