Living in the Age of Airplanes

Simon debates whether to end his life after being diagnosed with motor neurone disease.

Go With Your Gut is documentary on the theme of how you should always follow your heart. It tells the stories of 7 Chinese independent domestic brand founders. The main characters are Mao …

From the Academy-Award nominated creators of the Broadway show STOMP and the award-winning film Wild Ocean, The Last Reef is an uplifting, inspirational large-format and 3D cinema experience capturing one of nature’s more vibrant and diverse wonderlands. Exotic coral reefs, vibrant sea walls in the sub-arctic pulsating with anemones and crustaceans: these biodiversity hot spots are as vital to our lives as the rainforests. Shot on location in Palau, Vancouver Island, French Polynesia, Mexico, and The Bahamas using groundbreaking 3D cinematography, The Last Reef takes us on a global journey to explore the connection of our cities on land with the ocean’s complex, parallel world of the coral reefs beneath the sea.

The remarkable life story of the pre-war Polish artist Stanislav Szukalski, documented by the American friends he made late in life.

When it seems that all the stories about World War II have already been told, a new one is often found. Marthe Cohn is a French Jew, whose life resembles a real-world blockbuster. During the war, she took the cover name Chichinette, became a spy, and gathered intel that helped organize an important military operation. Chichinette suffered many losses during the war, having been born in a Jewish family in a small industrial town close to the border between France and Germany. Now Marthe is 98 years old. Despite her age, she is savvy in modern technology and loves traveling the globe – she is often invited to go abroad and tell the story of her military achievements.

Burzynski, the Movie is the story of a medical doctor and Ph.D biochemist named Dr. Stanislaw Burzynski who won the largest, and possibly the most convoluted and intriguing legal battle against the Food & Drug Administration in American history. His victorious battles with the United States government were centered around Dr. Burzynski’s gene-targeted cancer medicines he discovered in the 1970’s called Antineoplastons, which have currently completed Phase II FDA-supervised clinical trials in 2009 and could begin the final phase of FDA testing in 2011–barring the ability to raise the required $300 million to fund the final phase of FDA clinical trials.

A chronological account of the heavy metal band Iron Maiden’s 2008 world tour through India, Australia, Japan, USA, Canada, Mexico and South America in a jet piloted by the band’s front man, Bruce Dickinson. Features interviews with the musicians, their road crew and fans.

A documentary about the production of From Dusk Till Dawn (1996) and the people who made it.

The ostensibly simple story of a sympathetic veteran teacher giving Italian lessons to a weekly class of diverse immigrants is given infinitely more depth and complexity by the manner in which director Daniele Gaglianone renders his story. Blurring the lines between fact and fiction, truth and artifice, and between documentary and drama, Gaglianone has created a film within a film. You see the apparent artifice of Gaglianone’s crew using professionals, including the noted film actor Valerio Mastandrea as the teacher, interlinked with ‘real’ immigrant protagonists, studying the language to improve their chances of employment and of gaining a permanent residence permit. Thus in the course of the lessons there is simultaneously the painful and upsetting relation of the students’ personal stories but also humour, as they interact and share their humanity, bridging cultural differences, united in their striving to make a better life for themselves. (Source: LFF programme)

Using archival footage, United States Cabinet conversation recordings, and an interview of the 85-year-old Robert McNamara, THE FOG OF WAR depicts his life, from working as a WWII whiz kid military officer, to being the Ford Motor Company’s president, to managing the American Vietnam War, as defense secretary for presidents Kennedy and Johnson.

The story of Leon Vitali, who surrendered his promising acting career to become Stanley Kubrick’s devoted right-hand man.

For a guy who grew up thinking only of Australian Rules football, it’s almost an accident that Shane Warne became the greatest cricketer of a generation, and one of the greats of all time. Mastering the difficult art of spin bowling after being kicked out of football for not being a good enough player proved a pivotal choice for 19 year old Shane – declared unfit and fat, he transformed himself. When success came, so did fame and adulation, money and prestige but a betting scandal, drugs scandal, and affairs that cost him his marriage, threatened his career. From the lows of a 12 month ban he rebuilt his cricket, his career, and his reputation as one of the most ferocious competitors on the planet, admired and revered by millions.