Playlist
<p>Documentary filmmaker Rodney Ascher tackles this question "are we living in a simulation?" with testimony, philosophical evidence and scientific explanation in his for the answer.</p>
<p>An exploration of the shared histories of cameras, weapons, policing and justice. As surveillance technologies become a fixture in everyday life, the film interrogates the complexity of an objective point of view, probing the biases inherent in both human perception and the lens.</p> <p><em>Not Available - Sundance Film Festival 2021</em></p>
<p>The bleakness of Antarctica is a fallacy. The ice continent is full of life and offers a biodiversity of which only about two percent are known. Much of it is under water and could determine the future of human beings. When the northern lights cover the ice landscape in summer, the animals in the Antarctic are in a paradisiacal state. Whales blow their fountains in the sky, penguins fly like small rockets into the water, seals dive for crabs under the glittering ice floes. From the bay of the Ross Sea to the ice shelf, from the huge penguin colonies to steaming volcanoes, a life in rhythm with the ice. But the consequences of climate change are slowly becoming apparent here too. While some species are dying, others are spreading. They could bring new viruses and bacteria with them, and new dangers for humans too. The structure of nature has gotten off course. How many generations will still be able to experience the magic of Antarctica?</p>
<p>Àpeiron is a non verbal documentary about Time, an orbital tour around the power of this question, an intriguing path in which reality and imagination follow the wonder, in a progression of abstractions and visual speculations.</p>
<p>The spectacular wilderness of the East African Rift is crisscrossed by vast gorges and cave systems inhabited by diverse fauna. It is also home to a peculiar family of baboons. How does the troop cope with the dry season, internal disputes, and predator attacks?</p>
<p>At the beginning of the 19th century, the discovery of the wide-open spaces of the United States and its incredible wildlife was key in the political development of the country. Intent on painting all the birds of America, John-James Audubon became a central figure of America’s national identity. But as these birds started disappearing with the dawn of the industrial era, so did the original American dream. In this “river movie” along the banks of the Mississippi, political, environmental and human rights issues are interwoven with the tales, myths and ghosts of these now-extinct birds.</p>
<p>With Carbon in the news every day, you might think you know everything about her. But you’d be wrong. This spectacular and surprisingly unorthodox documentary reveals the paradoxical story of the element that builds all life, and yet may end it all. Narrated in first person by Sarah Snook (Succession), Carbon tells of her birth in the violent core of an exploding star and of turbulent sagas through the fabric of our evolving Earth. Accompanied by celebrated scientists, unique animations and a stunning orchestral score, Carbon reminds us of our humble participation in the most extraordinary story in the universe.</p>
<p>In the Canadian documentary Coextinction, two passionate filmmakers investigate the fate of the endangered killer whale. This brings them into contact with activists, Indigenous leaders and renowned scientists on a journey of discovery that soon reveals many other dangers in the local ecosystem.</p>
<p>CRACKING COVID is a real-time journey through Australia’s unique pandemic experience. As teams of scientists race to unlock the secrets of the virus, researchers work to build a vaccine from scratch, and three patients confront very different symptoms of a terrifying new disease. Professor Peter Doherty – who won a Nobel Prize for his discoveries about the human immune system – joins Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Sonya Pemberton, providing warm and witty expert insight. We discover how, in uncertain times, we often have little choice but to improvise. CRACKING COVID is a surprisingly intimate story of Australia’s race against the virus – as it happened, in the moment.</p>
<p>How do we explain to our children that we will all die some day? Or will we? ETERNITY AT LAST explores the question of whether we have to accept birth, sickness and death as the natural course of our lives. Visionaries tell the stories of how they take evolution into their own hands.</p> <p>Festival screener only - not mixed and graded!</p>
<p>After 300 years of medical history, the life expectancy of many peoples has doubled. Bestselling author Steven Johnson and historian David Olusoga trace the causes, such as the origin of vaccination. It goes back to Africa, to a time long before the discovery of vaccination in the West.</p>
<p>One of the great mysteries of history is how the ancient Maya built such an incredible society in a tropical rainforest over two thousand years - and then vanished. How? Why? New discoveries and new science can now tell the story. Hidden deep in sacred caves lies evidence of when the rains stopped coming - and for how long. Advanced bone analysis from hundreds of graves tells us what the Maya ate, where they came from, and what changed in their lives. LIDAR strips away the jungle and CGI shows their world in a way never seen before, revealing the incredible geo-engineering and complexity that allowed cities to grow to immense size - perhaps too big. The most amazing new find - the KomKom vase - is the only written account of its kind, detailing events at the cusp of collapse. It speaks of a story of war, family power struggles between divine god-kings, failing power in the face of climate change, and murder. Experts lead us deep into the sacred caves to the site of escalating offerings, human sacrifice and in final desperation, child sacrifice. In the thick jungle, key sites reveal enigmatic piles of goods and bodies buried in palace rubble, as chaos and desperation grew, until - the end of their world. The Fall of the Maya Kings is a one hour documentary that traces the story of the ancient Maya collapse, from inside the chaos - as told by the ancient Maya themselves.</p>
