Fabulous Frogs

Éloge des animaux lents

Tarahumaras 2003, The Crack of Time Part 2: Childhood

Second chapter of La fêlure du temps. "As a child, I loved to dance. I remember a time we lived in happiness"

Los Pascoleros - Tarahumaras 85

This film was shot during Easter 1985. It shows the preparation and staging of the Passion in the village of Norogachic, Mexico. The initiation rites of two Pascoleros, filmed for the first time, form the center of this document.

Ciguri - Tarahumaras 99 - Le dernier chaman

Rites of winter, rites of peyote. A creative documentary based on texts by Antonin Artaud read by Jean Rouch, and the words of the last shaman’s peyote, translated by Raymonde Carasco.

An Open Secret

An investigation into accusations of teenagers being sexually abused within the film industry.

Gardeners of Eden

Africa's elephants are hurtling towards extinction to fuel the worldwide ivory trade. While conservationists howl and corrupt governments fail to address the ongoing slaughter, one brave family has been working for decades to stem the tide, one elephant at a time. Gardeners of Eden is a gripping, first-person experience inside the operations of Kenya's David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust. From the front lines of the crisis, we witness their heroic efforts to stop the poachers in the bush, rescue the orphans of slain elephants and raise them by hand, until one day, returning them to their home in the wild.

Explore the Wildlife Kingdom: Amazon: Secrets of the Golden River

Peer through the lenses of some of the world's most celebrated nature and wildlife photographers and descend into the Amiga River Basin, the largest rain forest on earth. Pulsing through the center of these pristine tropics is the Rio Negro, also known as the Golden River, containing the purest water on the planet as well as a spectacular array of aquatic life. Narrator Grant Goodeve lets you in on some of its most amazing secrets.

Grainger's World: Yindi: The Last Koala?

After his mother is injured in a car crash, baby koala Yindi is raised by humans. Yindi later reunites with his mother, and the two of them are released into the wild, where they adapt to their new surroundings and try to survive a brutal bushfire. Filmed on location in Eastern Australia, this entertaining documentary highlights the many difficulties koalas face and the special ways humans can work to help them.

Prince Among Slaves

Abdul Rahman, an African prince who was sold into slavery, spent four decades in servitude before an amazing coincidence took him to the White House to meet President John Quincy Adams, where he was granted his freedom. Mos Def narrates this PBS documentary that includes reenactments of scenes from Rahman's life and interviews with historians who discuss the conditions faced by slaves in early America.

Here's to the Future!

On a late-summer Sunday in 2011, a female director gathers a team of filmmakers, writers, musicians, artists, critics, and friends in an apartment to recreate a scene from Michael Curtiz's Depression-era drama The Cabin in the Cotton. Over plates of pasta and glasses of red wine, a round robin of non-professional actors take turns performing the same scene, again and again, In different permutations. With a freedom Influenced by pre--Code Hollywood, cameras, phones, and laptops are scattered around & set at almost every possible angle, documenting the action both in front of and behind the camera as it unfolds, from rehearsals to equipment adjustments to the banter between takes. An intimate. playful, and spontaneous look Into the collaborative cinematic process emerges. a snapshot of the filmmaker's perennial struggle to capture fleeting moments before the day (and light) slip away.

Open Bethlehem

Operation Bethlehem follows Palestinian director Leila Sansour's extraordinary journey to the legendary city of Bethlehem, the place where she grew up. Armed with a camera and a family car that keeps breaking down, she sets out to make an intimate portrait of a historical town in peril. Five years on, with 700 hours of footage, the result is nothing like she had expected.

Field Notes

Field Notes is an experimental documentary about the ghosts embedded in the culture of Trinidad and Tobago. The film is structured as a visual and aural field guide to the ghosts spirits and jumbies througout the island. From personal tales about the soucouyant and lagahoo, to the ghosts of Trinidads past. Shot and finished on 16mm.

On the Coast

The film reflects on the nature of vacation, as it is a transformed version of reality, the fantastical counterpart to winter.

Geography

Four images on a tape by Breda Beban and Hrvoje Horvatić are four arbitrarily chosen samples of the physical world or four micro-geographies: the fluid structure of a puddle disturbed by raindrops, features of a remarkable man’s face, a fish’s head and granite cubes. The duration of fixation at each of the inserts and their free order (by association) transcends the iconic dimension of the videoclip and call for meditation.

Borghesia: So Young

A compilation of the Borghesia video clips (So Young, The Wild Bunch, He, Too Much Tension, Cindy, A.R., ZMR), issued in 1985 as the first video cassette by the FV Label. These are short, almost 'film-like' stories focused primarily on the iconography of the body in urban surroundings. One of the clips presents a pioneer use of computer graphics.

Yugoslavian Home Movies

Made from a collection of home movies, news footage and photos gathered from a residency in Belgrade in memory of a country that no longer exists.

The Old Believers

The award-winning Old Believers (2001), made over a period of five years, documents the life of a strongly religious community in the Danube Delta where time seems to stand still.

K2 & The Invisible Footmen

K2 is widely seen as the world's harshest mountain. Yet many indigenous porters make a living in its extreme conditions, carrying provisions for foreign climbing expeditions. Often risking their lives, they receive minimal pay for their efforts. Against a backdrop of breathtaking natural beauty, this doc explores the courage and sacrifice of the men who call the 'Savage Mountain' their home.

Giant Bears of Kodiak Island

Even in a spot as remote and wild as Alaska's Kodiak Island, the struggle between man and nature continues. Wildlife filmmaker Wolfgang Bayer presents this tug-of-war from both the human and bear perspective. Taking viewers inside a Kodiak bear's den and providing an inside glimpse of the great carnivore's daily life, Bayer reveals the bears' fight for survival in the face of a shrinking habitat and often tragic encounters with humans.

Rawer

Five years after documentary Raw, Tom is seriously undernourished. Medical tests have shown that he is ingesting too few calories and is suffering from calcium deficiency. He will also be 12 to 15 centimetres shorter than if he’d had ‘normal’ nutrition. The strict diet has isolated Tom. The demand for intervention is growing. The hospital reported the mother for child neglect. Tom and his mother were summoned to court. The mother has officially been charged with child neglect and psychological abuse. She has been ordered to adjust the diet. But Francis has no intention of changing her lifestyle. She remains a committed ‘raw foodist,’ and is supported by an American raw food guru. She believes she has her son’s best interests at heart. In Rawer we see how the world reacts to Tom and his mother. Will the mother continue to challenge boundaries? Will the authorities intervene? And, what will adolescent Tom do?