In 2001 Jack Cardiff (1914-2009) became the first director of photography in the history of the Academy Awards to win an Honorary Oscar. But the first time he clasped the famous statuette in his hand was a half-century earlier when his Technicolor camerawork was awarded for Powell and Pressburger’s Black Narcissus. Beyond John Huston’s The African Queen and King Vidor’s War and Peace, the films of the British-Hungarian creative duo (The Red Shoes and A Matter of Life and Death too) guaranteed immortality for the renowned cameraman whose career spanned seventy years.
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Georgiana Halmac is turning 15 this winter, but she has no time for teenage dreams when her mother, who’s on unemployment, moves to Torino to find work. Georgiana is left in charge of her six siblings in a social housing condo on the outskirts of Bacau, Romania. Caught between adolescence and the responsibilities of adulthood, Georgiana does the best she can, improvising with parenting advice from the television and the occasional phone call with her mother. As she handles her own issues and high-school dramas, Georgiana must also deal with admonishing neighbours who threaten to turn the whole family into social services. With incredible calm and stoicism, Georgiana amazes as she holds everything together in an ingenious and delicate balance.
By the early 1900s, the extraordinary Houdini earned an international reputation for his theatrical tricks and daring feats of extrication from shackles, ropes, handcuffs, and Scotland Yard’s jails… The film depicts Houdini’s memorable escape from any pair of handcuffs produced by the audience; the outdoor exhibition, when he allows himself to be hanged upside down from his ankles, suspended from the roof of a high building, in a strait jacket; and, the dramatic act, when he accepts to be shackled with irons and placed in a box that is locked, roped, and submerged in frozen waters…
Every year, thousands of Antarctica’s emperor penguins make an astonishing journey to breed their young. They walk, marching day and night in single file 70 miles into the darkest, driest and coldest continent on Earth. Morgan Freeman narrates this amazing, true-life tale touched with humour and alive with thrills. Breathtaking photography captures the transcendent beauty and staggering drama of devoted parent penguins who, in the fierce polar winter, take turns guarding their egg and trekking to the ocean in search of food. Predators hunt them, storms lash them. But the safety of their adorable chicks makes it all worthwhile. So follow the leader … to adventure!!
Nearly 20 years after his death and in the run-up to his centenary, Toshiro Mifune remains a true giant of Japanese cinema.
Jeffrey Dahmer struggles with a difficult family life as a young boy. During his teenage years he slowly transforms, edging closer to the serial killer he becomes.
Called “The American Bowie,” “The True Fairy of Rock & Roll” and “Hype of the Year,” Jobriath’s reign as the first openly gay rock star was brief and over by 1975. Now, 35 years later, “Jobriath A.D.” spotlights his life, music, groundbreaking influence and the new generations of fans slowly re-discovering him.
Documentary film takes a look at some of the world’s most influential fashion images as conceived by the magazine’s iconic fashion editors.
A story about the great basketball player “Pistol” Pete Maravich when he was in the eighth grade. He plays on the varsity basketball team at Daniel High School but has some very difficult obstacles standing in his way of playing. The only support he has is from his father, retired basketball pro Press Maravich.
A retired farmer and widower in his 70s, Alvin Straight learns one day that his distant brother Lyle has suffered a stroke and may not recover. Alvin is determined to make things right with Lyle while he still can, but his brother lives in Wisconsin, while Alvin is stuck in Iowa with no car and no driver’s license. Then he hits on the idea of making the trip on his old lawnmower, thus beginning a picturesque and at times deeply spiritual odyssey.
As tuition spirals upward and student debt passes a trillion dollars, students and parents ask, “Is college worth it?” From the halls of Harvard to public and private colleges in financial crisis to education startups in Silicon Valley, an urgent portrait emerges of a great American institution at the breaking point.
A championship high school basketball team provides pride, tradition and hope for an African American community struggling to survive in the middle of one of the wealthiest communities in America – The Hamptons.
When professional mountain biker Paul Basagoitia suffers a devastating spinal cord injury (SCI), his life is changed in an instant. Discovering that he’s become paralyzed, Paul begins a grueling battle against his own body and mind, in the hope of one day being able to walk again. A chorus of other diverse SCI survivors weaves through the film, shining light on the struggles that Paul now faces.
