Fordlandia Malaise (2019)

The Promised Land

In nineteenth-century Łódź, Poland, three friends want to make a lot of money by building and investing in a textile factory. An exceptional portrait of rapid industrial expansion is shown through the eyes of one Polish town.

Master of the Universe

He was one of Germany's leading investment experts with an income of several million Euros per day. Now, he sits on one of the upper floors of an empty bank building in the middle of Frankfurt, overlooking a skyline of glass and steel. And talks. In an extended mix of a monologue and an in-depth interview, which is as frightening as it is fascinating, he shares his inside knowledge from a megalomaniac parallel world where illusions are the market's hardest currency. Marc Bauder's 'Master of the Universe' is based on meticulous research and provides us with geniune insight into the notoriously secretive and self-protective 'universe' of which our nameless protagonist experiences himself a master. Where other films on the financial meltdown have focused on the epic nature of larger-than-life business, Bauder probes the mentality that made it possible in the first place. A tense drama where psychology meets finance - two things that are more closely linked than you would like to believe.

Pictures of Ghosts

Downtown Recife’s classic movie palaces from the 20th century are mostly gone. That city area is now an archaeological site of sorts that reveals aspects of life in society which have been lost. And that’s just part of the story.

The Nouba of the Women of Mount Chenoua

Writer and filmmaker Assia Djebar explores Algerian history, the psychological impact of war, and post-colonial female identity in this 1979 classic of film literature. Named for (and taking its structure from) a traditional song with five distinct movements, the film combines documentary-style observation with loose narrative form to tell the story of Lila, an Algerian expatriate returning to her country 15 years after independence has been won. In comparing her life with the lives and experiences of rural Algeriennes, Lila is able to put her childhood demons to rest and discover a new history -- one written in the ongoing strength of generations of women. Like much of Djebar's writing, the film has a strong subtext dealing with resistance to patriarchy and women's desire to appropriate the means of power and expression -- one of which, of course, is the filmmaker's camera.

Eldridge Cleaver, Black Panther

The portrait of Eldridge Cleaver, the "Minister of Information" for the Black Panthers movement, in exile in Algiers.

The Corporate Coup D'État

A democracy should protect its most vulnerable citizens, but increasingly the United States is failing to do so. This investigation blends the insights of experts with the experiences of citizens of the Rust Belt in the Midwest where the steel industry once flourished, but where closures and outsourcing have left urban areas desolate. It is here where Donald Trump finds some of his most fervent supporters.

Der unaufhaltsame aufstieg von Amazon

Amazon has become one of the most powerful corporations in the world, and only the second company ever to be valued over US$1 trillion. This film investigates its strategies, inner workings and ideologies and asks whether the services that we have become so dependent on could eventually cost us our hard won freedoms, and how one of the world’s most trusted brands has influenced our individual behaviour, labour force and culture.

97% Owned

97% owned present serious research and verifiable evidence on our economic and financial system. This is the first documentary to tackle this issue from a UK-perspective and explains the inner workings of Central Banks and the Money creation process. When money drives almost all activity on the planet, it's essential that we understand it. Yet simple questions often get overlooked, questions like; where does money come from? Who creates it? Who decides how it gets used? And what does this mean for the millions of ordinary people who suffer when the monetary, and financial system, breaks down? Produced by Queuepolitely and featuring Ben Dyson of Positive Money, Josh Ryan-Collins of The New Economics Foundation, Ann Pettifor, the "HBOS Whistleblower" Paul Moore, Simon Dixon of Bank to the Future and Nick Dearden from the Jubliee Debt Campaign.

Capitalism: A Love Story

Michael Moore comes home to the issue he's been examining throughout his career: the disastrous impact of corporate dominance on the everyday lives of Americans (and by default, the rest of the world).

The Gig Is Up

A very human tech doc, uncovers the real costs of the platform economy through the lives of workers from around the world for companies including Uber, Amazon and Deliveroo. From delivering food and driving ride shares to tagging images for AI, millions of people around the world are finding work task by task online. The gig economy is worth over 5 trillion USD globally, and growing. And yet the stories of the workers behind this tech revolution have gone largely neglected. Who are the people in this shadow workforce? It brings their stories into the light. Lured by the promise of flexible work hours, independence, and control over time and money, workers from around the world have found a very different reality. Work conditions are often dangerous, pay often changes without notice, and workers can effectively be fired through deactivation or a bad rating. Through an engaging global cast of characters, it reveals how the magic of technology we are being sold might not be magic at all.

