Director interviews ordinary people and ask some basic questions in order of their age.

Photo Ark

Renowned photographer Joel Sartore's quest to document and save animals at risk of extinction.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7181320/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

@documentaries
#photography
#animals
#EndangeredSpecies

A screenshot from the documentary:

George Church hopes to bring back the woolly mammoth.

From Human Nature (2019) documentary about gene editing.

@documentaries
#GeneEditing

Terra – a film by Yann Arthus-Bertrand

Animals are the refugees we often forget. In this documentary by GoodPlanet and OMEGA, directors Yann Arthus-Bertrand and Michael Pitiot examine the human relationship with other species on Earth. With a global population of 7 billion people, let’s have the courage to change the way we share our planet. Available on Netflix.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pMScorWcyU

@documentaries
@animals
#animals
#evolution
#fungi
#ArthusBertrand
#Earth

Filmed during the battle of Kobanî, this report reveals the women at the heart of the fight against IS. With stoical perseverance and the aid of American air...

I'm an enthusiast for public transit. Everyone buying two tons of steel and glass is simply not a sustainable transportation plan. It's helped bring us to the looming collapse of what's quaintly called 'western civilization'.

The National City Lines scandal is an aspect of this that most people are only peripherally aware of.

If you saw the film Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, you might remember that old-time Los Angeles had a fabulous streetcar system that went virtually everywhere in the metroplex. The movie's bad guys bought the streetcar company in order to shut it down, so people would need to buy cars and oil and build freeways instead. What Roger Rabbit forgot to say was, it's based on a true story.

In 1936, acting through proxy companies to keep things cloaked, General Motors established a new business called National City Lines (NCL). Also backed by Standard Oil, Mack Trucks, Phillips Petroleum, and Firestone Tire, NCL took control of numerous privately-owned transit systems all across America, simply to shut them down.

Clean, cheap, reliable streetcars were replaced with soot-belching city buses that run far less frequently and more slowly.

This documentary from PBS delves into the NCL scandal, and if any of the above is news to you, you should watch Taken for a Ride.

The filmmakers talk with old people (doubtless dead now) who were there as all this happened. Workers remember seeing their 'Rolls Royce' transit system obliterated, and an NCL exec admits that shutting the streetcars down was always the only plan.

NCL lost a lawsuit over it, so all this is factual, but there's also the argument that cars were becoming more and more popular anyway, so we would've lost America's streetcar infrastructure with or without GM's nefarious plot. I've been on the fence about that for long enough that the fenceposts are drawing blood out of my butt, but this line from fabulously bald former San Francisco Mayor Joe Alioto resonates:

"I cannot accept the argument that rapid-transit systems broke down because of their complete inefficiency to serve the public, because the experience of western Europe and Japan belies that argument. ...

"If it is true that the streetcar companies were breaking down of their own weight, why was it necessary for General Motors to join with Standard Oil and the [Firestone] tire company to go in and buy the systems and tear up the tracks?"

Other than that succinct quote and a new love for Alioto, I didn't get much from the film, but that's because of my head start — I've always gobbled up info on public transit. Heck, I've been aware of the NCL scandal since before Roger Rabbit.

Only half of the documentary is about NCL. After that, it's an overview of the disaster that followed — freeways and cars everywhere — which is also worth watching, and mourning over.

Earthflight

A nature documentary about a bird's-eye view of the natural world, joining the journeys of snow geese, cranes, albatrosses, eagles and other birds across six continents.

The best moments from Earthflight (Winged Planet):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SeHmqKoisT4

@documentaries
#birds

Getting pregnant out of wedlock was long seen as a disgrace in Catholic Ireland. By 1998, more than 50,000 women had had their babies taken away and given up for adoption. Many of these children are now trying to trace their birth mothers.

They are also fighting for their plight to be recognized at last. Contraception and abortion were long banned, sex before marriage taboo, and sex education was practically non-existent. If a woman, nevertheless, fell pregnant, she was generally treated as the "guilty” party even if she had been raped. Whoever was unable or unwilling to have an illegal abortion abroad had no further say over the matter. The priest was informed and he decided whether the woman would be thrown out on the street, or sent to one of the 18 Catholic mother and baby homes. Paul Redmond was born in one of those homes. He describes himself and others in a similar situation as "survivors” of a scandal that is still rocking Ireland. The 59-year-old keeps on returning to the place where he was born, which now lies empty. He says that many babies were left lying in their beds there and their nappies were rarely changed. Children with a disability or another skin color were particularly neglected, according to Redmond. The consequences of this neglect were terrible. In the town of Tuam in western Ireland, local historian Catherine Corless discovered that the bodies of almost 800 babies and children had been concealed in a mass grave on the site of the former home. She prompted a national investigation into the scandal and went on to campaign for the exhumation of the infants’ remains. That is also something close to Anna Corrigan’s heart. She discovered that she had two brothers who were born in the home in Tuam. A death certificate exists for her brother John, but it’s unclear what happened to William. Exhumation and DNA tests could bring clarity. Anna is still searching for clues. She hasn’t given up hope that her brother William might still be alive.

YouTube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5WOymf8u-s

Planet Earth III

Official trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNWXMAJF7ww

#BBC #Attenborough #PlanetEarth #documentaries @documentaries

The Alpinist (2021)

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11790780/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

#alpinism #IceClimbing #MixedClimbing #SoloClimbing
#Leclerc #youtube @documentaries

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRpVyzagXLQ

Cubans fleeing

Source: BBC Our World 2023 Windsurf Escape Cuba's Migration Crisis

#Cuba #migration #documentaries @documentaries

This is a documentary about single-room occupancy (SRO) hotels — places where you rent a room, but the toilet and shower are down the hall, and shared with all the other tenants. SRO's can be a huge help in fighting homelessness, because the rooms are so much cheaper than full-fledged apartments.