<p>Dr. Phil Kennedy was once fêted as a pioneering neuroscientist.</p> <p>In the late 1990s he made global headlines for implanting several wire electrodes in the brain of a paralysed man and then teaching the locked-in patient to control a computer cursor with his mind. Kennedy called his patient the world’s “first cyborg,” and the press hailed his feat as the first time a person had ever communicated through a brain-computer interface. An article in The Washington Post began by describing him as a new Alexander Graham Bell and he became better known as “The Father of the Cyborgs”.</p> <p>From then on Phil Kennedy committed his life to the dream of developing ways to fully digitise a person’s thoughts. Kennedy along with renowned futurists such as Elon Musk and Google’s Ray Kurzweil believe what started with technologies to help the disabled may lead us to being barely recognisable as humans in the not so distant future.</p> <p>In 2014 after 30 years of laborious tinkering with brains, Kennedy ran out of funding to continue his research. In order to continue on his path toward human electrode implantation, Kennedy travelled to South America, had the top of his skull sawed off and had tiny electrodes implanted inside his brain in order to understand it better.</p> <p>Kennedy’s South American surgery and high-risk self-experimentation has garnered a mixture of awe and condemnation from colleagues in the field. Paul Root Wolpe, the director of Emory University’s Centre for Ethics, describes this ethical quandary as “an interesting tension”. “Some have won the Nobel Prize from the results of self-experimentation, others have literally died from it”.</p> <p>Juxtaposing the human side of Dr Kennedy’s story with his synthetic vision of the future, he is now becoming increasingly concerned that the technology he helped pioneer may lead to unintended consequences in a future where technology and human brains combine.</p> <p>Stopping does not occur to Kennedy however and even after a close brush with brain damage he continues with the development of a technology he hopes will restore speech for patients who have lost the ability to communicate by accessing their brainwaves directly. The man known as “The Father of the Cyborg” still holds on to that most human of traits: hope.</p>
<p>The world's most dedicated whale researchers, exploring both their groundbreaking work and how a life at sea has shaped them.</p>
<p>A new documentary from Werner Herzog about meteors and comets and their influence on ancient religions and other cultural and physical impacts they've had on Earth.</p>
<p>The Siberian permafrost is melting, ancient bones rise up from the ground and wild animals seem to have disappeared. <em>Holgut</em> is a contemporary tale based on historical, mythological and current stories. Two brothers and a scientist venture into the vast Yakutian wilderness on two quests. Roman and Kyym hunt for a rare reindeer while Semyon scourges for a viable cell of the mammoth, which he needs to clone the extinct animal. The film boldly combines elements of fiction and documentary and maneuvers seemingly effortless from a captivating reality to visual poetry. Amidst a Siberian Ivory Rush, science fiction seems to become reality and reality seems to become myth.</p>
<p>Scientist Hannele Korhonen has one ultimate passion: to be the best at what she does and be recognised for it. Her life changes dramatically when she is awarded a 1,5 million USD research grant by the United Arab Emirates to participate in their ambitious project to stimulate rainfall over the notoriously arid region. The opportunity to get proper funding and do good sounds amazing. But, gradually Hannele learns that the financiers have their own agenda. Her enthusiasm morphs into an ethical dilemma and inner conflicts. If she succeeds to make it rain, is she giving means to rule the clouds? What is the ultimate price for ambition?</p>
<p>INTO THE ICE is a journey of discovery to the vast masses of ice and the secret of our future that the ice harbouring. Director Lars Ostenfeld accompanies three of the world’s leading glaciologists on pioneering scientific expeditions to and INTO the Greenland ice sheet. Cool and hardworking Dorthe Dahl-Jensen, sensitive and politically engaged Jason Box, and daring and fearless Alun Hubbard are all working to collect new crucial data that can help us answer some key questions of our time: How fast is the ice melting? How quickly are sea levels rising? How much time do we have left to change the course of the Earth? As the scientists are caught in the dilemma of collecting new evidence to an inconvenient truth while people in power are not prepared to take action to prevent the earth from dying, the film brings us breathtaking images from a place that soon will be lost as we know it now. A documentary tale about science, nature and adventure.</p>
<p>Although the question of virginity seemed destined to disappear, there has been a resurgence of this custom. In the United Stated and in Europe, there are more and more women who join movements promoting abstinence until marriage. In Maghreb, far from claiming it as a choice, women continue to yield to tests to inspect their virginity. As a reaction to this pressure, a number of them resort to operations such as hymenoplasty (reconstruction of the hymen). And yet, as this film will show, physiologically, virginity does not exist. What is it a symbol of in our contemporary world?</p>
<p>From the ravages of tobacco to the denial of climate change, this documentary reveals how research can be manipulated for deceptive purposes. What can we believe when science is undermined? Agnotology, "the science of ignorance," unpacks these phenomena of misinformation... to better enlighten us.</p>
<p>Chosen to open the 40th anniversary of the Nature series on PBS, this film is about a veteran wildlife cameraman who is bee obsessed. Seeking refuge from the pandemic in a small city garden, he is filming the wild bees that live there with mind-blowing results. From giant bumblebees to scissor bees the size of a mosquito, he has seen over 60 species of bee. But more importantly, he is developing a close relationship with an individual bee he follows through its entire life.</p>
<p>Layer by layer, the episodic documentary OECONOMIA reveals how the rules of the contemporary capitalist game systematically precondition growth, deficits and concentrations of wealth. With particular shrewdness and rigor OECONOMIA articulates the more egregious aspects of capitalist economy rendered invisible by the prevalent media coverage.</p>
