As many as two million people are being displaced because of the construction of the Three Gorges Dam in China. “Up the Yangtze” chronicles the life of two teenagers who work on a cruise ship that gives “farewell” tours to those who want to see the Yangtze before the dam alters it forever. [kml_flashembed movie=”http://www.youtube.com/v/Q1fFuynf-Yw” […]
Despite its age, this film continues to be relevant. “The Killing Fields” is a film about friendship and survival with the backdrop being civil war. It is the true story about New York Times reporter Sidney Schanberg (Sam Waterston) and Cambodian journalist and translator Dith Pran (Haing S. Ngor) in early to mid-1970s Cambodia. [kml_flashembed […]
This documentary is scary. It deals with the issue of water, who owns it and who controls it in different parts of the world. Should water be considered public for everyone to enjoy, like air? Or should it be held in private hands, like oil? It is obvious where Irena Salina, the film’s director, stands: […]
The world should never forget. This documentary tells the tales of several Hungarian Jews who survived the camps in World War II. Their stories are heartbreaking and still fresh in their minds more than 50 years later. [kml_flashembed movie=”http://www.youtube.com/v/H6HG0iNHREo” width=”425″ height=”350″ wmode=”transparent” /] One woman tells of how she wore her favorite swimsuit under her […]
“The United States doesn’t have friends; it has interests.” That from a US official speaking to a Rwandan human rights activist. That was the line most governments used while sitting idly by during one of the worst genocides of the 20th century. [kml_flashembed movie=”http://www.youtube.com/v/agYCx2sPg98″ width=”425″ height=”350″ wmode=”transparent” /] “Ghosts of Rwanda” is a Frontline documentary […]
This is half a documentary. It focuses on the lives of teen and preteen Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip in 2003. This film captures the rage felt by many youth regarding Israel. Two of the children, Ahmed and Mohammed, are close friends and both say they would rather die together as martyrs than to die […]
This documentary shows the lives of three young Colombians living in a hillside suburb of Medellin called La Sierra. This film follows Edison, Cielo and Jesus. Edison is a lothario who leads a paramilitary gang who has six children from six different women. Cielo is a teenaged widow whose boyfriend is a jailed paramilitary member […]
This documentary doesn’t quite live up to its name. Filmed entirely in black and white, it combines photographs and films to tell the story of revolutionary Che Guevara. At little less than an hour, “Che Guevara: Where You’d Never Imagine Him” covers the high points of Guevara’s life as a rebel. Director Manuel Perez shows […]
This film is, at times, difficult to watch. Producer/director Michael Verhoeven employs the use of graphic images of atrocities that make one squirm or want to turn away. It is this liberal use of disaster pornography that drives home the idea of how Jews were treated by the Nazis in World War II. The central […]
This documentary is brutal. It depicts the torture that took place in places like Bagram, Afghanistan, Abu Ghraib, Iraq and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba by US forces. It starts with telling the story of an Afghan taxi driver named Dilawar who was mistaken for a terrorist and who died from the severe beating he took while […]
This film, which tracks the journey of revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara through South America, is a subtle examination of revelation. The story begins in 1952 when Guevara and a friend set off on a beaten up motorcycle to see the continent. The pair leave from their native Buenos Aires, Argentina and set a course for […]
"The Counterfeiters" has characters who have to answer tough questions. They are Jews who have been set aside in a Nazi concentration camp for their skill in forging currency. The Germans are looking to create enough false pounds and dollars to sink the economies of Britain and the United States. Because of their usefulness to […]
This film is gentle, touching and warmly humorous. It centers around a young man and his family living in East Germany. The man's mother, a true believer in socialism, falls into a coma soon before the Berlin Wall falls and the country runs at breakneck speed toward unification. Her coma lasts six months. [kml_flashembed movie=”http://www.youtube.com/v/i7EB47ENNV0″ […]
"Mongol" is solid for what it is: a portrayal of the young Genghis Khan in 12th century Mongolia. With landscapes that provide stunning backdrops of just about every scene, this movie is easy on the eyes. The problem, however, is with what the film leaves out. [kml_flashembed movie=”http://www.youtube.com/v/28OLBrW6PSM” width=”425″ height=”350″ wmode=”transparent” /] The life of […]