Being a former SRO resident myself, I was disappointed that the filmmakers seem to think SRO life is inherently tragic. The film keeps playing sad music, and bringing back one particularly scumbag owner to let him drone on a little longer about how he dislikes his line of work and his customers.

There are some lowlifes in any SRO, sure, but it's better for them and better for the city that they're not on the streets.

It's a rare topic to be addressed, and other than the moviemakers' anti-SRO slant, the documentary is helpful and informative.

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/2307773

A film about mutual aid disaster relief in the immediate aftermath of hurricane Katrina and the beginnings of the Common Ground Collective

⚠️ Content Warning: ⚠️ (moments of extreme racism, talk of violence and death, a brief image of a corpse)

Documentary - 56 min

A film about violence, racism and hope. The first year after the hurricane Katrina. Malik Rahim, a 58 year old Black Panther, became a local hero in the days after the flooding and is now running a big grassroots organization.

Storyline: The city of New Orleans is a ghost town after the hurricane Katrina. While most people left the city in fear, racism and poorness is there to stay. In a city full of racists and vigilantes, we meet the 58-year-old former Black Panther Malik Rahim. All his life he has been struggling to make a difference, been trying to pass on a better society to his children and grandchildren. In the aftermath of the hurricane Katrina, the need is greater than ever, and Malik uses the attention this brings, to begin the building of a long-term grassroots organization. The film starts in the days after the hurricane, and takes us on a journey to poor Afro-American neighborhoods where the mainstream media never goes. We meet despair, hate and a little hope despite all. But most of all it tells us the story about one man who wants to make a better world, and about his extraordinary fight for peace and justice.

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/1721434

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/1721247

Better Quality Invidious Link: https://invidious.kavin.rocks/watch?v=JnUD9iXWqLg

The Coconut Revolution (2001 50min)

The Coconut Revolution is a 2001 multi-award winning documentary film about the struggle of the indigenous peoples in the Bougainville Island. The movement is described as the "world's first successful eco-revolution".

The movie tells the story of the successful uprising of the indigenous peoples of Bougainville Island against the Papua New Guinea army and the mining plans of the Rio Tinto Zinc company to exploit their natural resources. The documentary reveals how the Bougainville Revolutionary Army (BRA) managed to overcome the blockade strategy carried by the Papuan army by using coconut oil as fuel.

Fair Use Copyright Disclaimer: This is an educational not for profit production. Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for fair use for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use.

On a July day in 1990, a confrontation propelled First Nations issues in Kanehsatake and the village of Oka, Quebec, into the international spotlight. Director Alanis Obomsawin spent 78 nerve-wracking days and nights filming the armed stand-off between the Kanien’kéhaka (Mohawk) People, the Quebec police and the Canadian army. This powerful documentary takes you right into the action of this historic confrontation. The result is a portrait of the people behind the barricades.

Directed by Alanis Obomsawin - 1993 | 119 min

This excellent documentary takes us into another world; the world of rogue loggers and firefighters turned eco-warriors. The story begins as an arsonist burns 9000 acres of protected old-growth public forest in Oregon that can not be logged unless it burns. To stop the proposed "salvage" logging of this incredible ancient forest, citizens are moved to blockade a road and keep the government out. After facing down a bulldozer and the State Police, the fort now known as the gateway to the Cascadia Free State becomes the focus for a developing community dedicated to protecting ancient forests throughout the mountains of Oregon.

The film shows confrontations with disgruntled loggers, mass arrests and a 75 day hunger strike. Back at Warner Creek activists build teepees and remain a living blockade on the logging road through the winter and ten feet of snow. Political pressure begins to shift and the White House promises a deal but not before Federal Agents come to bust the camp and destroy the fort. The story resolves with incredible footage of a mass jail break-in and unconditional victory for the forest. This inspiring documentary is two years in the making, and crafted from footage shot by more than two dozen people involved in the struggle to save Warner Creek. Principal photography and direction are by guerilla videographer Tim Lewis, award winner at WorldFest in 1998. Codirector/producer Tim Ream was involved in the action on and off the screen.

Alternative link;

https://youtu.be/S-ACcAkAdgM?si=0_P3hbQ5t06V44aK

Harlan County, USA is a 1976 American documentary film covering the "Brookside Strike", a 1973 effort of 180 coal miners and their wives against the Duke Power Company-owned Eastover Coal Company's Brookside Mine and Prep Plant in Harlan County, southeast Kentucky. It won the Academy Award for Best Documentary at the 49th Academy Awards.

A look into how the first democratically elected socialist leader attempted to solve the issue of a socialist economy with the help of the computer revolution, and why those efforts had to be stopped by Multinational Corporations and the CIA.

Expedition: Bismarck is a 2002 documentary film produced for the Discovery Channel by Andrew Wight and James Cameron, directed by James Cameron and Gary Johnstone, and narrated by Lance Henriksen. The film follows an underwater expedition to the German Battleship Bismarck and digitally reconstructs events that led up to the ship's sinking during World War II

Director James Cameron returns to the site of the 1912 wreck of the RMS Titanic, aboard the Russian research vessel Akademik Mstislav Keldysh with a team of history and marine experts, and his friend Bill Paxton. Cameron and the crew document the interiors and exteriors of the wreckage using 3D technology designed for the documentary.