<p>Seeking no one’s help and asking nobody’s permission, Russian geophysicist Sergey Zimov and his son Nikita are gathering any large wooly beast they can get their hands on, and transporting them, by whatever low budget means they can contrive, to the most remote corner of Siberia. They call their project Pleistocene Park. The goal: restore the Ice Age “mammoth steppe” ecosystem and avoid a catastrophic feedback loop leading to runaway global warming. Sergey would know: fifteen years ago he published in the journal Science showing that frozen arctic soils contain twice as much carbon as the earth’s atmosphere. These soils are now starting to melt.</p> <p>While Zimov’s brilliance and charisma have won him friends and supporters, his oversized ego, lack of diplomacy, and cranky iconoclasm make him a challenge to work with. Nikita, Sergey’s son, is the last man standing to deal with his father’s idiosyncrasies and carry forward his vision.</p> <p>Nature doesn’t cooperate, equipment breaks, bureaucrats meddle, animals run away, there is never enough money, and constant media coverage nets them unsolicited advice from around the globe, but no concrete support. After years of backbreaking labor and risking their lives on shoestring expeditions to bring animals to Pleistocene Park, it remains an extremely funky operation, dominated by swarming mosquitoes and mud pits rather than vast thundering herds.</p> <p>The clock is ticking. Impacts of climate change – hurricanes, wildfires, heat waves and floods – are being felt sooner than anticipated. Sergey and Nikita find alarming evidence that permafrost is reaching its tipping point now, rather than in thirty years as they predicted. On a global scale, progress addressing the root cause of climate change – anthropogenic carbon emissions – is as elusive as ever.</p> <p>Can two Russian scientists stave off a worst case scenario of global environmental catastrophe and reshape humanity’s relationship with the natural world?</p>
<p>How many hours a day do you sit? For how many years have you been doing that? Why?<br /> What effect is this much sitting having on your body?<br /> Widespread and culturally enforced sedentarism is a relatively recent phenomenon, at the evolutionary scale, and a mounting volume of research since the 1950s consistently shows that "too much sitting" is – big surprise – bad for our health.<br /> How so? First time filmmaker E.J. Rosen explores this question in interviews with sedentary behavior researchers, endocrinologists, ergonomic specialists, chair designers, and school teachers. She adds another thesis to be explored in the arena; does excessive, school-enforced sitting train kids into a state of dulled awareness against important physiological signals? Are we training ourselves into ill-health? In a harm reduction model in the current cultural system, what can we do differently? How many hours a day do you sit?</p>
<p>Today, the race is on between human and artificial intelligence. While researchers are slowly uncovering the mysteries of the human brain, dramatic progress is being made in the field of AI. We follow the silent war raging inside cutting-edge laboratories embodied by two scientists: a father and his son. While the father, dedicates his life to the understanding of the human brain, his son, a young AI researcher in Oxford, aims to build intelligent machines. Their captivating confrontations around the world challenge our beliefs in a disturbing yet fascinating existential journey.</p>
<p>THE COMPUTER ACCENT is a documentary that follows the intrepid pop group YACHT as they hand over the reins to Artificial Intelligence (AI). As they put AI to the test in the name of art, what will they learn about themselves in the process?</p>
<p>An international team of scientists venture into the virtually unknown interior of Antarctica to explore a lake buried 3,600 feet beneath the ice. Their success hinges on the performance of their custom-built hot water drill and their ability to work as a team in the harshest climate on the planet. As they struggle against the ferocity of the ice and wind to unravel mysteries buried deep under Antarctica, they consider how our relationship with nature – and with one another — will impact humanity’s future and the future of all life on our rapidly changing planet.</p>
<p>THE MUSHROOM SPEAKS explores the healing qualities of fungi and their ability to regenerate. This personal journey takes us on a walk alongside parasites, symbionts and decomposers offering ideas of both interconnectedness and collaboration. Driven by a vision of resistance, the encounters seek possibilities of renewal and question what connects us when the world seems to be falling apart. With mushrooms and their allies, the film invites us to imagine a myco-cultural (r)evolution. What if the fungus could help us address and radically change our relationship to this world?</p>
<p>On December 30, 2019, Chinese virologist George Fu Gao, director of the National Center for Disease Control in Beijing, saw a piece of information fall on his screen that would soon affect all of humanity: a lung disease of unknown origin had broken out in Wuhan, in central China. Eleven days later, on January 10, 2020, his team has already sequenced the genome of this new corona-virus and shared the results globally. For researchers at the forefront of virology, the Chinese alert is a wake-up call. The pandemic is likely, even inevitable, and they must try to catch it by creating an effective vaccine. Five teams will take the lead in this scientific race.</p>
<p>Follow Freya, a fierce wolverine, as she survives a harsh wilderness, battles predators, and raises her young against all odds in this stunning nature journey.</p>
<p>A 2021 Czech language documentary directed by Bára Kopecká. The film screened at Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival in 2021.</p>
<p>My question in this film is: Is it possible to recieve a part of someones soul with a new kidney? And if so, is it possible to transplant the soul into the machine?<br /> Visually, the film tells the story of the transformation of silica sand into a microchip to the machines that make the machines.</p>
<p>Jaroslav Flegr has a dream to write a book that could be a manual for using the human brain. In the film, we observe him in his natural environment, in his jungle, where we try to find a way to him, as if we wanted to get closer to a wild animal. He gradually reveals to us his instructions for thinking.</p>
<p>Clearings are places we turn our eyes away from. The visually refined black-and-white reportage attempts to mediate the physical experience of wood mining and the clearings we create each day. Do we really care about the forest? "What we have here is a game of charts and numbers, a competition which company will clear more money.”</p>
<p>A completely unique journey by Jakub Vágner and his crew to rare tribes that live wild in the most remote places on our planet. In the Amazon rainforest, we will meet the Huaorani, Waorani and Taromenane tribes.</p>
<p>Three hospitals in a state of emergency. Overcrowded Covid wards, exhausted medical staff, hopelessness and glimmers of hope. Current documentary by Šárka Maixnerová</p>
<p>Fertile soil is decreasing and humans are to blame. How are Czech scientists researching disappearing soil and what findings have they reached?</p>
<p>The best Czech craftsmen use period methods to create replicas of historical artifacts. What can the craft tools of our ancestors teach us today?</p>
