Tag: Hot Docs

Hot Docs highlights interesting new documentaries we’ve recently added to our collection.

The Light in Her Eyes (DVD 10782) tells the fascinating story of a Muslim preacher whose school has led to more women taking active involvement in the Islamic community. The filmmaker notes that western feminism tends to be secular; in contrast, the women here use their religious education as a backbone for their own movement. It’s an interesting juxtaposition of a religion that is typically not associated with strong feminist tendencies with the burgeoning women’s movement inside it.

Official description from the film’s website:

Houda al-Habash, a conservative Muslim preacher, founded a Qur’an school for girls in Damascus 30 years ago.

Every summer, her female students immerse themselves in a rigorous study of Islam. A surprising cultural shift is under way—women are claiming space within the mosque.

Shot right before the uprising in Syria erupted, The Light in Her Eyes offers an extraordinary portrait of a leader who challenges the women of her community to live according to Islam, without giving up their dreams.

Hot Docs highlights interesting new documentaries we’ve recently added to our collection.

Human Geography: Making Sense of Planet Earth (DVD 10629) is a four-disc series that introduces the new and developing field of human geography. Human geography fuses traditional geographic studies with the social sciences, developing an understanding of how human population spreads, transfers, and develops in relation to space. It’s all a little confusing to wrap your head around, which is why a series like this comes in handy. At 215 minutes, Human Geography covers everything from an overview of how the field works to the nitty-gritty about economic development and culture.

Official description from container:

As the human population marches toward 10 billion people, understanding where people live, how they are connected, and how they are shaping different parts of the planet is essential. Host Dr. Alexander B. Murphy opens the door to the field of human geography, a vital perspective for making sense of the rapidly changing, increasingly interconnected world of the 21st century. He shows us that if we cannot think geographically we are bound to fail in confronting future challenges.

View a trailer on Ambrose Video’s website.

Hot Docs highlights interesting new documentaries we’ve recently added to our collection.

The Uprising of ’34 (DVD 10617) tells the story of a massive but largely unremembered textile worker strike from 1934. It was at the time the largest labor strike in the history of the United States and lasted for nearly a month, greatly impacting the South’s textile industry and ending in a major, lasting defeat for the unions in the South. This documentary interviews participants in the strike and explores the strike’s lasting but forgotten effects on the current state of labor unions.

Official description from the publisher’s website:

In 1934, Southern textile workers took the lead in a nationwide strike that saw half a million walk off their jobs in the largest single-industry strike in the history of the United States. For a time, these new union members, in response to New Deal legislation, stood up for their rights and became a force to be reckoned with in the South. Then management moved in and crushed the strike. Some mill workers were murdered, thousands more were blacklisted, and many were so intimidated that “union” became a dirty word in Southern communities for decades to come.

Barely publicized, rarely acknowledged in history books, the General Textile Strike of 1934 remains a stirring yet amazingly forgotten chapter in Southern history. The Uprising of ’34, a film by famed documentarian George Stoney and independent filmmakers Judith Helfand and Susanne Rostock, examines this hidden legacy of the labor movement in the South and its impact today.

Hot Docs highlights interesting new documentaries we’ve recently added to our collection.

The Boy Game (DVD 8955) views bullying from a gendered perspective. The film – only 16 minutes long – posits that the bullying epidemic is in part caused by social pressure among boys to conform to the resilient, tough gender norms common among males of their age group. Interestingly, The Boy Game is not a documentary, but rather a short film that uses a fictionalized encounter based on real testimony. Its story of three boys struggling with their outward image is used to draw attention to real gender and social pressures.

Official description from the distributor’s website:

The Boy Game tackles bullying among boys at its core:the culture of toughness and silence boys live by. Targets need to be protected, absolutely, but rather than vilify bullies, The Boy Game looks to unpack the the complex dynamics that lead some boys to bully and the majority to stand watching in silent conflict.

The truth is all boys suffer under cultural codes that demand toughness and silence. Boys desperately need a way to talk about the painful gender straitjacketing they are subject to, to develop the resilience needed to stand up, be themselves, and redefine masculinity in terms of emotional, tolerant strength.

