Since 2013, the Central African Republic has been embroiled in a conflict between Christian and Muslim armed groups. While diamonds and gold are traded in global indifference, a cardinal and an imam fight together for interreligious coexistence.
Dieudonné Nzapalainga
as Himself
Omar Kobine Lamaya
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.
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.
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.
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.
Documentary examining Bokassa's rule in the Central African Republic using the testimony of witnesses and visits to key sites.
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?
"The Central African Republic's capital of Bangui has seen its Muslim population drop from 130,000 to under 1000 over the past few months. Over the past year, thousands across CAR have been killed and nearly a million have been displaced. The United Nations recently stated that the entire Western half of the country has now been cleansed of Muslims.... "In March 2013, the Séléka, a mostly Muslim rebel alliance, rose up and overthrew the corrupt government of François Bozizé, while bringing terror and chaos across the country - pillaging, killing and raping with impunity. In response, mostly Christian self-defense forces, called the anti-balaka, formed to defend CAR against Séléka attacks."
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 wolf no longer inhabits the land that once formed part of its territory, and only through its outlines can we get closer to it; remnants of wolf traps, predator urine imported from the US, a dung-hill used to feed scavenger birds and archers that shoot at replicas of animals. Reserve constructs a story about the fragile balance of a territory after the disappearance of the predator, where the complex co-existence between humans and non-humans presents a distinctly marked anthropogenic ecosystem.
The first major documentary film on James Thurber's life and work includes a look at the humorist's accomplishments as a journalist, playwright, cartoonist and social critic.
A dreamlike journey seen through the eyes of a trans-human as well as a kino-symphony of voices from the multiple personas of Fernando Pessoa, Lisbon Revisited shows alternative ways of looking at and hearing the city. Celebrating its greatest phantom and confronting his ambiguous and pervasive sexuality, the film is spoken in the three languages in which Pessoa wrote, Portuguese, English and French.
The American Biker, a modern day cowboy and a symbol of rugged determination. You'll find bikers on every highway across the nation. Motorcycles are freedom machines and wherever you see them, you know the spirit of America is still alive and riding on!
With breathtaking clarity, renowned University of Massachusetts Economics Professor Richard Wolff breaks down the root causes of today's economic crisis, showing how it was decades in the making and in fact reflects seismic failures within the structures of American-style capitalism itself. Wolff traces the source of the economic crisis to the 1970s, when wages began to stagnate and American workers were forced into a dysfunctional spiral of borrowing and debt that ultimately exploded in the mortgage meltdown. By placing the crisis within this larger historical and systemic frame, Wolff argues convincingly that the proposed government "bailouts," stimulus packages, and calls for increased market regulation will not be enough to address the real causes of the crisis, in the end suggesting that far more fundamental change will be necessary to avoid future catastrophes.
Collecting hours of previously unseen footage and classic live material with full exclusive access to all band members this is the definitive story of a band that has done and seen it all. As well as full access to the band, Hello Quo! Also features input from a host of the biggest names in rock including: Brian May of Queen, Joe Elliott of Def Leppard, Thin Lizzy, Buzzcocks, Slade, Paul Weller, Sir Cliff Richard and Midge Ure. The documentary also exclusively features the moment when the original line up of the band met again for the first time in over 30 years. A truly poignant reunion, after years of legal wrangling, saw the band clear the air but also plug in and play together once again... This Access All Areas Collector s Edition includes 3 hours of astonishing never seen before Quo footage!
A discussion between Jean Hyppolite, Georges Canguilhem, Paul Ricoeur, Michel Foucault and Alain Badiou on the subject of philosophy and truth. Curated by Dina Dreyfus.