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Documentary Specials
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John Fawcett dies on an operating table, comes back to life with amnesia and has no idea why he is about to change the lives of 25 000 blind Balinese. God Made Them Blind is a documentary focusing on the life and work of an ordinary Australian who has devoted years to reducing the enormous number of cataract blind people in Indonesia. Confronted with sceptical Hindu belief systems and black magic John's challenge is convincing a nation that blindness is not God's punishment. | |
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Selected to open the London International Documentary Festival 2008 (LIDF).
This astonishing and revealing 70' film is the result of 18 months' unrestricted access to the Dalai Lama. It is an intimate portrait of one of the greatest enigmas of our time, as he struggles to negotiate a political settlement with China and contemplates his possible successor. The Unwinking Gaze' offers a unique, behind-the-scenes insight into the recent working life of the Dalai Lama. An extraordinary access-based film, showing his daily agonies whilst balancing his Buddhist vows and the realpolitik needed to placate China.
Article by fimmaker Joshua Dugdale in The Independent
Feature about the film from The Guardian
Variety article by Archie Thomas | |
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BAFTA Nominated - 2008
Right to Protest, Right to Freedom of Speech. Right to Privacy. Right not to be detained without charge, Innocent Until Proven Guilty. Prohibition from Torture. The BAFTA nominated, TAKING LIBERTIES, reveals how these six central pillars of liberty have been systematically destroyed by New Labour, and the freedoms of the British people stolen from under their noses amidst a climate of fear created by the media and government itself.
BBC Review
The Guardian review | |
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Mr.Big is the name of an undercover sting created and perfected by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. It is considered entrapment in many other countries, but the Canadian court system allows confessions made to cops posing as criminals to be admitted as evidence. Director Tiffany Burns has a personal connection to the documentary: her brother is one of many Canadians targeted by a "Mr.Big" operation. While she was researching his case, Tiffany realized Sebastian Burns and his friend Atif Rafay are not the first people who have falsely confessed to murder.
Interview with fimmaker Tiffany Burns in the Baltimore Sun
NY Times overview | |
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Did the votes count in 2004? Will the votes count in 2008? Will the votes be counted at all?
The 2008 US presidential election is fast approaching. The primaries have created a political buzz not seen in many years and America is alight with the idea of "change". But, the real story of the next election goes beyond the parties and their platforms to the very foundations of democracy. How Ohio Pulled It Off offers shocking evidence of election fraud in the United States, and highlights the potential for future abuses. The "world's greatest democracy" may not be all that it seems. | |
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ZERO has one central thesis - that the official version of events surrounding the attacks on 9/11 can not be true. This brand new feature documentary, featuring presentations from intellectual heavyweights, Gore Vidal and Nobel Prize Winner, Dario Fo, explores the latest scientific evidence and reveals dramatic new witness testimony, directly conflicting with the US Government's account. Dubbed "the bomb of the Rome Film Festival" in 2007, Zero is the first 9/11 film to bridge the mainstream gap. Decision makers are starting to sit up and listen to its message, including the European Parliament where the film screened in February 2008. | |
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One in 50 adults in East Germany collaborated with the Stasi. Relative to population, they were the largest secret police in the history of mankind. The 2007 Oscar-winning film "The Lives of Others" revealed to the mainstream world the extent to which the Stasi would go in their operations against their own citizens. Stasi: East Germany's Secret Police takes you behind that story and inside the organisation who's goal was to create a system of "total surveillance" which included detention facilities, prisons, disguised isolation camps, hidden bunkers, reconnaissance planes, eavesdropping stations and East Germany's secret execution site. | |
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The Scottish Key: An Investigation into the Origins of Freemasonry, looks into an enigmatic and mysterious topic, subject to allegations and fantasies of all sorts. Spread across the globe, this discrete and mysterious association has been a source of curiosity, fascination and suspicion for over 300 years. Today Freemasonry has four million members throughout the world and for the first time some of its most ancient lodges reveal rituals and documents that shed new light on a previously dark world. | |
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St Andrews: Behind the Greens opens the doors to the hidden world of St Andrews Golf course, the birthplace of the worlds' fastest growing sport and home to a whole host of eccentric characters. With this affectionate portrait we are introduced to an army of caddies, greenkeepers and rangers who live and breath Golf to ensure that the world's oldest golf course stays at the top of its game. | |
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Scotland has almost 1,000 children, hidden away for the public eye, in residential schools – removed from their own homes either for their own protection or because of they have been deemed out of control. Now for the first time ever, a camera crew has been allowed access to one of these establishments, Ballikinrain. Produced for BBC Scotland, this moving 2 part series charts the progress of 5 boys over the course of a year and provides a rarely seen glimpse into a remarkable institution and the people who live and work there.