Based on off-the-record interviews with boys nationwide, then fashioned into a hard hitting scenario, it was shot like a doc to capture the intense pressures boys face every day.

Hot Docs highlights interesting new documentaries we’ve recently added to our collection.

Nuclear Savage (DVD 10606) puts a lens on the untold victims of nuclear testing. The effects of nuclear weaponry are well documented, yet few discuss the lives of the people intentionally exposed to radiation during nuclear weapons testing in the Pacific. The film uses a combination of historical documents – some recently unearthed – and interviews with those who lived through nuclear testing. It reveals the tragic story of people dealing with the fallout of America’s militaristic pursuits.

Official description from the film’s website:

Adam Jonas Horowitz shot his first film in the Marshall Islands in 1986, and was shocked by what he found there, in this former American military colony in middle of the Pacific Ocean. Radioactive coconuts, leaking nuclear waste repositories, and densely populated slums were all the direct result of 67 Cold War U.S. nuclear bomb tests that vaporized islands and devastated entire populations.

Twenty years later, Adam returned to these islands to make this award winning shocking political and cultural documentary exposé titled Nuclear Savage; a heartbreaking and intimate ethnographic portrait of Pacific Islanders struggling for dignity and survival after decades of intentional radiation poisoning at the hands of the American government. Relying on recently declassified U.S. government documents,devastating survivor testimony, and incredible unseen archival footage, this untold and true detective story reveals how U.S. scientists turned a Pacific paradise into a radioactive hell. Marshall islanders were used as human guinea pigs for three decades to study the effects of nuclear fallout on human beings with devastating results. Nuclear Savage is a shocking tale that pierces the heart of our democratic principles.

Hot Docs highlights interesting new documentaries we’ve recently added to our collection.

How to Start a Revolution (DVD 10642) travels the globe to demonstrate the influence of Gene Sharp, a noted political scientist whose writings on nonviolent revolution and protest have been used worldwide. From Eastern Europe at the end of the Cold War to Egypt during the height of the Arab Spring, Sharp’s writings have influenced generations of political upheaval. The film attempts to bring more credit to Sharp’s writings and the ways that they have shaped freedom.

Official description from the film’s website:

Half a world away from Cairo’s Tahrir Square, an ageing American intellectual shuffles around his cluttered terrace house in a working-class Boston neighbourhood. His name is Gene Sharp. White-haired and now in his mid-eighties, he grows orchids, he has yet to master the internet and he hardly seems like a dangerous man. But for the world’s dictators his ideas can be the catalyst for the end of their regime.

Few people outside the world of academia have ever heard his name, but his writings on nonviolent revolution (most notably ‘From Dictatorship to Democracy’, a 93-page, 198-step guide to toppling dictators, available free for download in 40 languages) have inspired a new generation of protesters living under authoritarian regimes who yearn for democratic freedom.

This new film HOW TO START A REVOLUTION reveals how Gene’s ideas work in action. The film uses extended interviews with Gene himself, his assistant, his followers and leaders of revolutionary movements worldwide, as well as user-generated content from around the globe, to reveal the power of nonviolent revolution on the streets.

Hot Docs highlights interesting new documentaries we’ve recently added to our collection.

A Wild Idea (DVD 10631) covers one of the most intriguing economic and environmental deals in recent memory: international interests will pay Ecuador not to tap the massive oil reserves near the Amazon River. It’s a radical idea that could save a region, have enormous environmental impact, and set a precedent for the future of international environmental collaboration – should Ecuador accept the deal.

Official description from the film’s website:

The film takes the viewer to the Yasuní National Park, in the Ecuadorian Amazon, capturing the rain forest’s stunning biodiversity. It also focuses in the millions of barrels of oil lying beneath the part of the park known as the ITT Block.

Exploiting the ITT seemed to be the logical step Ecuador had to take, but political changes have transformed the way the country views oil development. Through testimony representing different perspectives and rich archival video, A Wild Idea shows how the seemingly utopian ideal of keeping valuable oil underground turned into an official proposal.

