The Volunteer Archivists tells the story of Srujanika, a volunteer-led collective in the Indian state of Odisha that archived some of the rarest printer publications published in the last 200 years. The archive — Odia Bibhaba — now houses over 10,000 books and hundreds of magazines, newspapers, and dictionaries that otherwise would have been lost forever due to collective negligence and the poor state of digitization by the state archives.
The End of Memory (2015)
Each day, some 2.5 trillion bytes of data are exchanged, a deluge known as "big data." How can we classify, store, and give meaning to this mass of digital information? Will our digital society remain capable of producing a lasting memory? Learn the fate of memory storage in the future.
A Life's Work (2020)
What’s it like to dedicate your life to work that won’t be completed in your lifetime? Fifteen years ago, filmmaker David Licata focused on four projects and the people behind them in an effort to answer this universal question.
Nani Ma (2022)
Musamoni Panigrahi (1920s–2017), fondly called “Nani Ma” by her neighbours, appears in the centre of this first film in the Baleswari dialect of India's Odia language. The story revolves around folklore and folk songs narrated by Nani Ma. Born in the 1920s in pre-independent rural India in a coastal village in the Balasore district of Odisha, she never got to go beyond the first few days of school. The film is an alternate history of a society broken through colonization, Brahminical patriarchy and a post-famine (Orissa famine of 1866, killing nearly 5 million people, one-third of the population), and the dominance of formal writing over spoken tongues. Three academics -- Damayanti Beshra, PhD (recipient of India’s fourth civilian award, “Padma Shri”), Panchanan Mohanty, PhD (noted linguist), and Laxmikanta Tripathy, PhD, DLitt (anthropologist and author) -- also appear in the film to provide contextual commentary on patriarchy, oral history and the sociolinguistic diversity.
Beyond Paper (2022)
At a critical moment in the history of the written word, as humanity’s archives migrate to the cloud, one filmmaker goes on a journey around the globe to better understand how she can preserve her own Romanian and Armenian heritage, as well as our collective memory. Blending the intellectual with the poetic, she embarks on a personal quest with universal resonance, navigating the continuum between paper and digital—and reminding us that human knowledge is above all an affair of the soul and the spirit.
Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project (2019)
Marion Stokes secretly recorded television 24 hours a day for 30 years from 1975 until her death in 2012. For Marion taping was a form of activism to seek the truth, and she believed that a comprehensive archive of the media would be invaluable for future generations. Her visionary and maddening project nearly tore her family apart, but now her 70,000 VHS tapes are being digitized and they'll be searchable online.
Byaase Sunucha (2022)
A Carefree Artist confronts The Pioneer of Odia literature Byaasakabi Fakir Mohan, to lament about the current state of the Odia Language and how it has been looked down upon by the elites of the state. Will his voice be heard?
Hakim Babu (1985)
A man from lower social background qualifies and gets an administration job and to match his higher social occupation, he leaves his family, friends, and fiance. But gradually he understands his mistake and returns for his people. Finally he finds his wrong decision for the mining in his village has lead to the destruction and down fall of his people and everyone lives the village and him behind alone.
Bringing Down a Mountain (NaN)
A rural village never wanted to be a city’s landfill or a distant blur in Reels but rather home to new imaginations. Bringing Down a Mountain dissects the intersecting themes of access, abolition and caste through the experiences of residents of a rural village and that of a hyper-urban city. The film follows the village residents’ dreams—of mobile data, digital payment and relief from menial work. What happens when the landfill is full, and dreams want to break free?
1883: The Road West (2022)
A behind-the-scenes look at the making of Taylor Sheridan's highly anticipated Yellowstone prequel, '1883'.
Siân Phillips at 90 (2023)
Acclaimed actress Dame Siân Phillips is still working at 90. The star of I, Claudius speaks openly about her marriage to Peter O'Toole and reflects on her life and glittering career.
No Rastro do Pé de Bode (2024)
An old Brazilian musician, Rato Branco, seeks out the old masters of the 8-bass sanfona in the backlands of Bahia to recover the secrets and traditional touches of the Pé de Bode, as this sanfona is known in northeastern Brazil. The film recounts the friendship between the master Rato Branco and the great musicians of the sertão, revealing the musical memory of this region.
Behind The Frequency (2013)
A story about the media. A story about a journalist who believes that media workers should be independent, critical, and prosperous. A story about a struggle swallowed by the power of media conglomerates.
Last Best Hope (2006)
A true story of underground escape lines and the Belgian Resistance during World War II, ‘Last Best Hope’ (2006) is an award winning documentary aired on US PBS Nationwide with nearly 2 million viewers, and Belgian broadcast networks. What is the one principle or belief for which you would sacrifice everything? Ethical, spiritual, and ideological values that are central to the human experience find their voice in the documentary film, ""Last Best Hope: A True Story of Escape, Evasion, and Remembrance,"" a poignant, little-known story about the men and women in the Belgian Resistance and their extraordinary acts to save downed Allied airmen during the Second World War.
Citizen Kitano (2020)
Takeshi Kitano is an international icon. We know the actor, the multi-award-winning filmmaker, but many ignore his double personality: the crazy TV star, the street kid from Tokyo close to the Yakuza, and the political satirist who blasted taboos! Can we dream of a better guide to introduce us to the cultural history of Japan?
The Trump I Know (2020)
We form our perceptions of the world based from sound bites on small screens - Including our opinions of the President. This narrow viewpoint opens up for one film producer when he befriends Lara Trump. Lara introduces him and us to several women in the Trump family, administration, campaign, and business. Through these women's firsthand experiences with the President, we gain a broad understanding of the Trump they know.