urgewald – Auf den Spuren des Geldes (2024)

Plastic Paradise: The Great Pacific Garbage Patch

"Plastic Paradise" is an independent documentary film that chronicles Angela Sun's personal journey of discovery to one of the most remote places on Earth, Midway Atoll, to uncover the truth behind the mystery of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Along the way she encounters scientists, celebrities, legislators and activists who shed light on what our society's vast consumption of disposable plastic is doing to our oceans -- and what it may be doing to our health.

Making 'The Shining'

Directed and edited by Stanley Kubrick's daughter Vivian Kubrick, this film offers a look behind the scenes during the making of The Shining.

Control Room

A chronicle which provides a rare window into the international perception of the Iraq War, courtesy of Al Jazeera, the Arab world's most popular news outlet. Roundly criticized by Cabinet members and Pentagon officials for reporting with a pro-Iraqi bias, and strongly condemned for frequently airing civilian causalities as well as footage of American POWs, the station has revealed (and continues to show the world) everything about the Iraq War that the Bush administration did not want it to see.

Adriana's Pact

Lissette's favorite aunt Adriana, who lives in Australia, is arrested in 2007 while visiting her family in Chile and accused of having worked for dictator Pinochet's notorious secret police, the DINA, and of having participated in the commission of state crimes. When Adriana denies these accusations, Lissette begins to investigate her story in order to film a documentary about her.

Chavela

Inspired by an exclusive interview and performance footage of Chavela Vargas shot in 1991 and guided by her unique voice, the film weaves an arresting portrait of a woman who dared to dress, speak, sing, and dream her unique life into being.

Mad Hot Ballroom

Eleven-year-old New York City public school kids journey into the world of ballroom dancing and reveal pieces of themselves and their world along the way. Told from their candid, sometimes humorous perspectives, these kids are transformed, from reluctant participants to determined competitors, from typical urban kids to "ladies and gentlemen," on their way to try to compete in the final citywide competition.

The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks

Beyond her historic role in the Montgomery Bus Boycott, this comprehensive dive into Civil Rights icon Rosa Parks sheds light on her extensive organizing, radical politics, and lifelong dedication to activism.

The Hypocrite

"The Hypocrite" delves into a critical discourse that is resonating with individuals across various spheres. In the context of climate advocacy, the film examines the inherent contradiction between personal actions and systemic efforts. The story is masterfully woven through the perspective of a professional skier, confronting the complex interplay between advocating for change and relying on fossil fuels for athletic pursuits. The film aspires to foster unity and collaboration within the outdoor community, transcending perceived hypocrisy and feelings of not fitting in. It aims to dismantle the culture of individual blame and guilt, focusing instead on the systemic shifts required to pave the way for a sustainable future. By erasing the boundaries that label individuals as hypocrites, the narrative invites viewers to recognize the urgent need for collective action and change.

Metal: A Headbanger's Journey

The film discusses the traits and originators of some of metal's many subgenres, including the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, power metal, Nu metal, glam metal, thrash metal, black metal, and death metal. Dunn uses a family-tree-type flowchart to document some of the most popular metal subgenres. The film also explores various aspects of heavy metal culture.

Water & Power: A California Heist

Uncovering the profiteering of the state's water barons and how they affect farmers, average citizens, and unincorporated towns throughout California.

Who Is Arthur Chu?

Documentary feature about 11-time Jeopardy! champion and Internet iconoclast, Arthur Chu.

Jakub

Jakub presents an extensive ethnographical-sociological study of the life of the Ruthenians, filmed in the Maramuresh mountains in the north of Romania and in the former Sudetenland in Western Bohemia. The film was made over a period of five years during the time of both totalitarian regimes and was completed in 1992 after the revolution.

Dear Pyongyang

Dear Pyongyang is a documentary film by Zainichi Korean director Yang Yong-hi (Korean: 양영희, Hanja: 梁英姬) about her own family. It was shot in Osaka Japan (Yang's hometown) and Pyongyang, North Korea, In the 1970s, Yang's father, an ardent communist and leader of the pro-North movement in Japan, sent his three sons from Japan to North Korea under a repatriation campaign sponsored by ethnic activist organisation and de facto North Korean embassy Chongryon; as the only daughter, Yang herself remained in Japan. However, as the economic situation in the North deteriorated, the brothers became increasingly dependent for survival on the care packages sent by their parents. The film shows Yang's visits to her brothers in Pyongyang, as well as conversations with her father about his ideological faith and his regrets over breaking up his family.