Sunday Herald Article
BBC article | |
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Using witness testimony, expert analysis, news footage, and corroborating evidence Loose Change Final Cut is the most explosive and significant film of the decade. Starring George W Bush, Condoleeza RIce, DIck Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and contributors from Fox News, ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, BBC, firefighters, first responders and 9/11 victims, the film exposes the inconsistencies and falsehoods put forward by the Bush administration in the hours, days and weeks after 9/11. Were 19 Islamic terrorists the sole perpetrators of 9/11, or has the world been the victim of an audacious hoax? Watch this film and make up your own mind. | |
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Russia is once again flexing its muscles. This time its weapons are not the Red Army or its nuclear arsenal, but the huge energy resources lying under the Siberian tundra. Vladimir Putin is the man responsible for the reemergence of Russia as a global power, but how much is really known about him and his ascendence? This film explores his journey to the highest echelons of the Kremlin and contextualises his rise against a newly beligerent Russia nostalgic for the past glories of the Soviet empire. | |
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Divorce Albanian Style is a unique documentary chronicling the bizarre, cruel and Orwellian regime of Enver Hodja. Told through the experiences of three couples the film exposes the forceful separation, imprisonment and torture of families bythe Albanian government. With remarkable archive footage, heart-wrenching interviews and meticulous research, Divorce Albanian Style offers a rare insight in to a little known period of history and an insular country gripped by fear, madness and oppression. | |
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On the morning of Tuesday, 11th September, 2001, millions of people around the world watched in disbelief as the WTC events unfolded live on television. They saw huge clouds of smoke billowing over Manhattan as each of the towers collapsed. Was what they had witnessed the result of the planes crashing and the resulting fires? Or were they watching a controlled demolition? The laws of physics defy such an event, absent other factors. Laying science next to myth, "911 Mysteries Part 1: Demolitions" weaves news reports, witness testimonials and expert analysis into an extraordinary story of what might have taken place on that fateful day. Our world is no longer the same. Was it by fate -- or method? | |
King of Scots
Saltire Productions
1 x 59 Available Now
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Robert Bruce is the greatest of all the great Scottish heroes, yet the movie Braveheart gave all the heroics to his compatriot William Wallace, making Bruce out to be a self-serving opportunist. However, it was the patience and cunning of Bruce that Scotland needed, not the impetuousness of Wallace, especially when facing such formidable enemies as the English. King of Scots investigates how Brucemanaged to beat such colossal odds in his quest to become King of Scotland, a cause that he eventually won at enormous personal and national cost. Bruce's struggle for Scotland's kingship witnessed some of the most definitive moments in Scottish history. | |
Out of the Shadow
Vine Street Pictures
1 x 57 Available Now
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Filmed over five years, Out of the Shadow chronicles the filmmaker Susan Smiley's mother, Millie, who suffers from schizophrenia. The film shows the picture perfect suburban family next door. But hiddenbeneath the surface was a dark and terrifying secret. Millie was descending into her own world filled with paranoia, rage, strange voices and outbursts of violence. For years, ignorance and shame kept Millie's illness shrouded in a veil of secrecy. Out of the Shadow is a powerful and poignant story of madness and dignity, shame and love, illuminating an international plight through one family's struggle, and helping to dispel misconceptions surrounding this harrowing illness. | |
Orwell Rolls in His Grave
Sag-Harbor Basement Pictures
1 x 105 Available Now
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Director Robert Kane Pappas' Orwell Rolls in His Grave is a critical examination of the Fourth Estate, once the bastion of American democracy. Asking whether America has entered an Orwellian world of doublespeak where outright lies can pass for the truth, Pappas explores what the media doesn't like to talk about: itself. Meticulously tracing the process by which media has distorted and often dismissed actual news events, Pappas presents a riveting and eloquent film which will shock and surprise. | |
Oil, Smoke and Mirrors
Ronan Doyle Productions
1 x 50 Available Now