<p>The documentary series "Industrie" by director Ivo Bystřičan examines the history and development of industrial capitalism, focusing on significant industrial enterprises in Czechoslovakia. The series includes episodes that delve into the histories of major automotive factories, such as Škoda in Mladá Boleslav and Tatra in Kopřivnice, exploring their roles during periods of normalization and capitalist transformation. Through interviews with key figures from these times, including Petr Hrdlička, Erika Duchanová, Zdeněk Podolský, Jan Ludva, and Bedřich Sklenovský, as well as historian Martin Jemelka, the series provides insights into the industrial and social changes that shaped the nation's economic landscape.</p>
<p>Physicians Ondřej and Kateřina touch the untouchable with their work. The pioneers of hospital palliative care open up topics that have disappeared from the daily life of our society. Between robotic devices and white coats, their focus is on human being. In intimate conversations with their patients, they seek answers to a question that modern medicine is not used to asking – what it means to live a good life.</p>
<p>Cornelius, a shore crab, leads a peaceful life until he encounters a parasitic barnacle. This animated short, inspired by true events, illustrates the harsh realities of nature, emphasizing survival and the lengths species will go to preserve themselves.</p>
<p>This is not ordinary bread. It is derma bread. It is used to simulate skin surgeries and train depth perception. A short experimental documentary by artist and scientist Kaisu Koski presents a speculative surgical simulator. In her work and research, Koski deals with the relationship between humans and what is not human, climate change and vaccine rejection.</p>
<p>"Chemobrionics" explores a new multidisciplinary field of science that examines the properties of inorganic substances, highlighting their similarities to the behavior of living systems. The film showcases the beauty of a simple experiment known as "chemical gardening," where a metal salt crystal is placed into water glass. Viewers are treated to a mesmerizing display of colors and the slow, hypnotic growth of tubular structures that resemble plants or fungi. This visual poem bridges art and science, prompting contemplation of nature's ability to present inanimate objects that mimic life.</p>
<p>In nature, a couple is a male and a female. Well, not always. A couple is also a female and a female. Or a male and a male. You may not know it, but homosexuality isn't just a human story.</p>
<p>In the Dark tells the story of a group of physicists in North East England hoping to shed light on one of the greatest mysteries in science: the identity of dark matter. Among them is world-renowned cosmologist Carlos Frenk, who has spent his career waiting for definitive proof that these elusive particles exist. Now, a new generation of underground detectors could finally provide answers. But if the dark matter cannot be found, does its very existence become a question of faith?</p> <p>Told through candid interviews, In the Dark is a thought-provoking first-hand account of the decades-long search for dark matter, as well as a poignant tribute to the scientific spirit.</p>
<p>Based on audiovisual archives from the National Center for Space Studies (CNES), <em>Listen to the Beat of our Images</em>, is a film by Audrey and Maxime Jean-Baptiste which deals with the establishment of the Guyanese Space Center (Kourou, French Guiana), wishing to bring out the Guyanese population, a real out-of-frame of this space adventure. Combining field investigation and video-editing processes on archives, the film is a fictional documentary around a narrator, representative of a generation of Guianese who experienced as a spectator the transformation of their territory.</p>
<p>Your mode of existence is not superior. It is only another state of being.</p>
<p>A short-documentary about an old Planetarium built during the era of the People's Republic of Bulgaria.<br /> A story about the night sky, the transience of Life and the relationship between man and machine.</p>
<p>Churchill, Manitoba, is famous as an international destination for photographing polar bears. We’ve seen the majestic images and classic wildlife series captured here - but what do these bears see of us? Through a shift in perspective 'Nuisance Bear' reveals an obstacle course of tourist paparazzi and wildlife officers whom bears must navigate during their annual migration.</p>
<p>We are backing up the planet, creating 3D models of animals, rainforests, cities and people. We are archiving as if ecological collapse could be staved off through some digital Noah’s Ark of beasts and objects. OUR ARK is an essay film on our efforts to create a virtual replica of the real world.</p>
<p>Planktonium is a short film about the unseen world of living microscopic plankton. It is a voyage into a secret universe, inhabited by alien-like creatures. These stunningly beautiful, very diverse and numerous organisms are unknown to most of us because they are invisible to the naked eye. However, they are wandering beneath the surface of all waters around us and they are of vital importance for all life on earth.</p> <p>Jan van IJken filmed the plankton through his microscopes, revealing the beauty and delicate structures of the minute organisms in the finest detail. The film is without any voice-over or explanation.</p> <p>Renowned Norwegian artist <a href="https://www.janawinderen.com/">Jana Winderen</a> made a sound composition for the film. She is recording audio environments and creatures which are hard for humans to access, both physically and aurally – deep under water, inside ice or in frequency ranges inaudible to the human ear.</p> <p>Phytoplankton (small plant-like cells) are producing half of all oxygen on earth by photosynthesis, like plants and trees do on land. Zooplankton are forming the base of the food chain of aquatic life. Plankton are also playing an important part in the global carbon cycle. The plankton are threatened by climate change, global warming and acidification of the oceans.</p>
<p>At the edge of Shirahama, a coastal tourist town in Japan, an aging scientist works to unlock the biological secret of immortality held in the life cycle of a tiny jellyfish. At a temple in Kyoto, a Zen priest contemplates the metaphysical immortality held within a single breath.</p>
<p>After losing her mother to poachers, an unruly elephant named Shaba is rescued to the mountains of northern Kenya to be rehabilitated back to the wild. While finally, now, fully recovered and free, her journey begins with the unexpected good fortune in the form of true love, everlasting health and protection, and neverending financial provision. What will Shaba create with this new path life has suddenly unfolded before her?</p>