The Room

Furniture and clutter of one small apartment room become the subject of a moving still life—with Akerman herself staring back. This breakthrough formal experiment is Akerman's first film made in New York.

At Night, They Dance

Seldom has Egypt's capital been so evocatively captured. A fly-on-the-wall doc exploring the mysterious and hard-knock reality of a typical Egyptian belly dancer clan in working-class Cairo. Unparalleled access to this hidden world leaves the viewer fascinated and surprised that at night they dance. Such frankness among Arabic women is all too rare in films.

Trashed

Trashed - looks at the risks to the food chain and the environment through pollution of our air, land and sea by waste. The film reveals surprising truths about very immediate and potent dangers to our health. It is a global conversation from Iceland to Indonesia between the film star Jeremy Irons and scientists, politicians and ordinary individuals whose health and livelihoods have been fundamentally affected by waste pollution. Visually and emotionally the film is both horrific and beautiful: an interplay of human interest and political wake-up call. But it ends on a message of hope: showing how the risks to our survival can easily be averted through sustainable approaches that provide far more employment than the current 'waste industry.'

12 Directors for 12 Cities

Promotional omnibus film, made for the 1990 FIFA World Cup in Italy, featuring portraits of 12 Italian cities.

Hotel Monterey

Hotel Monterey is a cheap hotel in New York reserved for the outcasts of American society. Chantal Akerman invites viewers to visit this unusual place as well as the people who live there, from the reception up to the last story.

Supermen of Malegaon

Malegaon, a small town tucked away near the heart of India geographically, is fraught with communal tension and under severe economic depression. To escape the harsh reality of their world, its people seek refuge in the fantastical world of cinema. This passion for cinema has spurred a group of cinema enthusiasts to make their own films-quirky, low budget, socially aware and notoriously funny spoofs of Bollywood films.

Leila Khaled Hijacker

Leila Khaled was the first woman to hijack a plane. In 1969, she showed her grenades to the terrified passengers by order of the Che Guevara commando unit of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Through the ensuing media bombardment, she put the Palestinian nation on the global map. The pretty 24-year-old Leila became a hero to many Palestinians, including the Swedish/Palestinian teenager Lina Makboul, who is now a filmmaker. At least Leila dared to do something, Lina thought at the time. She visits Leila 35 years later with a camera, and finds a woman who does not regret anything.

Another Country

In this documentary companion to CHARLIE'S COUNTRY, Australian actor David Gulpilil tells the story of when his people's way of life was derailed by ours.

Hair Piece: A Film for Nappy Headed People

An animated satire on the question of self-image for African American women living in a society where beautiful hair is viewed as hair that blows in the wind and lets you be free. Lively tunes and witty narration accompany a quick-paced inventory of relaxers, gels, and curlers. This short film has become essential for discussions of racism, African American cinema, and empowerment.

Fwends

Two young women in the world – a reunion weekend in Melbourne. Em’s on a break, Jessie’s always been chill. Dialogue like a babbling brook, sweet, smart, banal to heavy and back again, honest and unafraid of pathos. A generation of happy wounded souls.

Maneuvers in the Dark

Maneuvers in the Dark is the story of how three young Swedish entrepreneurs manage to sneak through the backdoor of North Korea in an attempt to produce jeans in the country, and of the spiraling repercussions that follow as they begin to trade with the worlds most sealed dictatorship.

Mallorca

A journey through different places in 1930s Mallorca, the coast, the countryside, the city, in the company of the evocative music of Isaac Albéniz (1860-1909), to whom homage is paid.

Deadline

In 2000, Illinois Gov. George Ryan ordered a moratorium on the death penalty after university students uncovered new evidence proving the innocence of 13 men on death row. This documentary follows the hearings held by a panel Ryan appointed to study the issue and interviews activists, scholars and prisoners, while examining the history of the American death penalty. As Ryan's time in office comes to an end, he must decide what steps to take to reform the judicial system.

Lena

Follows the story of the beloved and internationally acclaimed Swedish actress Lena Nyman, based on 17 paper bags with diaries that she left behind.

Down and Out in America

The recession of the 1980s split the country into the haves and have-nots, from family farmers to factory workers and homeless people forced to live in decrepit welfare hotels. On the verge of losing everything, courageous Americans discover the power of community organizing to fight injustice.