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"Oil Smoke & Mirrors" offers a sobering critique of our perceived recent history, of our present global circumstances, and of our shared future in light of imminent, under-reported and mis-represented energy production constraints. Through a series of impressively candid, informed and articulate interviews, this film argues that the bizzare events surrounding the 9/11 attacks, and the equally bizzare prosecution of the so-called "war on terror", can be more credibly understood in the wider context of an imminent and critical divergence between available global oil aupply and and global oil demand. | |
Emerson: The Ideal in America
RWEI
1 x 53 Available Now
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The biography of "America's Founding Thinker," Ralph Waldo Emerson, . Emerson's belief in "the infinitude of the private man" still resonates with spiritual seekers today. He was America’s foremost poet and philosopher of the 19th century, but there is much more to the fascinating life of the man and his circle, which included Henry David Thoreau, Walt Whitman, and Margaret Fuller. You will never look at Emerson - or yourself - quite the same way again. | |
The Three Lives of William Wallace
Saltire Productions
1 x 59’ Available Now
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Shot in High Definition, ‘The Three Lives of William Wallace’ explores the man, the myth and subject of the Hollywood film ‘Braveheart’, who died in 1305 as a national embarrassment to Scotland. Not one person protested against his brutal execution, yet 700 years later he is one of Scotland’s foremost heroes. This documentary explores how the enigmatic Wallace legend has evolved and reveals how an icon has been reborn throughout the ages. Using a combination of archive material, interviews and dramatic reconstructions, the film is an exploration of why Wallace’s own actions have proven inspirational to many after his death. | |
In Debt We Trust:
America Before the Bubble Bursts
Globalvision
1 x 52’ Available Now
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In Debt We Trust is an expose of the rising crisis of debt in North America. The film focuses on the collusion of credit card companies, lobbyists, corporate media and the US government in pushing policies that deregulate the lending industry and encourage debt. The whole world depends on the economic stability of the United States. Yet as its national and consumer debt escalates it puts the global economy at risk. Already credit crises are erupting in many countries. This timely film delivers an urgent warning that can't be ignored. | |
The Damnedest Finest Ruins
San Andreas Films
1 x 53’ Available Now
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The Damnedest Finest Ruins, written and directed by James Dalessandro, author of the bestselling novel 1906, documents the events surrounding the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, which destroyed 80% of the city. Shot in HD and narrated by acclaimed actor, Peter Coyote, the film incorporates never-before-seen still photos, hand-cranked Edison film clips and the re-mastered music of opera singer Enrico Caruso. The film exposes the enormous human folly that led to the burning of 29,000 buildings and the bravery showed by the firemen who battled for 72 hours to save the city. | |
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"Mama/M.A.M.A.", questions the validity of Munchausen's Syndrome by Proxy, arguing that in many cases doctors over-medication of infants and over-reliance on lab tests may be the actual cause of the childrens' illness rather than abuse by their mothers. | |
TechnoStorks
A Film on ‘In Vitro Fertilisation’ – IVF
TechnoStorks LLC
1 x 51’ Available Now
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Technostorks documents the true life stories of three couples as they cope with the emotional and physical demands of infertility and in vitro fertilisation (IVF). We follow couples into the operating room to witness egg retrievals and embryo transfers. We hear their views on living with infertility, their hopes for parenthood and share the moment when they discover the outcome of their procedures. Ultimately, not all of our couples will achieve pregnancy, but they will all undergo a personal transformation. | |
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Filmmaker Spencer Windes’ new documentary “Straight Acting”, reveals his personal evolution from a Mormon missionary into a confident gay man by engaging in violent contact sports. We follow Windes from “the closet” onto the rugby pitch, the rodeo circuit and the hockey rink where he encounters gay athletes who defy all stereotypes. Bruised and bloodied, the filmmaker emerges from the scrum having rediscovered a trait common to all men – gay or straight - the need to play. | |
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9/11: Press For Truth is the story of a small circle of relatives of the September 11th victims, including four grieving widows from New Jersey - known as “The Jersey Girls”. Together they battled the White House for over a year after 9/11 to force an independent investigation. However, on the completion of the enquiry, the families found that 70% of their questions remained unanswered. Charged with emotion and new revelations, this documentary dramatically retraces their quest for truth and the disturbing answers they uncover.
