Echos aus einem düsteren Reich

Documentary examining Bokassa's rule in the Central African Republic using the testimony of witnesses and visits to key sites.

Dictateur, un boulot de dingue

They’ve become the human face of inhuman barbarity. Leaders like Hitler, Idi Amin Dada, Stalin, Kim Jong Il, Saddam Hussein, Nicolae Ceausescu, Bokassa, Muammar Kadhafi, Khomeini, Mussolini and Franco governed their countries completely cut off from reality. These paranoid leaders were driven to abuse their power by the pathology of power itself. Dictators are driven by a relentless, thought-out determination to impose themselves as infallible, all-knowing and all-powerful beings. But they are also men ruled by their caprices, uncontrollable impulses, and reckless fits of frenzy, which paradoxically render them as human as anyone else. The abuses they committed were clearly atrocious, yet some of them were as outlandish as the characters portrayed in the film The Dictator. They sunk to depths worthy of Kafka: so incredibly absurd, they are outrageously funny.

Arlette. Mut ist ein Muskel.

A pain management specialist in a Berlin hospital laments how difficult it is to see if black skin has turned blue. The patient, 15­year­ old Arlette, doesn’t understand German. Her knee was injured in the war, and unknown wealthy Germans have helped pay for her trip to have surgery in Europe. The camera follows Arlette on her journey, from her worried family in Central African Republic to the desolate rooms of the hospital and the rehabilitation centre. The girl’s gaze is captivating but impenetrable, and the easily bored teenager surrounded by adult strangers is only cheered up by an interpreter who knows her mother tongue. The story takes a gloomier turn when it transpires that rebel forces have taken up arms in Arlette’s home country.

Bokassa Ier, empereur de Françafrique

Notre ami l'empereur Bokassa Ier

Song from the Forest

25 years ago, Louis Sarno, an American, heard a song on the radio and followed its melody into the Central Africa Jungle and stayed. He than recorded over 1000 hours of original BaAka music. Now he is part of the BaAka community and raises his pygmy son, Samedi. Fulfilling an old promise, Louis takes Samedi to America. On this journey Louis realizes he is not part of this globalized world anymore but globalization has also arrived in the rainforest. The BaAka depend on Louis for their survival. Father and son return to the melodies of the jungle but the question remains: How much longer will the songs of the forest be heard?

Makongo

Elvis Sabin’s assured debut follows Albert and André, two Central African Aka Pygmies, as they attempt to establish a new education system in their forest community. The last in their village still attending school, they are determined to pass their knowledge on, holding classes for other Aka children every afternoon. But their project requires funding and they are counting on the year’s caterpillar (known as “Makongo”) harvest to provide much needed income. Evocatively capturing the visual and sonic textures of the forest, Makongo is a layered ethnographic study of two men working to build a sustainable future for their community.

La guerra contra las mujeres

Sexual violence against women is a very effective weapon in modern warfare: instills fear and spreads the seed of the victorious side, an outrageous method that is useful to exterminate the defeated side by other means. This use of women, both their bodies and their minds, as a battleground, was crucial for international criminal tribunals to begin to judge rape as a crime against humanity.

Pygmies: The Children of the Jungle

The adventurer, Ivan Bulík, traveled all through Africa. However, one of his dreams still eluded him: He desired to capture the life and customs of the smallest people on Earth, to find the undisturbed civilization of Pygmies.

Le silence de la forêt

A film about the difficulty for even the most well-intentioned person to know and respect another culture. In this case, the problem is so acute that there is even heated debate over what to call that 'other.' The subtitles in the film use the familiar word 'pygmies,' a relatively pejorative European term; the Bantu or villagers' expression for the same group, Babingas, carries similar negative connotations. These highly specialized, tropical rainforest hunter-gatherers should perhaps be called by their own ethnonym, Aka, MoAka (sing.) and BaAka (pl.)

The Renegades

Queer culture and the arts would be much poorer without the presence and contribution of butch and stud lesbians, whose identity is both its own aesthetic and a defiant repudiation of the male gaze.

Rehearsal: The Telephone Hour

In 1947, a 27-minute, black-and-white short subject entitled Rehearsal: The Telephone Hour, was released to theaters. Originating in NBC's Studio 6B at 30 Rockefeller Plaza, the film featured, in addition to Voorhees and the orchestra, operatic bass Ezio Pinza and opera mezzo-soprano Blanche Thebom singing arias. It simulated a rehearsal of the popular program, complete with a commercial announcement, and then, near the end, segued to what was presumably the actual radio broadcast.

The Up in Smoke Tour

The Up in Smoke Tour is a West Coast hip hop tour in 2000 featuring artists Ice Cube, Eminem, Proof, Snoop Dogg, Dr. Dre, Nate Dogg, Kurupt, D12, MC Ren, Westside Connection, Mel-Man, Tha Eastsidaz, Doggy's Angels, Devin The Dude, Warren G, TQ, Truth Hurts and Xzibit.

Dolphins

From the banks of the Bahamas to the seas of Argentina, we go underwater to meet dolphins. Two scientists who study dolphin communication and behaviour lead us on encounters in the wild. Featuring the music of Sting. Nominated for an Academy Award®, Best Documentary, Short Subject, 2000.

Angels & Airwaves: Start the Machine

Featuring an interview with frontman Tom DeLonge discussing the high-profile breakup of his ex-band, blink-182, this documentary takes viewers into the studio as supergroup Angels & Airwaves records their debut album, "We Don't Need to Whisper." The video also includes Angels & Airwaves onstage at their blistering best during stops on their 2006 tour, along with insights into the lives of the band members.

Meeting People Is Easy

Meeting People Is Easy takes place during the promotion of Radiohead's 1997 release OK Computer, containing a collage of video clips, sound bites, and dialogue going behind the scenes with the band on their world tour, showing the eventual burn-out of the group as the world tour progresses. The inaugural show of the OK Computer tour began on 22 May 1997 in Barcelona, Spain.

The Case for Christ

Based upon the Gold-Medallion award-winning best-seller, The Case for Christ documents Lee Strobel's journey from atheism to faith through his two-year investigation of the Bible and the life of Jesus Christ.

Double Dare

With being thrown off buildings an occupational hazard, professional stuntwomen Jeannie Epper and Zoë Bell (the alter egos of Wonder Woman and Xena, respectively) would seem well-equipped for any challenges Hollywood might dish out. But finding roles -- and respect -- in a male-dominated field can prove more harrowing than dodging punches.

Revolution OS

REVOLUTION OS tells the inside story of the hackers who rebelled against the proprietary software model and Microsoft to create GNU/Linux and the Open Source movement.

One Six Right

An exhilarating documentary film that celebrates the unsung hero of aviation - the local airport - by tracing the life, history, and struggles of an airport icon: Southern California's Van Nuys Airport. Featuring thrilling aerial photography and a sweeping original score, the film dispels common misconceptions and opposes criticism of General Aviation airports.