In 1927, Eisenstein and Pudovkin were both assigned to make films commemorating the 10th Anniversary of the 1917 Revolution. The results, October and The end of St. Petersburg, are two of the unforgettable masterpieces of epic filmmaking. Pudovkin's film, the more intensely dramatic and personal of the two, opens on a farm where a peasant must stay in the field and plow as his wife dies in childbirth. Trudging to the city to seek work, he is forced...

This film documents a vital moment in the re-building of a city center, where the Berlin wall once stood. Within a few years Pariser Platz was rebuilt, accompanied by an extensive public debate about the quality of the new architecture and the merits of the city planning for the area. An imposing assembly of internationally acclaimed architects found new solutions for the ten buildings that once defined the site, among them the American embassy. Featured...

After Custer's defeat at Little Big Horn and Chief Sitting Bull's subsequent surrender and execution, the Lakota Sioux set out on a 300-mile walk through South Dakota. Pursued by the Seventh Cavalry, they ended up at Wounded Knee where 350 Lakota were massacred, on December 28, 1890. Since 1986, young Lakota have retraced this 300-mile route on horseback as part of an annual tradition known as the Chief Big Foot Memorial Ride. In this intimate documentary,...

This moving documentary is a record of a few hours in the life of a small 7 year old boy, Ricco, from Hidden Valley, one of the many town camps on the outskirts of Alice Springs. He has lived in the camp for most of his life, and is looked after by his three older sisters and his foster mother, Nanna Maudie. Ricco Japaljarri Martin is bright, cheeky and adventurous. The film follows his interactions with his nine dogs, and on a routine day at school...

World renowned scientist, Dr. Jeremy Jackson, tells Sanjayan the oceans are in trouble, that a rise of slime is coming. But Sanjayan goes in search of a very different future. He travels to one of the remotest reefs on earth. The sheer number of sharks in this place doesn't make any sense - the mass of predators is greater than prey. It seems like a paradox. But when you understand it, you see how our oceans can be more productive than we could ever...

Four characters struggle with the disillusionment of the revolutionary generation in post-independence Guinea-Bissau. In Udju Azul di Yonta, the most compelling character is Vicente, a disenchanted hero of the independence struggle who has only grudgingly adapted himself to post-revolutionary society. He is a figure with whom many disappointed Western '60s activists will identify. As "Comrade Boss" of a fish warehouse, he continues to work for the...

Don't let anybody tell you there's no future in a life of crime, because some rackets can last forever. A mafia turf war is raging on the mean streets of the Big Apple, a place where regular Joes bounce between back door booze joints and the breadline.

Joe Gardner is a middle-school band teacher who gets the chance of a lifetime to play at the best jazz club in town. A misstep takes him from New York City to The Great Before, a fantastical place where new souls get their personalities before going to Earth. Determined to return to his life, Joe teams up with a precocious soul, 22, who has never understood the appeal of the human life. As Joe tries to show 22 what's great about life, he may discover...

The story of an idealistic young politician's rise and fall in a small town, "Tableau Ferraille" ("scrap heap") paints a picture of a corrupt post-colonial elite. Tableau Ferraille offers an intimate view of how modernization, at least as practiced in today's Africa, corrodes traditional communities and retards grassroots development. Like such past Senegalese masterpieces as Ousmane Sembene's Xala and Djibril Diop Mambety's Hyenas, it deplores a...

Made in China tells one of the millions of stories of migrants from rural China who comprise the backbone of the Chinese economic miracle. It provides a human face behind the ubiquitous label "Made in China." This massive dislocation of people may well represent the largest, most rapid migration in human history. The film demonstrates how one generation of Chinese is experiencing the culture shock of an Industrial Revolution which took centuries in...