Planet of the Humans

Forget all you have heard about how “Renewable Energy” is our salvation. It is all a myth that is very lucrative for some. Feel-good stuff like electric cars, etc. Such vehicles are actually powered by coal, natural gas… or dead salmon in the Northwest.

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 Corporation

Since the late 18th century American legal decision that the business corporation organizational model is legally a person, it has become a dominant economic, political and social force around the globe. This film takes an in-depth psychological examination of the organization model through various case studies. What the study illustrates is that in the its behaviour, this type of "person" typically acts like a dangerously destructive psychopath without conscience. Furthermore, we see the profound threat this psychopath has for our world and our future, but also how the people with courage, intelligence and determination can do to stop it.

The Future Tense

Staged as a series of voiceover sessions, written with gloriously off-balanced precision and dipped in the color green, THE FUTURE TENSE unfolds as a poignant tale of tales, exploring the filmmakers’ own experiences in aging, parenting, mental illness, along with the brutal history that lies submerged beneath Ireland’s heavy, moist earth.

The Shock Doctrine

An investigation of "disaster capitalism", based on Naomi Klein's proposition that neo-liberal capitalism feeds on natural disasters, war and terror to establish its dominance.

Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession

A documentary on the Z Channel, one of the first pay cable stations in the US, and its programming chief, Jerry Harvey. Debuting in 1974, the LA-based channel's eclectic slate of movies became a prime example of the untapped power of cable television.

ATAVISM

Within the video, two screens coexist. On the primary screen, a repetitive action takes place - the photo in the hands is periodically blurred. The focus of the viewer's attention is shifted to the secondary screen, which is more dynamic. The face in front of the camera, resembling clay, tries to take on images from archival photographs and video recordings.

Inside Job

A film that exposes the shocking truth behind the economic crisis of 2008. The global financial meltdown, at a cost of over $20 trillion, resulted in millions of people losing their homes and jobs. Through extensive research and interviews with major financial insiders, politicians and journalists, Inside Job traces the rise of a rogue industry and unveils the corrosive relationships which have corrupted politics, regulation and academia.

(Sol)ar Memories

To process grief, a young adult revisits fragments of their late grandmother’s life to restore the version of their own inner child when she still remembered them.

Isle of Flowers

A tomato is planted, harvested and sold at a supermarket, but it rots and ends up in the trash. But it doesn’t end there: Isle of Flowers follows it up until its real end, among animals, trash, women and children. And then the difference between tomatoes, pigs and human beings becomes clear.

The Light Bulb Conspiracy

Once upon a time... consumer goods were built to last. Then, in the 1920’s, a group of businessmen realized that the longer their product lasted, the less money they made, thus Planned Obsolescence was born, and manufacturers have been engineering products to fail ever since. Combining investigative research and rare archive footage with analysis by those working on ways to save both the economy and the environment, this documentary charts the creation of ‘engineering to fail’, its rise to prominence and its recent fall from grace.

SmoKings

The Messina brothers are Yesmoke, a little tobacco company based in modern day Turin, Italy. Originally, Yesmoke was an online store for cigarettes selling its products all over the world. Every day millions of people would buy cheap packets of Marlboro, Camels and Lucky Strikes online. When sales reached over one hundred million, "Big Tobacco" started to fight the "Little Guys" and sued them for 550 Million dollars, obligating them to shut their website down.

Surplus: Terrorized Into Being Consumers

Swedish documentary film on consumerism and globalization, created by director Erik Gandini and editor Johan Söderberg. It looks at the arguments for capitalism and technology, such as greater efficiency, more time and less work, and argues that these are not being fulfilled, and they never will be. The film leans towards anarcho-primitivist ideology and argues for "a simple and fulfilling life".

My Memory Is Full of Ghosts

Like a visual elegy, My Memory Is Full of Ghosts explores a reality caught between past, present and future in Homs, Syria. Behind the self-portrait of an exsanguinated population in search of normality emerge memories of the city, haunted by destruction, disfigurement and loss. A deeply moving film, a painful echo of the absurdity of war and the strength of human beings.

The Iron Lady

A look at the life of Margaret Thatcher, the former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, with a focus on the price she paid for power.