<p>A little-told chapter in the story of black holes begins in 1930 Madras, India. 19-year-old Indian physics prodigy Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar (Chandra) is awarded a scholarship to go to England to study with Sir Arthur Eddington, the world’s most famous astronomer. While on his sea voyage, young Chandra makes a major discovery that goes against everything his new advisor believes: that sufficiently massive stars, when they use the last of their fuel, must be crushed by gravity and collapse to something far more dense and mysterious than any object anyone has known. After years of work to refine this result under his mentor's watchful eye, at the most public of forums, Eddington denounces his protégé and his work, shattering him, driving Chandra from England to the United States. Despite his humiliation, Chandra perseveres, but pursues a more conservative path in physics, never again braving the limelight. Nearly a half-century later in 1983, Chandrasekhar is awarded the Nobel Prize for the work begun on board that ship to England. “Shattering Stars” tells the story of ambition and betrayal, of loss and perseverance at the pinnacle of scientific research. Making use of original audio recordings of Chandrasekhar, the film alternates its limited-motion animation between a representational-documentary and imaginative-subjective style.</p>
<p>What can clone itself, never grows old or dies, is neither plant nor animal, has no mouth or soul, and defies all human classification and understanding? It's the freshwater polyp known as Hydra! Using beguiling microscopic images and a twitchy electronic score, we get closer than ever to the only living thing that is eternal. </p>
<p><span data-sheets-root="1">For doctors of the time, it was Ada Lovelace's (1815-1852) "jumping uterus" that was the origin of her scientific temperament. A crazy theory that allowed her successes to be minimized: the first programmer in history, the daughter of the poet Lord Byron developed the algorithm for the calculating machine imagined by the mathematician Charles Babbage.</span></p>
<p dir="ltr">A deadly accident between a self-driving car and a pedestrian sets off an investigation about the role of human workers in the training of driverless cars. Testimonies from vehicle operators guide us through a night shift where the landscape merges with data from the car’s sensors.</p> <p><br /> </p>
<p>What if there was a place deep in the brain that can take you from pain to pleasure? What if tiny pulsing electrodes in your head could change your mind? How would we harness such a revolutionary tool in our eternal hunt for happiness? This film explores how the burgeoning technology of Deep Brain Stimulation will impact human identity and our sense of self.</p> <p>DBS is a revolutionary tool in neuroscience and as a treatment it is crossing over from controlling movement in Parkinson’s to alleviating mental illness. Trials are underway in depression, OCD, PTSD and eating disorders.</p> <p>In addition, DBS has a fascinating forgotten history. In 1950, psychiatrist Robert Heath was the first to implant electrodes deep in the brain of a human and in the ensuing years he treated more than 70 patients in his deep brain stimulation program at Tulane University. Heath wanted to cure schizophrenia, but expanded his method to be used to treat depression, chronic pain and even aggression. His method was to stimulate the brain’s reward system as he explored pleasure as part of the psychological healing process. But his focus on pleasure got him in trouble and had him erased from scientific memory.</p> <p>HUNTING FOR HEDONIA contrasts history and current developments to examine and elucidate where DBS is going. Will this promising technology change psychiatry? And will the nifty electrodes move on from correcting abnormal activity in disease to perhaps ‘correcting’ unwanted but in fact normal activity? In other words: How far should – and would – the surgeons go in modulating our emotions and personal characteristics?</p> <p>If pleasure is just the push of a button away, would you want to push it?</p>
<p>Throughout the ages, each time a new technology has appeared, it has transformed our lives and society — today more than ever. Lead by digitalization, followed by new living and intelligent technologies, our world is being transformed in a way that’s difficult for us to comprehend. A group of the world’s leading scientists isolate themselves for 10 days at the renowned Santa Fe Institute, hidden away in the desert of New Mexico. They come from all corners of science representing environment, economy, democracy, social media, education, status of institutions and artificial technology. Together, they want to start a revolutionary movement with an ambitious goal: To secure the future of humanity through science by finding the path to a new paradigm.</p>
<p>What is genetics? Through her quest to understand who she is, Lone Frank, a science journalist, takes us to the heart of the latest genetic research. This film humorously addresses the challenges of genetics and its fascinating discoveries.</p>
<p>16 mm film material destroyed by pesticide.<br /> Pesticides are used in agriculture to kill potential pests. But biological protection can do the same work. Beetles and spiders are natural predators of these pests. So if we create flowerstrips next farmfields, no pesticide is needed.</p>
<p>2040 is an innovative feature documentary that looks to the future, but is vitally important NOW. Award-winning director Damon Gameau embarks on journey to explore what the future would look like by the year 2040 if we simply embraced the best solutions already available to us to improve our planet and shifted them into the mainstream. Structured as a visual letter to his 4-year-old daughter, Damon blends traditional documentary footage with dramatized sequences and high-end visual effects to create a vision board for his daughter and the planet.</p>
<p>Once symbols of wild nature, forests are undergoing an unprecedented phase of industrialization. The loss of traditional know-how, the imprudent use of fertilizers and pesticides, as well as monoculture, which follow the contemporary agricultural model, have led to a dreadful reality. A documentary that urges us to think if we really want to transform our oxygen providers into green deserts.</p>
<p>Kiss the Ground reveals that, by regenerating the world’s soils, we can completely and rapidly stabilize Earth’s climate, restore lost ecosystems and create abundant food supplies. Using compelling graphics and visuals, along with striking NASA and NOAA footage, the film artfully illustrates how, by drawing down atmospheric carbon, soil is the missing piece of the climate puzzle.</p>
<p>Two boys quarrel about a toy pistol. The game becomes serious. On the roof in a skyskraper district they risk their lifes for the toy pistol.</p>
