The End of Poverty?

Empire City

A film essay contrasting the modern metropolis with its "golden age" from 1830-1930, with the participation of some of New York's leading political and cultural figures. Made at a time when the city was experiencing unprecedented real estate development on the one hand and unforeseen displacement of population and deterioration on the other. Empire City is the story of two New Yorks. The film explores the precarious coexistence of the service-based midtown Manhattan corporate headquarters with the peripheral New York of undereducated minorities living in increasing alienation.

Plutocracy V: Subterranean Fire

This documentary focuses mostly on the 1930’s to 1950’s – arguably the most important period in modern American history. These decades included the Great Depression, the peak of labor militancy in 1937 (probably the closest the US has come to a popular revolution since 1787), the rise of the “guest worker” phenomenon, the counter-attack against labor unions, the creation of the military industrial complex, the rise of the FBI, the foundations of the civil rights movement, and the purging of radicals from organized labor and public life.

Collapse

From the acclaimed director of American Movie, the documentary follows former Los Angeles police officer turned independent reporter Michael Ruppert. He recounts his career as a radical thinker and spells out his apocalyptic vision of the future, spanning the crises in economics, energy, environment and more.

Democracy Is ...

The film is a controversy on democracy. Is our society really democratic? Can everyone be part of it? Or is the act of being part in democracy dependent to the access on technology, progression or any resources of information, as philosophers like Paul Virilio or Jean Baudrillard already claimed?

Salty Dog Blues

The film looks at men and women of color in the U.S. Merchant Marine from 1938-1975. Through chronicling the lives of these men and women who, with a median age of 82, are beset with a host of life-threatening illnesses, the movie tells how they navigated issues of racism, disparities in the workplace, gender and familial relations.

Lorsque le soleil se lèvera à l'ouest

Reviving Japan's Economy: Breaking Free of 3 Decades of Stagnation

Three "lost" decades of economic stagnation since the collapse of Japan's bubble era have fundamentally altered the country's global image, and spawned the term "Cheap Japan." What will it take to truly revive Japan's economy once again? In a rapidly changing world, the question of how the globe's third largest economy can avoid being left behind is perhaps more pertinent than ever. Drawing on both expert guidance and in-depth analysis of a wide range of available data, we hunt for clues that might point the way to Japan's ever-elusive economic renaissance.

Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price

This documentary takes the viewer on a deeply personal journey into the everyday lives of families struggling to fight Goliath. From a family business owner in the Midwest to a preacher in California, from workers in Florida to a poet in Mexico, dozens of film crews on three continents bring the intensely personal stories of an assault on families and American values.

Freedom of Choice: How the Government Controls What You Consume

Life is about choice. What we eat, what we read, who we elect; every day we make choices that determine how we want to live. But what if these choices are just an illusion? In an era where regulations and red tape rule every industry, where lobby groups and big businesses wield more influence than ever before, our daily choices have become increasingly limited. And with all our options so deliberately handpicked, are we really making a choice at all? Freedom From Choice examines the current state of life and personal choice today. Experts from many different fields offer a frank and startling look at the hidden limitations in our daily lives. Focusing on key areas such as food, medicine, finance, and media, Freedom From Choice provides viewers with a glimpse at the myriad of ways their lives are being dictated and tells us who stands to gain.

Obsolete

The Future Doesn't Need Us… Or So We've Been Told. With the rise of technology and the real-time pressures of an online, global economy, humans will have to be very clever – and very careful – not to be left behind by the future. From the perspective of those in charge, human labor is losing its value, and people are becoming a liability. This documentary reveals the real motivation behind the secretive effort to reduce the population and bring resource use into strict, centralized control. Could it be that the biggest threat we face isn't just automation and robots destroying jobs, but the larger sense that humans could become obsolete altogether?

Hijos de África

Tightrope: Americans Reaching for Hope

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn explore the causes and costs of addiction, poverty and incarceration plaguing America, from the inner city to small towns like Kristof's hometown of Yamhill, Oregon. While pockets of empathy and aid exist, are they enough to rescue the thousands of Americans in despair, for whom the American Dream of self-reliance is impossibly out of reach?

Slums: Cities of Tomorrow

One billion people on our planet—one in six—live in shantytowns, slums or squats. Slums: Cities of Tomorrow challenges conventional thinking to propose that slums are in fact the solution, not the problem, to urban overcrowding caused by the massive migration of people to cities. (Lynne Fernie, HotDocs)

Money as Debt

Paul Grignon's 47-minute animated presentation of "Money as Debt" tells in very simple and effective graphic terms what money is and how it is being created

The Trouble I've Seen

A shot-on-video look at three impoverished Black communities in rural Georgia in 1976 - America's bicentennial, interspersing photos with footage and voices of those in their communities.

White Walls Say Nothing

Buenos Aires is a complex, chaotic city. It has European style and a Latin American heart. It has oscillated between dictatorship and democracy for over a century, and its citizens have faced brutal oppression and economic disaster. Throughout all this, successive generations of activists and artists have taken to the streets of this city to express themselves through art. This has given the walls a powerful and symbolic role: they have become the city’s voice. This tradition of expression in public space, of art and activism interweaving, has made the streets of Buenos Aires into a riot of colour and communication, giving the world a lesson in how to make resistance beautiful.

Beer Wars

In America, size matters. The bigger you are, the more power you have, especially in the business world. Anat Baron takes you on a no holds barred exploration of the U.S. beer industry that ultimately reveals the truth behind the label of your favorite beer. Told from an insider’s perspective, the film goes behind the scenes of the daily battles and all out wars that dominate the industry.

Motel

As Niagara Falls transformed from honeymoon capital of the world to Las Vegas North, corporate hotel chains and casinos cast a long shadow over the independent motels that once populated the town. The Continental survived the transition by converting its rooms into affordable housing units, becoming a home for those with few places to go. The night manager, Brian, once a freelance photographer who survived the horrors of war in Vietnam, shares his duties with his colleague Linda. Together they manage both the Continental and the individual struggles of its tenants, providing more than a roof over the heads of those who live under their supervision. Bringing a fresh focus to one of the most photographed places on Earth, director and cinematographer Jesse McCracken develops an intimate and caring portrait of the residents of this modest micro-community set against the backdrop of neon-lit tourist attractions.

I.O.U.S.A.

With the country's debt growing out of control, Americans by and large are unaware of the looming financial crisis. This documentary examines several of the ways America can get its economy back on the right track. In addition to looking at the federal deficit and trade deficit, the film also closely explores the challenges of funding national entitlement programs such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

School for Hope

Animari and Zlatko's mission is to help children from disadvantaged backgrounds get the best possible care and education. Will they manage to find funding to welcome more children and to start a high school?