In The God Question, a significant body of scientists attempt to debunk the conflict model of science versus God. In the company of the most high profile standard bearers of atheism and theism, the three programmes present evidence for and against the existence of God under the microscope. The episodes contemplate “How the Cosmos Works”, “The Evolution of Life”, and “The Mysteries of Mind and Consciousness”

Tim Sparke Chief Executive for Mercury Media commented: “The God Question series is particularly prescient right now with militant atheism competing for attention whilst significant issues in all Abrahamic faiths are top of the news agenda. The quality of the debate presented by Christopher Hitchens, and Richard Dawkins is matched by the significant scientific commentators who challenge their assertion that God can’t exist – whichever side of the debate you are on, The God Question is immersive, binge TV”

The now finished £1,000,000 series debuted at MIpdoc and Mip TV in April.

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For More Information and screener link please contact Tim Sparke
Tsparke@mercurymedia.org
+44 20 7221 7221
+44 7801 520991

About MercuryMediaMercuryMedia International is a leading distributor of documentary programming for the international theatrical, television, DVD, Digital and inflight markets.

The Beautiful Game tells an uplifting story of the social and cultural importance of soccer in Africa. Directed by Victor Buhler, it features impressive contributions from leading African individuals both in and out of football, such as Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Ivory Coast player Yaya Toure and Will.I.Am (of the ‘Black Eyed Peas’). Buhler creates a new portrayal of African life to the Western world, one which unites the continent.

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For More Information and screener link please contact Tim Sparke
Tsparke@mercurymedia.org
+44 20 7221 7221
+44 7801 520991

About MercuryMedia: MercuryMedia International is a leading distributor of documentary programming for the international theatrical, television, DVD, Digital and inflight markets. For more information visit www.mercurymedia.org

Alias Ruby Blade is the story of Kirsty Sword Gusmão – a distinguished human rights activist and former First Lady of Timor-Leste (East Timor). Once an aspiring documentary filmmaker, Kirsty instead became a revolutionary.

While working for the Timorese resistance in Jakarta, Kirsty was known by her nom-de-guerre Ruby Blade. Her task was to shuttle correspondence in and out of the notorious Cipinang Prison in Jakarta where the enigmatic leader of the resistance, Xanana Gusmão, was serving life in prison for his revolutionary activities.

Through correspondence, they fell in love. Together they nurtured the tumultuous birth of the world’s newest nation - Timor-Leste.

Reviews

“a dramatic, present-tense, cloak-and-dagger tale of belonging, identity, and revolution. See it now, before Hollywood gets to it.” - vulture.com

“…that deserve more attention than this short roundup, and that certainly deserve to be seen theatrically, on Netflix-or anywhere possible, really” - NPR.org

“One of the most anticipated films of this year’s Tribeca Film Festival”.” - film.com

“This inspiring and enlightening documentary about an extraordinary relationship, which formed in the most unlikely of situations, is wholly engaging and incredibly absorbing.” - View London

“The scenes are unrefined and compelling, the music powerful, and the story deeply moving. It’s not until the film ends 80 minutes later that I stop to take a breath and wipe away the wet tears that have been streaming down my face.” - Australian Times, UK

“It’s the perfect hero’s journey…almost like a classic John Ford Western.” - indiewire



Alias Ruby Blade will be having its North American premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival 2013, where it will be competing for the Documentary Competition. Read more here

Former Economist editor Bill Emmott and filmmaker Annalisa Piras explore Italy’s political, economic and social decline over the past 20 years, the product of a moral collapse unmatched anywhere else in the West. Emmott’s quest to understand both ‘Mala Italia’ and ‘Buona Italia’ includes interviews with Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti, philosopher and novelist Umberto Eco, film director Nanni Moretti, women’s rights activist Lorella Zanardo, FIAT’s outspoken Canadian-Italian CEO Sergio Marchionne, the author of Gomorrah Roberto Saviano and many others. Stripping away the cliches, Girfriend in a Coma reveals an Italy that few want to recognise, but many want to heal…

Reviews

“A very beautiful and cruel documentary” - Le Monde

“A terrific film” - - The Economist

“An intelligent, imaginatively presented documentary’” - The Observer

Defiant Requiem tells the little-known story of the Nazi concentration camp, Terezin. Led by imprisoned conductor Rafael Schächter, the inmates of Terezin fought back with the only weapons available - art and music. Through hunger, disease and slave labor, the Jewish inmates of Terezin held onto their humanity by staging plays, composing opera and using paper and ink to record the horrors around them.