Come Hell or High Water: The Battle for Turkey Creek

When the graves of former slaves are bulldozed in Mississippi, a native son returns to protect the community they settled - a place now threatened by urban sprawl, hurricanes and an unprecedented man-made disaster.

Lee Miller: A Life on the Frontline

A documentary celebrating Lee Miller, a model-turned-photographer-turned-war reporter who defied anyone who tried to pin her down, put her on a pedestal, or pigeonhole her in any way.

God Is the Bigger Elvis

The Oscar®-nominated documentary about a promising young actress who left Hollywood to become a nun.

Radioman

The extraordinary story of 'Radioman', a New York film set mascot who overcame homelessness and alcoholism to become a fixture of the New York film industry, with over 100 small parts to his name.

For One More Hour With You

Filmaker Alina Marazzi assembles old home movies trying to piece together the life of her mother, Liseli, who committed suicide when Alina was seven years old.

Bright Lights: Starring Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds

An intimate portrait of Hollywood royalty featuring Debbie Reynolds, Todd Fisher, and Carrie Fisher.

The Pervert's Guide to Ideology

A journey into the labyrinthine heart of ideology, which shapes and justifies both collective and personal beliefs and practices: with an infectious zeal and voracious appetite for popular culture, Slovenian philosopher and psychoanalyst Slavoj Žižek analyzes several of the most important films in the history of cinema to explain how cinematic narrative helps to reinforce prevailing ethics and political ideas.

Stories We Tell

Canadian actress and filmmaker Sarah Polley investigates certain secrets related to her mother, interviewing a group of family members and friends whose reliability varies depending of their implication in the events, which are remembered in different ways; so a trail of questions remains to be answered, because memory is always changing and the discovery of truth often depends on who is telling the tale.

No Home Movie

Documentary about humans dealing with changing technology, the basic concepts of communication, cinema, and Akerman's mother, seen in her Brussels apartment.

Memória, identidades e ancestralidade como possibilidade do estudo de história em sala de aula

Plot unavailable

Lucha Mexico

An exciting inside look at the stars of Lucha Libre, Mexico's distinctly colorful brand of professional wrestling, where flesh and blood Superheroes have performed for generations of fans. With unprecedented access to some of the top Luchadores in the world, LUCHA MEXICO goes behind the mysterious mask to explore one of the most cherished traditions of Mexican culture.

Palme

Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme was openly shot to death on a February evening 1986 on the streets of Stockholm. In one night, the country of Sweden was transfigured. “Palme” is about his life, his time, and about the Sweden he had created. About a man who altered history.

How Yukong Moved the Mountains

From 1972 until 1974, Joris Ivens and Marceline Loridan, along with a Chinese film crew, documented the last days of the Cultural Revolution, marking the end of an era. The vast amount of footage they shot was edited into 14 films of varying lengths. Focusing on ordinary people spread over a wide geographic area—many of whom were living and working in collectives—the filmmakers recorded a unique moment in history, and also captured some of the more enduring aspects of Chinese culture.

25 April

A dramatization of the events at Gallipoli using the letters of the soldiers who were there.

Don't Blink - Robert Frank

The life and work of Robert Frank—as a photographer and a filmmaker—are so intertwined that they're one in the same, and the vast amount of territory he's covered, from The Americans in 1958 up to the present, is intimately registered in his now-formidable body of artistic gestures. From the early '90s on, Frank has been making his films and videos with the brilliant editor Laura Israel, who has helped him to keep things homemade and preserve the illuminating spark of first contact between camera and people/places. Don't Blink is Israel's like-minded portrait of her friend and collaborator, a lively rummage sale of images and sounds and recollected passages and unfathomable losses and friendships that leaves us a fast and fleeting imprint of the life of the Swiss-born man who reinvented himself the American way, and is still standing on ground of his own making at the age of 90.

Marcello Mastroianni: I Remember

In 1996, Marcello Mastroianni talks about life as an actor. It's an anecdotal and philosophical memoir, moving from topic to topic, fully conscious of a man "of a certain age" looking back. He tells stories about Fellini and De Sica's direction, of using irony in performances, of constantly working (an actor tries to find himself in characters). He's diffident about prizes, celebrates Rome and Paris, salutes Naples and its people. He answers the question, why make bad films; recalls his father and grandfather, carpenters, his mother, deaf in her old age, and his brother, a film editor; he's modest about his looks. In repose, time's swift passage holds Mastroianni inward gaze.