Last Paddle chronicles a life-long commitment to river conservation and restoration around the globe and is clearly a testament to the “power of one”. The film also delves into Mark’s current efforts, including the need to better protect and restore city waterways, understanding the impacts of climate change on rivers, and doing more to conserve the planet’s greatest river environments. In acknowledging Mark’s accomplishments, including the founding of World Rivers Day, Last Paddle makes an eloquent plea to cherish and better care for our life-giving waterways while also offering hopeful insights into how we might attain a more sustainable future.
This inspirational and visually stunning film chronicles the amazing lifetime journey of renowned river advocate Mark Angelo who has paddled more than 1000 rivers in well over 100 countries; perhaps more than any other individual.
Each year, between November and the following February, a group of Aborigines Taiwanese migrant workers set up camp near Lanyang River in Yilan County, on the northeastern coast of Taiwan. They travel from afar to this spot in hopes of catching that season’s eel fry. For those four months, these camp sights are their homes.
But no amount of warmth from within the campsite can shield them from the harsh ocean winds, the volatile squatter environment, harassment from local gangs, or a slew of unpredictability that arise from living on unfriendly grounds.
Singing in the Wilderness takes place in a utopian mountaintop village of Southwest China. Ping and Sheng are two idealist young Miaos that belong to an ethnic minority known for worshipping nature, freedom and spirituality.
In the 1930s, western missionaries brought Christianity. Since then, the beautiful voices of a Christian choir singing classical European hymns prevail the mountains. But then, a Propaganda official accidentally discovers the choir and decides to turn it into a national sensation.
State of Texas vs. Melissa explores the life journey of Melissa Lucio, the first Hispanic woman to be sentenced to death in the state of Texas. For over ten years she has been awaiting her fate, and now faces her last appeal. No one had ever seen Melissa be violent towards her children, yet she was blamed for the daily abuse and subsequent death of her two year-old daughter, who died from blunt head trauma. Set in the heart of the Latino community of South Texas, the film takes a look at Melissa’s broken childhood, her adult life plagued by poverty and prejudice, and the miscarriage of justice Melissa faced, from the court appointed attorney who willingly set aside evidence, to the District attorney who used her case to help his re-election.
State of Texas vs. Melissa is the portrait of a woman’s fight against an entire system.
Facing his future in retirement, “sitting in deck chairs and eating lemon drizzle cake”, 65 year-old piano tuner Desmond O’Keeffe decides instead to take on the most challenging and perilous delivery of his four decade long career: transporting a 100 year-old Broadwood and Sons upright piano from bustling London to the remote heart of the Indian Himalayas.
Setting off from his Aladdin’s Cave-like workshop in the quaint Camden Town district, and enlisting the help of two young and eager apprentices, Desmond’s ambitious destination is a primary school in Lingshed, Zanskar. At 14,000 feet above sea level it is one of the most isolated settlements in the world.
Aided by a team of local Sherpas and a motley crew of yaks and ponies, the trio’s various convictions are tested as they cross sheer mountain passes of breath-taking beauty, coming in direct contact with a different way of living – a world on a brink of change, filled with equal measure serenity and hardship. If successful, the expedition will be the highest piano delivery in history, but more importantly, it could become the ultimate gesture of music’s universal power: bridging cultures, inspiring strength and bringing joy.
The turquoise bays of the Andaman Sea, the ubiquitous golden Buddha statues, the Safron yellow robes of monks and the lush greens of the rice fields: Thailand is a festival of colours.
On a three-part journey, discover its large diverse landscapes. And explore the inner workings of a country that dares to leap into the future but wants to preserve its old beauty. How does nature progress and traditions go together in Thailand today?
There are no Scraps of Men is the story of Alberto Cairo, a physiotherapist working in the war impacted city of Kabul, Afghanistan. Cairo has been called “the man who has helped 100,000 people walk again” as a result of his endless work to rehabilitate soldiers and civilians alike. The Italian physiotherapist runs the International Committee of the Red Cross’ rehabilitation program in Afghanistan and was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize in 2010. The increasing demand for Cairo’s help has come just as the country has turned more dangerous for aid workers, who have faced repeated attacks. This documentary is the story of people who have been thrown together by a twist of fate and are tasked with either giving up, or moving ahead in life.
The Burning Field is an immersive portrait of life set in the environmental wasteland of Agbogbloshie. We follow four young Ghanaians as they struggle to navigate work and relationships over a single day in the largest e-waste dump on earth. Told entirely from their unique perspectives and in their own words, this documentary captures telling moments from lives spent dismantling and burning electronic appliances from around the world, and the steep toll it takes both on them and the environment.
Fata and Yankuba are two young Gambian migrants with distinct and ambitious dreams, who fled dictatorship and poverty, and landed in Naples only to discover a
new kind of violence: a pernicious climate of racism and a corrupt immigration system. Their only solace escape from the psychological torture of years spent waiting for documents in squalid camps is a small underground club in the heart of the city. As divisive anti-immigration rhetoric ricochets through the media, migrant-run Teranga nightclub manifests as a rare safe space for migrants to meet young Italians whilst dancing and singing away the collective trauma of their journeys to Europe and the discrimination they face in Italy.
