documentary
“April and the extraordinary world” is the best fun small-scale stuff
By GTWV staff
A story set in Paris, 1941. A family of scientists is on the brink of discovering a powerful longevity serum when all of a sudden a mysterious force abducts them, leaving their young daughter April behind. Ten years later, April lives alone with her dear cat, Darwin, and carries on her family’s research in secret. But she soon finds herself at the center of a shadowy and far-reaching conspiracy, and on the run from government agents, bicycle-powered dirigibles and cyborg rat spies. Undaunted, she continues her quest to find her parents and discover the truth behind their disappearance. Read more
First time Keanu Reeves and director Alex Winter collaborate in 22 years in "Deep Web"
By GTVW staff
Photos Agency
Keanu Reeves has joined the anticipated new EPIX Original Documentary, Deep Web, as narrator. From director Alex Winter, the film chronicles one of the most important and riveting digital crime sagas of the century — the arrest of Ross William Ulbricht, the 30-year-old entrepreneur recently convicted of being ‘Dread Pirate Roberts,’ creator and operator of online black market Silk Road. This is the first time Reeves and Winter have worked together since 1993’s Freaked, which followed their co-starring roles in the successful Bill and Ted films. Deep Web will world premiere at South by Southwest this Sunday, March 15 and will make its World Television Premiere on EPIX Spring 2015. Content Media handles the film’s international sales and distribution.
Deep Web seeks to unravel a tangled web of secrecy, accusations, and criminal activity, and explores how the outcome of Ulbricht’s trial will set a critical precedent for the future of technological freedom around the world. The film features exclusive interviews with the Ulbricht family, including Ross’ parents Lyn and Kirk Ulbricht. Additional interviewees include: Joshua Dratel, Ulbricht’s lawyer; Andy Greenberg, technology writer for Wired, author of This Machine Kills Secrets and the first reporter to interview “Dread Pirate Roberts”; Cody Wilson, a crypto-anarchist known for his development of the “3D printed gun;” Cindy Cohn, legal director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation; James Chaparro, the former Assistant Director for Intelligence at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE); and Christopher Soghoian, a privacy and online security advocate who works for ACLU as their principal technologist.
Deep Web is an EPIX Original Documentary written, directed and produced by Alex Winter with Marc Schiller and Glen Zipper also serving as producers. Winter and Schiller previously worked together on the documentary Downloaded, about the rise and fall of Napster. Zipper’s prior credits include the Academy Award® winning Undefeated and the Grammy Award® winning Foo Fighters: Back and Forth. Seth Gordon (Print the Legend, Mitt, Freakonomics and Undefeated) is the executive producer, Andy Greenberg is the consulting producer, and Dan Swietlik (Sicko and An Inconvenient Truth) is the editor. Jill Burkhart and Ross Bernard are the executive producers for EPIX.
"This is Not a Ball” is a groundbreaking story
By Jenny Alvarez
Photos by Courtesy
This is Not a Ball is a documentary that follows the creative process of acclaimed Brazilian artist Vik Muniz in the months leading up to the 2014 World Cup as he plans and creates a major new artwork made of 10,000 soccer balls.
The documentary follows Muniz as he explores the global passion for soccer and the game’s central object, the ball. In his journey, Muniz interacts with some of the most playful minds in science, like astrophysicist Neil deGrass Tyson and some of the most extraordinary soccer players in the world, like the Sierra Leone Amputee Soccer League. While the beginning of the film is promising enough, it seems that problems arise when Muniz forcefully attempts to inject himself as a key player. The journey, an exploration of the passion for soccer that evolves into a history of the ball (a sort of film version of the anthropologist John Fox’s 2012 book, “The Ball”) but in general is stronger than ever even you will see poverty, the oppression, and the daily life difficulties, at the end of the day the passion for the soccer is a tradition handed down over generations. Definitely you will distinguish a story full of adventures in organization and production that involves a Soccer ball, team and soccer aficionados.
An intriguing film with the best warriors of a Dune
Review by Jenny Alvarez
Photos Courtesy
Jodorowsky’s Dune is an American documentary film directed by Frank Pavich. The film explores Chilean-French director Alejandro Jodorowsky’s attempt to adapt and film Frank Herbert’s science fiction novel Dune in the mid-1970s. The director makes the story alive and full of passion that Jodorowsky uses to describe everything. It is a well structured master piece in his book but makes the case for this overblown epic as a legendary lost master piece in a film in which he didn’t participate. It would be around 12 hours long but the real time is 90 minutes and the documentary shows how some of the drawings were used for inspiration in Star Wars and other movies later on. Donald Rosenfeld, Stephen Scarlata, Michel Seydoux, and Travis Stevens also were part in an in-depth look at the doomed production and features a number of never-before-seen images and interviews where world-class surrealists, international rock stars, top-billed actors and artists were going to be part in Jodorowsky’s film but at the end all the melodrama and manipulation there was, instead, vision and ambition. From an artistic point of view, that generation was more honest and people from big film companies didn’t want to share with this visionary of the visual art in movement. This documentary will we open in Los Angeles on March 21st, 2014.