This creative rebellion reached its peak when Schächter challenged a choir of 150 inmates to learn one of the world’s most difficult and powerful choral works, Verdi’s Requiem, re-imagined as a condemnation of the Nazis.

The choir would ultimately confront the Nazis face to face…and sing to them what they dare not say.

For over ten years, conductor Murry Sidlin dreamed of bringing the Requiem back to Terezin. Now, through soaring concert footage, powerful survivor recollections, cinematic dramatizations and evocative animation, Defiant Requiem brings the incredible story of this artistic uprising to life.

Awards

Winner - Best Documentary, Big Apple Film Festival, New York, 2012
Runner-up - Audience Award, Palm Springs International Film Festival, 2013

An extraordinary woman’s journey from her birth in a paper-thin shack in the cotton fields of Putnam County, Georgia to her recognition as a key writer of the 20th Century.

In 1983, Alice Walker made history as the first black woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for her groundbreaking novel The Color Purple. The novel was transformed into a Hollywood movie nominated for 11 Oscars, and recently to a successful Broadway musical. This universal story of triumph against the odds is not that different from Walker’s own experience.

Born in 1944, her early life unfolded in the midst of violent racism and poverty during some of the most turbulent years of profound social and political upheaval in North American history. Alice Walker’s writing was a vital voice at a time when the personal became the political.

Featuring interviews with Steven Spielberg and Quincy Jones, Beauty In Truth offers audiences a penetrating insight into the life and work of an artist, a self-confessed renegade, and human rights activist.

The Peabody Awards are the oldest in the world for electronic media. They are recognized as an independent, non-profit activity which refuses to categorize the awards they hand out like so many other ceremonies in the industry, rather selecting their winners under one criteria: Excellence

Full of archive footage, vivid scenes of violence and insightful interviews with experienced reporters, Under Fire tackles the underlying issue ever-present in the world of combat journalism; the moral issues of filming death and violence for the purpose of “news”. It features interviews with some renowned journalists, such as the BBC’s Jeremy Bowen and Chris Hedges, formerly of the New York Times.

Director and Producer Burke said: “In some journalists, not all, but some, there is just this level of submerged trauma that just kind of bubbles up. The second thing that surprised me is that in amongst all these people, there’s a residual humanity [despite] all the depravity and killing they’ve seen. I actually liken it to flowers coming out of concrete. You can’t keep that humanity down.”

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To see the trailer on the MercuryMedia website, click here

For More Information and screener link please contact Tim Sparke
Tsparke@mercurymedia.org
+44 20 7221 7221
+44 7801 520991

The Iran Job follows American basketball player Kevin Sheppard as he accepts a job to play in one of the world’s most feared countries: Iran.

With tensions running high between Iran and the West, Kevin tries to separate sports from politics only to find that politics is impossible to escape in Iran.

Along the way he forms an unlikely alliance with three outspoken Iranian women. Thanks to them Kevin’s apartment turns into an oasis of free speech, where the women discuss everything from politics to religion to gender roles.

Kevin’s Iranian season culminates in something much greater than sporting glory: the uprising and subsequent suppression of Iran’s reformist Green Movement – a powerful prelude to the sweeping changes across the Middle East in the wake of the Arab Spring.

Reviews

“Celebrating warmth, humor, and complicated humanity” – Variety

“Surprisingly timely” – New York Magazine (Critics’ Pick)

“Exceptional in its storytelling” – Los Angeles Times

For many across the globe, Soccer is more than a game. In Africa, people are using the sport to create change, and to pave the way for progress.

The Beautiful Game travels across the continent to experience this cause first hand, detailing the importance Soccer has for this part of the world, not just simply the culture and the passion, but how the economy also is affected. This investigation into the figures of crime rates and export growth is staggering.

The Beautiful Game contains contributions from a collection of leading Africans in and out of Soccer, from Emmanuel Adebayor, Kolo and Yaya Toure, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and singer Will.i.am from the Black Eyed Peas, who all play a part in this inspiring and moving film.