<p>"Mimozemské Ekologie (Retroflektory: Kosmonaut, Robot, Mimozemšťan)" is a 2018 Austrian documentary directed by Ralo Mayer, with a runtime of 43 minutes. The film delves into the intersection of science fiction and ecology, exploring how narratives from science fiction can inform and reshape our understanding of ecological concepts. It draws inspiration from ecological sci-fi films and projects like "Biosphere 2," leading to a reevaluation of contemporary ecological thinking.</p>
<p>Stalking Chernobyl, a forthcoming documentary from Cultures of Resistance Films, examines the underground culture of the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. Three decades after the world's most infamous nuclear disaster, wildlife has returned in the absence of human settlements. Meanwhile, illegal hiking adventurers known as "stalkers," extreme sports aficionados, artists, and tour companies have begun to explore anew the ghostly, post-apocalyptic landscape.</p>
<p>Near a gray and unnamed city is the Zone, an alien place guarded by barbed wire and soldiers. Over his wife's objections, a man rises in the early morning and leaves her with their disabled daughter to meet two men. He's a Stalker, one of a handful who have the mental gifts (and who risk imprisonment) to lead people into the Zone to the Room, a place where one's secret hopes come true. His clients are a burned out popular writer, cynical, and questioning his talent; and a quiet scientist more concerned about his knapsack than the journey. In the deserted Zone, the approach to the Room must be indirect. As they draw near, the rules seem to change and the stalker faces a crisis. </p>
<p>How can we contain some of the deadliest, most long-lasting substances ever produced? Toxic remnants from the Cold War remain in millions of gallons of highly radioactive sludge, thousands of acres of radioactive land, tens of thousands of unused hot buildings, and some slowly spreading deltas of contaminated groundwater. Governments around the world, desperate to protect future generations, have begun imagining society 10,000 years from now in order to create warning monuments that will speak across time to mark waste repositories.</p>
<p>On its vast lunar landscape, the main protagonist of the Arctic is Ice. A planetary story of the Arctic that captures its otherworldly landscape and its limited visitors.</p>
<p>This episode examines the phenomenon of Area 51, a top-secret military base in Nevada that is often associated with theories of extraterrestrial visitation and the concealment of UFO information. It discusses the history of the base, alleged incidents, and the public interest that led to the planned "raid" of Area 51 in 2019.</p>
<p><em>Silence of the Tides</em> is a cinematic tribute to the Wadden Sea, the world’s largest, and most varied, uninterrupted intertidal area, extending along the coasts of the Netherlands, Germany and Denmark.</p> <p>The film plays witness to the rough, yet fragile relationship between man and nature as it pulsates with the inhaling and exhaling of the tides. It’s a hypnotizing large screen look into the cycles and contrasts of the seasons: life and death, storm and silence, the masses and the individual. All set against a larger-than-life backdrop of sky, water, wind, mist and constantly changing light.</p>
<p>Behind the Redwood Curtain takes us on a mesmerizing journey through the dark and eerie Redwood forest. Seven forest dwellers - loggers, scientists, activists and Native Americans - invite us to discover their part of these impressive woods. There are no Walmarts and Starbucks here, just small towns and big trees. The ancient Redwoods have always kept the region isolated but now that excessive logging is encroaching, the survival of this unique habitat is under threat. Liesbeth De Ceulaer tells a compelling story about the relationship between man and his natural environment in which she entwines her own impressions of the forest with the beliefs, dreams and fears of the forest inhabitants.</p>
<p>If you were about to die, how would you live? Kiwi David Downs had just months to live when he entered a clinical trial of an innovative cancer treatment called CAR T-cell therapy in Boston. Within weeks, he was in complete remission, and two years later he is deemed cured. Now, he has dedicated himself to helping others in Aotearoa NZ facing their own cancer journeys. With him, we follow their stories of life and death while exploring the fascinating science and history of this groundbreaking treatment.</p>
<p>A film about how research into blood clots, the tiny things that cause strokes, could bring about big changes for people and medicine.<br /> 'A Tiny Spark' shows us how something small or seemingly insignificant can wield the power to alter the course of something else forever. A stroke itself is one moment that changes someone's life forever, just like the blood clot itself, although tiny, could mean so much to the world of stroke research. This documentary is about groundbreaking research being done by neuroscientist Dr. Karen Doyle at CÚRAM, the SFI Research Centre for Medical Devices at NUI Galway. For the first time ever they are analysing thousands of stroke-causing blood clots collected from patients around the world. These little bundles of cells could carry a wealth of information, which could point to big improvement to people's lives. In the film we meet three incredibly brave stroke survivors who show us that it is sometimes the little things that people miss in life after a stroke, or the small victories during recovery that mean so much. Directed by Niamh Heery and produced by Caroline Kealy, with a mixture of dramatic first person accounts and beautiful animation sequences, A Tiny Spark is a film about science's ability to affect real change for human life.</p>
<p>This documentary explores how neurons communicate in the human brain and the role of neurotransmitters in maintaining mental and physical health. It examines the consequences of chemical imbalances, which can lead to neurological disorders and diseases.</p>
<p>Plagued by insomnia and an incurable autoimmune disease, journalist Shannon Harvey teams up with a group of scientists to explore whether daily meditation can truly impact health. In the face of stress, anxiety, and depression, could meditation be the solution the world needs?</p>
<p>Trauma continues to overwhelm some people, and they are unable to move beyond it.</p>
<p>DESCENDING THE MOUNTAIN takes us on a journey of mystical revelations, experienced through meditation and psilocybin. To understand how psychedelics reveal the nature of consciousness, psychiatrist Franz and Zen master Vanja guide experienced meditators – who have never used psychedelics before – through a ground-breaking scientific experiment on the majestic Swiss Mount Rigi. The doc blends visual art, spiritual understanding, and scientific research. Fairylike animation and A.I. art visualize the mystical experience that reminds us of how much our consciousness and the nature that surrounds us, are interconnected.</p>