As the film progresses, the complex initiative becomes easy to understand. The audience sees what’s at stake if the proposal is not accepted. And the political twists and turns that made it possible and that could also threaten the success of this revolutionary idea.

Hot Docs highlights interesting new documentaries we’ve recently added to our collection.

Kansas vs Darwin (DVD 10562) addresses the ongoing argument between the theory of evolution and intelligent design by focusing on a specific, famous battle with the Kansas State Board of Education. In 2005, the school board considered requiring teaching intelligent design to be taught in schools alongside the theory of evolution. The measure eventually failed, but not before unleashing a political and cultural battle on the scale and madness of the Scopes monkey trial. Kansas vs Darwin examines this heady, frenetic clash from both sides, painting a full picture of a fight at the epicenter of debate over science in education.

Official description from the film’s website:

Kansas vs. Darwin takes you inside the hearings to meet the characters who captured the world’s attention: school board members who believe their literal interpretation of the Bible trumps modern scientific evidence, and members of the Intelligent Design Network who believe mainstream science is conspiring to suppress evidence that would overturn evolution. You’ll also get face to face with an organization of Kansas scientists, educators, and citizens that organizes a worldwide response to put an end to what they see as a religiously-motivated kangaroo court.

Kansas vs. Darwin is a heady, absorbing swirl of politics, science, religion, education and emotion in which the filmmakers unflinchingly race from one, compelling point of view to its polar opposite in order to challenge the viewer’s own opinions. Audiences may experience discomfort as they plunge to the heart of one of mankind’s most central questions of existence – and to the epicenter of the American culture war.

Hot Docs highlights interesting new documentaries we’ve recently added to our collection.

It’s a Girl (DVD 10633) exposes the expanding issue of “gendercide” in India and China. Because of cultural traditions and one-child policies in these countries, female children are often mistreated, killed, abused, or abandoned. It’s a Girl reveals these injustices and who is committing them, documents the lives of girls whose lives have been destroyed by gendered culture, and asks how this can be stopped in the future.

Official description from the film’s website:

In India, China and many other parts of the world today, girls are killed, aborted and abandoned simply because they are girls. The United Nations estimates as many as 200 million girls are missing in the world today because of this so-called “gendercide”. Girls who survive infancy are often subject to neglect, and many grow up to face extreme violence and even death at the hands of their own husbands or other family members. The war against girls is rooted in centuries-old tradition and sustained by deeply ingrained cultural dynamics which, in combination with government policies, accelerate the elimination of girls.

Shot on location in India and China, It’s a Girl reveals the issue. It asks why this is happening, and why so little is being done to save girls and women. The film tells the stories of abandoned and trafficked girls, of women who suffer extreme dowry-related violence, of brave mothers fighting to save their daughters’ lives, and of other mothers who would kill for a son. Global experts and grassroots activists put the stories in context and advocate different paths towards change, while collectively lamenting the lack of any truly effective action against this injustice.

Hot Docs highlights interesting new documentaries we’ve recently added to our collection.

A Burning Question (DVD 10638) is not simply about global warming. Though this documentary is, at its core, an updated look at the effects of climate change on the world and particularly in Ireland, the film also examines why such a large climate denialism movement exists. Despite overwhelming evidence and consensus, politicians and the media repeatedly rail against the science. This film incorporates evidence of our planet’s continuing battle against climate change with the debate over its validity.

Official description from the publisher’s website:

This fascinating and clarifying look at the debate surrounding global warming explores the striking disconnect between the relatively clear-cut concerns of the world’s most prominent scientists and the maze of speculation, rhetorical posturing, and outright misinformation that attaches to this issue whenever it’s taken up by politicians, PR specialists, and political pundits. Mixing a localized focus on Ireland with insights from scientists and leaders from around the world, the film serves as both a primer on climate science and a penetrating analysis of media framing and the science of perception management. An excellent resource for courses in science, environmental studies, global politics, and media.