Press Reviews | |
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Ring Days is a film about boxing and champions. It doesn’t focus on one fight or one boxer, but the struggles, the emotions, the heartbreak and the ecstasy of the biggest names in the sport. Each fighter takes the viewer through their lives: From kids fighting in the streets, to taking their first tentative steps into the gym, the glory of a world championship victory and into the painful void of loss and retirement. Ring Days is the ultimate story of sacrifice, honour, glory and defeat. | |
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Designed for broadcast on the 5th anniversary of 9/11, Loose Change 2 is a forensic examination of the witness testimony, on the spot reporting and scientific evidence surrounding the September 2001 attacks. This controversial film disputes the accepted version of events. It highlights the inconsistencies in the official story, which have been left unexamined by the mainstream media, and suggests that 9/11 is a sophisticated cover up.
Screen Daily Article Vanity Fair Article
Notice: Edited from original | |
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METH explores the rising wave of crystal methamphetamine use within the gay population of the US. Meth is now classified as the number one drug problem in America and its use is on the rise in Europe and SE Asia. Through the reflections of a dozen gay men, we learn of the drug’s allure, its promise, and why its popularity is soaring. It begins as an ecstatic, mind-blowing thrill ride where one finds himself on top of the world with feelings of superhuman power and collegial connectivity. As crystal’s power takes hold, however, it begins to call the shots, and the fun takes a turn for darkness.
View online review of Meth in Variety | |
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BP’s Chief Executive, Lord John Browne shocked the world in 1997 by becoming the first leader in the oil industry to acknowledge global warming. He then re-branded BP as environmentally friendly, complete with a green and yellow sunburst logo. The film asks whether the CEO of the world's largest oil company can actually be the new face of environmentalism, or if Big Oil has another, more rudimentary, business agenda in painting itself green. Is this substance or spin? | |
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What weighs 10,000 pounds, flies through the air and crushes cars? Monster Truck Tech lifts the hood on the extreme machines of the motor world. We’ll discover the science of building Monster Trucks and, through live demonstrations, we’ll find out how they work and what they’re capable of. Monster Truck Tech takes us behind the scenes where we’ll meet the characters that shaped this phenomenon and see the monsters that have taken over the world. | |
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The Family is a dramatic two part documentary detailing the intricacies of the Hussein clan over the last 40 years and the individual struggles for power of Uday and Qusay. The films include exclusive footage of Saddam, his family and of the crimes they have committed. There are interviews with close family members, clan insiders and friends of Uday and Qusay, who go into graphic detail about their horrifying experiences. These films are a chronicle of the fear and repression of a country and a valuable record of the most dysfunctional family in the world. | |
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The Harlem Globetrotters have travelled the world for 50 years, entertaining us with their supreme skills and humour on the basketball court. But few know the impact this group of black players had in changing the landscape of American sport and planting the seeds of integration in a troubled, segregated society. Looking back over the 50 years, this film shows how basketball bridged the gap of racial inequality and how sporting heroes became global icons that changed the world forever. | |
WMD: Weapons of Mass Deception
Globalvision
1 x 50’ Available Now
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In WMD, Media critic, Danny Schechter, explores the roles the Pentagon propaganda machine and the media played in the Iraq War. WMD’s hard-hitting dissection of information warfare asks if the media was complicit in the selling of an unpopular conflict and if the media-management techniques of government are now out of control? The film investigates the embed program, ‘infiltrates’ Fox News and takes a global approach to analysing coverage. | |
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In August 2000, the supposedly invincible Kursk and its 118 crew lay at the bottom of the Barents Sea. But what sunk the ultra-modern submarine? The official version said faulty torpedoes, but the truth is more shocking. This startling film uncovers the contradictions, lies and secrets surrounding the tragedy and reveals a disturbing story involving two American submarines and a Russian government willing to stop at nothing to achieve it’s global aims. | |
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Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal’s personal fortune is $23billion. This makes him the 5th richest man in the world. He mixes with Kings and Presidents and personally runs a global empire. But what drives a man like this? This fascinating film goes behind the public façade of an extraordinary individual and reveals the hardships, trials and phenomenal work ethic that has taken him to the top. | |
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The violence in Israel and the occupied territories is seemingly relentless. But, how much of a true picture of this region are we given by the news media? Journalists Jake Lynch and Annabel McGoldrick give us two different versions of the same news story in attempt to show how recent coverage has been skewed and has resulted in omission and distortion. The film showcases examples of news stories that would correct that distortion and by doing so the film suggests that correct journalistic processes could have a positive effect on the hopes of peace for the region. | |
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