<p><span style="font-size:16px"><span style="font-family:Georgia,serif">This powerful new documentary by Bennett Singer (BROTHER OUTSIDER: The Life of Bayard Rustin)illuminates a pivotal yet largely unknown chapter in the struggle for LGBT equality: the campaign that led the American Psychiatric Association (APA) to remove homosexuality from its list of mental illnesses in 1973. CURED takes audiences behind the scenes of this riveting narrative to chronicle the strategy and tactics that led to a crucial victory in the movement for LGBT rights.</span></span></p>
<p>It is the disease of the century, the one that will affect one in 10 adults by 2040. However, diabetes is still not treated properly. With powerful laboratories that sell overpriced treatments that are sometimes of questionable effectiveness, doctors under the influence, and powerless health authorities, diabetes demonstrates the inability of our societies to take charge of chronic diseases. An investigation into a system that has it all wrong.</p>
<p>A giant spaceship carrying colonists to a new planet runs into unexpected troubles on its journey, ranging from encounters with abandoned alien craft to malfunctioning onboard computers and tensions among its crew and passengers.</p>
<p>What lessons can we learn from a voice speaking to us from a distance of two billion years? Last and First Men juxtaposes a science fiction story written in 1930 and a haunting musical score with filmed images of the “Spomenik” – futuristic, abstract stone monuments erected during the communist era in the former Yugoslav republics. The narrator describes the life and society of a dying future race of humans, while taking us through a landscape of surreal and phantasmagorical monuments - filmed in 16mm black and white. These structures – once intended as symbols of Unity and Brotherhood but now forgotten, derelict and overgrown by vegetation – stand like lone, abandoned beacons, still beaming their message into the wilderness of the Balkan republics. The roving camera takes us through this futuristic landscape while we gradually learn all about the tragic and yet hopeful story of the last humans.</p>
<p>Suffering from palpable delusions, burnt-out Thomas Anderson, the award-winning creator of The Matrix (1999) video game series, now relies on potent blue pills to keep his inner demons at bay. Then, amid inexplicable, reality-defying visions, Thomas spots Tiffany, a familiar-looking perfect stranger evoking strange emotions, and his already fragile mental state starts to deteriorate. As Mr Anderson yearns for an explanation while teetering on the brink of depression, once more, he confronts a pressing dilemma and the burden of choice. On the one hand, blissful ignorance guarantees the illusion of safety. On the other hand, the unbearable truth of reality can only mean one thing: the elaborate Matrix goes beyond the limits of imagination. But, somehow, Thomas already knows what he has to do. However, does he want to know how deep the rabbit hole goes?</p>
<p>The crew of a West of Ireland trawler, marooned at sea, struggle for their lives against a growing parasite in their water supply.</p>
<p>A journey through the evolution of time travel; from its origins, its evolution and influence in science fiction, to the exciting possibilities in the future.</p>
<p>The origin story of renegade warrior Furiosa before her encounter and teamup with Mad Max.</p>
<p>Alien On Stage is a documentary about a unique crew of bus drivers from Dorset, whose amateur dramatics group decide to ditch doing another pantomime and try something different. Having never done anything like it before, they spent a year creating a serious adaptation of the sci-fi, horror film, Alien (1979); finding ingenious solutions to pay homemade, homage to the original film. The show is a crushing flop but fate gives them a second chance to find their audience. Whilst still adjusting to the idea that their serious show is actually a comedy, the group find out they're suddenly being whisked from their village hall to a London West End theatre to perform this accidental masterpiece for one night only. With wobbly sets, awkward acting and special effects requiring 'more luck than judgment', will their West End debut be alright on the night? This bus driving crew are our space heroes. Their bus station is our space station. Dorset is outer-space and where is the Alien? It's behind you.</p>
<p> </p> <p>Black holes stand at the limit of what we can know. The Event Horizon Telescope links observatories across the world to simulate an earth-sized telescope. With this tool the team pursues the first-ever picture of a black hole, resulting in an image seen by billions of people in April 2019. Meanwhile, Hawking and his team attack the black hole paradox at the heart of theoretical physics—Do predictive laws still function, even in these massive distortions of space and time? Weaving them together is a third strand, philosophical and exploratory using expressive animation. “Edge” is about practicing science at the highest level, a film where observation, theory, and philosophy combine to grasp these most mysterious objects.</p>
<p>"Discover: Are We Closer Than It Seems?" is a 2022 Czech short documentary directed by Philip Píza. The film offers a portrait of young scientists from the Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry as they research substances that could advance cancer diagnosis and treatment. It features Adéla Šimková and Natan Sidej, who energetically and clearly present the principles of their research, providing insights into the scientific environment and the challenging journey toward results.</p>
<p>In PICTURE A SCIENTIST, three leading women scientists overcome brutal harassment, institutional discrimination, and years of subtle slights to revolutionize the culture of science.</p>
<p>In the eighties of the last century, 56 Namibian children were raised in socialist Czechoslovakia. The special educational program of the Namibian liberation movement SWAPO and the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia aimed to raise children into a new generation of politically aware elite. This political experiment failed in the early nineties due to fundamental political changes in both countries. The children were forcibly resettled in Namibia without completing basic education and without any linguistic and psychological training, where they were unable to culturally adapt. The documentary filmmakers searched for traces of now-adult Namibian children and followed their fates both in Namibia and in the Czech Republic for three years. To this day, black Czechs remain imprisoned in the memories of their idyllic childhood in Czechoslovakia, which they consider their true home.</p>