The Place of Chimeras

An elegy about ‘José Ð Almeida’s life and work. Along an intimate metamorphosis, this dreamlike and visually expressive world created by the visionary and insane dreamer is recreated and performed between a symbiosis of moving image, photography and painting- in a scenic, dramatic, symbolic and mystical tone.

A Very Animated War

From 1945 to 1989, after the capitulation of Nazi Germany, two rival ideologies, communism and capitalism, faced each other in a merciless battle. On one side of the Iron Curtain and on the other, throughout the Cold War, the USSR and the United States sought to shape children’s imaginations through their magazines and films. Never in the history of mankind have so many comic books been published and so many cartoons produced for young people. In November 1989, communism collapsed with the Berlin Wall; capitalism was left to decide the future of the world. What if this victory had been prepared for a long time, and our thinking conditioned, from our early childhood, to ensure this absolute triumph?

Outside

The film explores the turbulent lives of homeless persons in Cologne, Germany. Through their personal belongings the homeless share with the viewer their memories and emotions, and provide insight into the secrets of survival on the street.

We’re Not Broke

An exposé on how the government has allow U.S. corporations to avoid paying taxes and the growing wave of discontent that it has fostered.

SHEIN : Enquête sur le géant de la fast fashion

Through the account of her research, encounters and experiences, Claire Latour, an influencer, explores the inner workings of the ultra-fast fashion giant: Shein. A true ecological cost, the quality and toxicity of the garments, sales techniques, greenwashing, and the reasons behind the ultra-low prices, this unprecedented investigation leads her to question her way of consuming… but also of influencing.

Agrarian Utopia

Facing seizure of their own lands, two families found themselves farming together on the same field, hoping to get through just another rice-farming season like every year. But no matter how much the world is evolving, how much the country is going through economic, political and social changes, they still cannot grasp that ideology of happiness.

System Error

Melting glaciers, gullied seas, the financial markets are about to collapse. Spectacular images of how growth continues to be blinding. Outside you can hardly see anything because of the smog and the smoke screen.

The Happy Worker - Or How Work Was Sabotaged

Our premise is that work has become an act of self-sabotage. Empty corporate jargon, ever-changing management fashions and self-serving bureaucracy masquerading as efficiency hijacked the purpose of work. Creative documentary The Happy Worker will show how we got to this point and the very human behavior that led us here. We want to show how this unhealthy system is maintained and what keeps us from calling bullshit.

Death By China

In 2001, China joined the World Trade Organization with the strong support of a Democratic President and Republican Congress. Before the ink was dry on this free trade agreement, China began flooding U.S. markets with illegally subsidized exports while the big multinational companies that had lobbied heavily for the agreement rapidly accelerated the off shoring of American jobs to China. Today, as a result of the biggest shell game in American history, China has stolen millions of our jobs, corporate profits are soaring, and we now owe over $3 trillion to the world's largest totalitarian nation. This film is about how that happened... and why the best jobs program for America is trade reform with China.

Mind Games - The Experiment

Can exercise sharpen the brightest minds? In this ground-breaking experiment, four world-class gamers, competing in eSports, Chess, Mahjong and Memory Games, put this to the test.

Floored

Enter a world where pandemonium reigns and reckless ambition rules: the trading floors in the financial canyons of downtown Chicago. Here, men use strange hand signals to buy and sell everything from pork belly to soybeans while wearing the weight of our complex economy on their shoulders - along with their neon jackets. It's a physical, bruising place, one where a slight gain creates heroes, rich beyond what their high school educations should ever afford. But the wrong move on the wrong day can ruin lives. At a time when millions have lost fortunes in the fickle stock market and fear abounds about the faltering financial system, FLOORED is a gripping, honest look behind the curtain of the trading floor that few have ever seen

I'm Not From Here

Day after day, an elderly woman recalls the Spanish Basque country of her youth — while forgetting she is consigned to a retirement home in Chile.

The Old School of Capitalism

A mixture of documentary and fiction examines the new god of Capitalism offered to the Serbs with the ending of state socialism. We look at a number of strikes in Belgrade during the late 2000s and these introduce us to several characters playing themselves. Employees dressed in American football helmets and pads square up with employers' heavies in their bullet-proof vests, resulting in explosive situations. A visit from the Russian tycoon's representative and vice president Joe Biden's arrival further complicates the proceedings.

The Tragedy of Man

Jankovics's adaptation of the eponymous play is divided into multiple parts, and depicts the creation and fall of Man throughout history.