La Paloma - Longing WorldwideDirector: Sigrid Faltin ~ 86 minutes ~ Musical Doc ~ Germany/Cuba/Mexico/Romania/Zanzibar
The film is a journey on the wings of La Paloma, the most frequently played song in the world (La Paloma is Spanish for dove). 2000 versions are known. Some say, there are infinitely more. In Zanzibar it is played at the end of a wedding, in Romania it is performed at the end of a funeral. In Mexico it was the favourite song of the tragic Emperor Maximilian. Legend has it that as a last wish he requested La Paloma to be played, before he was executed. In Auschwitz, Coco Schumann, the German master of swing, was forced to perform the song at the ramp to the gas chambers. All these and many more moving stories are told in the film, which was shot on three continents.
La Paloma - a song for every color and creed, a hymn for a globalised world as we would want it. What is the secret of La Paloma? Why has it become a symbol for longing - worldwide?
What’s the Economy for, Anyway?Producer: John de Graaf [In Person] ~ 40 minutes ~ 2009/US
WHAT'S THE ECONOMY FOR, ANYWAY? is an edgy, humorous and totally visual, monologue by
economist Dave Batker, challenging old sacred cows, making sense of the mess we're in, comparing
American economic policies with those of other wealthy countries in terms of quality of life, social justice
and sustainability, and pointing a way toward a healthier, happier future for all of us. You'll LOL (laugh out
loud) while LAL (learning a lot) and come away changed up to change things! Besides laughing, you'll
shake your head and might ev<en end up shaking your fist at this newest film by producer John de Graaf
(AFFLUENZA). Host Dave Batker is a true maverick, having worked as an economist for both the World
Bank and Greenpeace.
DirectionsDirector: Kasimir Burgess ~ 14 minutes ~ Fiction ~ 2008/Australia ~ Cast: Gregory Muller, Vivienne
Benton, Lezleigh Green, Peggy O’Shea
DIRECTIONS begins with a man at a super market and a simple choice between two shopping trolleys.
When the man’s mother fails to pick him up, he decides to walk home. What should have been a brief
stroll, soon becomes a nightmarish battle with a faulty trolley. Our man becomes lost and embarks upon a
journey of grand proportions.
GravityDirector: Nicolas Provost ~
6 minutes ~ Belgium ~ Cast: Kim Novak, James Stewart, Steve McQueen, Fay Danaway, Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman.
Gravity is a long passionate film kiss in which kissing scenes from different films are woven in each-other by switching every 3 frames between two scenes. Deep passion becomes a stranglehold as cinematographic high points pile up. The reassuring world of multiplied cinematographic kisses is shattered by a stroboscopic effect that plunges and looses us into the dizzying vertigo of the embrace where, as often in Provost's cinema, love becomes a passionate battle in which monsters are finally unmasked.
Call it HomeDirector: Bill Chayes ~
57 minutes ~ 2008/US
Call it Home: Searching for Truth on Bolinas Lagoon celebrates the beauty and importance of the world famous Bolinas Lagoon, explores the issues behind a decades-long community debate to understand the forces affecting its future, and seeks to inspire people everywhere to love and respect nature
The Sandals - Summers, Songs and SidebarsDirector: Steve Gatlin
[in Person] ~ 43 minutes ~ 2009 /US ~ Cast: Walter Georis, Gaston Georis, John
Blakeley, Danny Brawner, Bruce Brown, Robert "Wingnut" Weaver
In the summer of 1959, two teenage boys in Southern California met for the first time. They shared common interests in guitars and music. This friendship was the beginning of 'The Sandals.' Over the next few years, their music would help define a new genre of instrumental music now known as 'Surf Rock.' Now some of the original members of 'The Sandals' have come together again, and these are their stories.
Henry Kissinger - Secrets of a SuperpowerDirector: Stephan Lamby ~
90 minutes ~ 2008/Germany/US ~ Cast: George W. Bush, Alexander Haig, James Schlesinger, Richard Perle, Lawrence Eagleburger, Brent Scowcroft, Helmut Schmidt, Norman, Mailer, Carl Bernstwein
Though Henry Kissinger is often giving short statements to the media, he refuses detailed interviews about his own life. Now he agreed to answer questions about his person in an extensive documentary. A rare chance. The life of Henry Kissinger provides a lot of material for a fascinating and historically relevant film. In his life important stages of the last century become unveiled: youth in the Third Reich, exodus of Europeans to the USA, the Cold War (secret travels to Beijing and Moscow), wars in Asia (Vietnam, Cambodia, East-Timor), coup d’etats (Chile), crises in the Middle East. He has been on the margins of the biggest scandal of the USA in domestic affairs (Watergate). Nevertheless, Kissinger witnessed the downfall of President Nixon at close range. Like only a few living personalities Kissinger is both, a historical witness and a political decision maker of the 20th century.