<p>Fitzcarraldo is an obsessed opera lover who wants to build an opera in the jungle. To accomplish this he first has to make a fortune in the rubber business, and his cunning plan involves hauling an enormous river boat across a small mountain with aid from the local Indians.</p>
<p>Meet Dot, the little wild horse foal. She is a Przewalski's horse: the only true wild horse species of the world. Although the origin of this endangered species is in Mongolia, Dot lives in the heart of Europe, on the grassy plains of Hungary called the "Puszta". 25 years ago some were introduced here and the horses instantly formed an organic connection with this magical land with rich and unique wildlife. Today this is one of the largest Przewalski's horse herds on the planet. This is their story.</p>
<p>Why we should keep the right for analog as citizens and what awaits us if society gets fully digitized?</p>
<p>A pioneering film profiling the Pacific Ocean's national wildlife refuge islands and marine national monuments. A breathtaking environments that will leave audiences with a deep-felt appreciation for these extraordinary places.</p>
<p>The best Czech craftsmen create replicas of historical artifacts using contemporary methods. What can ancestral craft tools teach us today?</p>
<p>It affects every aspect of our lives from the moment we are born, to the food we eat, the cars we drive, and the medicines we take. This object has helped send men to the moon, and satellites into space. It is an object unlike any other, the last of its kind. A literal constant in an ever-changing world, and the weight by which all others are measured. The Last Artifact follows the high-stakes race to redefine the weight of the world, and reveals the untold story of one of the most important objects on the planet: the kilogram.</p>
<p>"V Oka Mžiku" introduces viewers to environments and individuals impacted by psychological conditions, setting the stage for a forthcoming docufiction trilogy.</p>
<p>An abandoned mining operation in the southwest of the Iberian Peninsula became a gigantic open wound in the landscape. A dead scene of rocks and cavities. But Nature began to take over that space. Station by station, life has taken over La Jayona until it has become what it is today: a unique enclave far removed from its surroundings that has been declared a Natural Monument. Its microclimate allows the development of unique vegetation and is a refuge for a multitude of animal species from amphibians to the almighty eagle owl. Going into La Jayona is doing it in a new buried world</p>
<p>For animals in Mozambique’s Gorongosa National Park, the normal balance of competition and predation was upended when a war wiped out the top predators. The remaining animals didn’t simply grow in numbers—they began behaving in unusual ways, veering outside their typical territories and feeding patterns. Could it be that it’s not just predators’ kills that keep other populations in check, but also the fear they inspire? NOVA joins a team of scientists as they reintroduce wild dogs to Gorongosa to find out if restoring the park’s “landscape of fear” can restore balance to an entire ecosystem.</p>
<p>"Hvězdičky" is an animated series that introduces young viewers to prominent personalities from Czech history. Each short episode narrates the life and achievements of a historical figure, making history accessible and engaging for children.</p>
<p>"Kosmix" follows the adventures of a little robot named Kit, who explores the universe to learn about space and its various phenomena. Accompanied by his friend Mr. Battery, Kit embarks on educational journeys that introduce young viewers to the mysteries of the cosmos. Each episode presents a new adventure, making complex scientific concepts accessible and entertaining for children.</p>
<p>In this season, the robot Kit embarks on a new journey to explore Earth's most vital resource: water. Diving into various aquatic environments, Kit and his companion, Mr. Battery, discover the wonders of underwater life and the importance of water in sustaining life on our planet. Each episode presents an educational adventure, making complex scientific concepts accessible and entertaining for young viewers.</p>
<p>Near us, in the former mines, on mountain tops, on housing estates and at railway stations nature takes back what man stole. Wildlife film-essay about the resilient power and variety of Czech nature. Within the environment of open cast brown coalmines and spoil tips which is a reminder of a lunar landscape, one finds paradoxically a true tale of an impregnable wild countryside. For most people it is a symbol of an ecological catastrophe, same as the abandoned industrial complexes, former army training ranges or dense woods gobbled up by the bark beetle. But for nature they are untamed spots which bring with them a process of recuperation and self-preservation. Just beyond our backyard we see everyday dramas of animals and plants taking place which tend to fascinate us in films that come from the far reaches of our planet.</p>
<p>"Pohádkový Svět FAMU" is a 2007 Czech animated anthology film with a total runtime of 52 minutes. The project features contributions from directors Jakub Kouřil, Alexandra Májová, Daniela Hýbnerová, Martin Smatana, and Petr Mischinger. Each filmmaker presents a unique short story, collectively showcasing the creative talents emerging from the Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (FAMU).</p>
<p>The little owl is associated with a number of myths and legends. Everybody knows its ominous hooting. However, nowadays it is almost impossible to hear this particular sound in nature. This documentary concerned with the lives of little owls was created as a part of the Athene project, which aims to restore this endangered species. While a century ago, the Czech Republic was a nesting ground for thousands of these remarkable birds, their population decreased by over 90% within a generation. Currently, only 100 couples nest in the Czech Republic. When and why did this happen? What does the future hold for these owls? This film, accompanied by captivating animations, brings answers to these questions and more.</p>
<p>"Zvěd" follows the adventures of Vojtěch Klinger, an enthusiastic explorer who, together with his dog Maggie, investigates current scientific research and discoveries. The series aims to present the latest verified information from the world of science in a fun and engaging way, making complex topics accessible to young audiences. The show is produced in collaboration with the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic and Česká televize's children's channel, Déčko.</p>