“More Than Honey” will give a sweet taste of a realistic documentary
Review by Jenny Alvarez
– Kino Lorber is part of the critically acclaimed documentary version narrated by Oscar®-nominated actor John Hurt (Alien, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows).
The original theatrical version (with narration in German) is only available through the film’s official website.
Born into a family of beekeepers, Oscar®-nominated director Markus Imhoof (The Boart is Full) tackles the vexing issue of why bees, worldwide, are facing extinction. With the tenacity of a man out to solve a world-class mystery, he investigates this global phenomenon, from California to Switzerland, China and Australia.
More Than Honey Exquisite macro-photography of the bees in flight and in their hives (on a par with the brilliant cinematography of Microcosmos) reveals a fascinating, complex world in crisis. This is a haunting and lyrical film that raises questions of species survival in philosophical, as well as apiary, terms.
The relationship between mankind and honeybees, about nature and about our future is in risk. Honeybees show us that stability is just as unhealthy as unlimited growth that crises and disasters are triggering evolution and that salvation sometimes comes from a completely unexpected direction.
The cinematography, by Jörg Jeshel, is spectacularly and free from polemics, but it is an alarming call to action and is full of passion, sincerity and intelligence make it a worthwhile contribution to a situation baffling the scientific and bee-keeping communities.
Are there any signs of human inhabitation in a cold cave?
By Jenny Alvarez
In October 1942, Esther Stermer, the matriarch of a Jewish family in the Ukraine, leads her family underground to hide from the pursuing Nazis – and stays nearly a year and a half. Their harrowing story of survival living in near total darkness in two cold, damp caves is one like no other ever told. It was life…like No Place On Earth.
The cinematography complements the telling of this story wonderfully. In the darkness of the caves, dimly lit candles bring hope; black-and-white historical videos and the grey tones from a clouded over sky infuse reality into the setting of the horror-world of the above and is an extraordinary testament to ingenuity, willpower and endurance against all odds. The survivors recount their harrowing experiences in this harsh environment as they learned to find food, water and supplies and built secret escape routes to evade capture or being buried alive. It is really dramatic and unforgettable where family and support for being alive is the most important goal, a well done documentary will touch your heart.
“The Flat” is an emotionally riveting documentary
By GalaTView Staff
Photo: Courtesy
At age 98, filmmaker Goldfinger’s grandmother passed away, leaving him the task of clearing out the Tel Aviv flat that she and her husband shared for decades since immigrating from Nazi Germany in the 1930s. Sifting through a dense mountain of photos, letters, files, and objects, Goldfinger begins to uncover clues that seem to point to a greater mystery and soon a complicated family history unfolds before his camera. What starts to take shape reflects nothing less than the troubled and taboo story of three generations of Germans – both Jewish and non-Jewish – trying to piece together the puzzle of their lives in the aftermath of the terrible events of World War II.
It’s clear she knows nothing of her father’s war crimes. Or does she? In families, this fascinating film suggests, acknowledging or denying the darker truths of one’s legacy is a choice that must be made again and again, each and every day.
Bob Marley is back in a soul’s journey
By Jenny Alvarez
Photo Courtesy
Bob Marley’s universal appeal, impact on music history and role as a social and political prophet is both unique and unparalleled. Marley is the definitive life story of the musician, revolutionary, and legend, from his early days to his rise to international superstardom. Even it has drug content, thematic elements and some violent images you can enjoy this documentary launched in DVD-blu-ray in August 7th
This movie describes life story of Bob Marley from the point of view of many different people who shared his life as well as wonderful film footage of Jamaica and old videos of Bob Marley that most people have never seen and of course it was set to the beautiful soundtrack of his life, his music of peace and struggle, love and war, happiness and sorrow. Even is a little bit long movie, his music and his faith is showed in great detail from many people close to him, including his wife, children, producers and fellow musicians, all lending their voice to unfold Bob’s story. The films compelling portrayal of Marley is told much more through the narrative drama of his life and less through a straight interpretation or celebration of his music. It’s about illuminating Marley’s roots and the trials he faced in his tragically short life. Two thumbs up for this awesome movie!
