An uplifting feature documentary highlighting the transformative power of art and the beauty of the human spirit. Top-selling contemporary artist Vik Muniz takes us on an emotional journey from Jardim Gramacho, the world’s largest landfill on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro, to the heights of international art stardom. Vik collaborates with the brilliant catadores, pickers of recyclable materials, true Shakespearean characters who live and work in the garbage quoting Machiavelli and showing us how to recycle ourselves.

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Leila Khaled was the first woman to hijack a plane. In 1969, she showed her grenades to the terrified passengers by order of the Che Guevara commando unit of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Through the ensuing media bombardment, she put the Palestinian nation on the global map. The pretty 24-year-old Leila became a hero to many Palestinians, including the Swedish/Palestinian teenager Lina Makboul, who is now a filmmaker. At least Leila dared to do something, Lina thought at the time. She visits Leila 35 years later with a camera, and finds a woman who does not regret anything.

WATCH ONLINE —>Leihla Khaled

TOTALITARIAN STATE. MUSIC. SOCIETY. INDEPENDENCE. THOUGHT POLICE. “Beats of Freedom” follows a history of Polish music and the major role music played in the fight for freedom. History of unconventional rock – music that was pure, music that spoke from the heart. It follows artists who did not seek fame did not flaunt their egos. Music with out gimmick, music that spoke to generations of youth who sought freedom and longed for escape route in the country that was like prison, with no right to a passport – with no way out of the grey reality.

Directed by Leszek Gnoiski and Wojciech Sota, and narrated by music journalist Chris Salewicz, The film chronicles the rock/punk movement from the 50s until the fall of communism. It features plenty of archival footage of some of the most iconic festivals and influential bands that provided a voice for those without one, and an outlet for emotional release, as well as present-day interviews with many of the musicians who fought for the independence and freedom of speech. Czeslaw Niemen, Maanam, Brygada Kryzys, Perfect, Republika, and Lady Pank.

The film shows also the absurdity and hilarity  of an oppressive system which tried to censor the artists message. Yet the musicians found innovative ways to spread their message of truth, of hope and freedom.

Humanity that can not be stopped. It can be gagged and silenced for but not forever.

“they measured us all equally
assigned our time for work and dreams
there was nothing else for us to do
but we still somehow clueless how to live our life’s

the adult kids are still angry
for the horrible recipe for this world”

The message that was send then is as valid today in the current world we are living. Nothing has changed – be it capitalism or communism. The oppression of the people continues to this day, wrapped under different names – they say it is in the name of freedom and human rights. But they have one goal in mind, it is to control the human mind, to enslave the mind. This film shows that humanity is nature and can not be controlled. Humanity can not be ruled, but lead only when it’s for the good of the majority of society and not for the selected few.

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The larger scope of the story explores the gun trade to Africa that takes place under the covers — Russian pilots fly guns into Africa, then fly fish back out to Europe. The hazards and consequences of this trade are explored, including the pan-African violence propagated by constant flow of weapons into the continent. If it is a “survival of the fittest” world, as Darwin concluded, then the capitalist interests that fund the gun runners are climbing the evolutionary ladder on the backs of the Africans in this stark Darwinian example. Much like the foreseeable extinction of the Lake Victoria perch, and death of Lake Victoria itself, the Africans are in grave jeopardy, even as they survive in the only ways they know how.

Brazil and Music begins in  the days of slavery, when an estimated 4 million Africans were forcibly moved to Brazil, and traces the development of samba from the poor black areas of Salvador and Rio, where it was initially banned, to its fusion with European styles and its move to the mainstream. After 500 years of history the Brazilian music developed some unique and original styles like choro, sertanejo, brega, forró, frevo, samba, maracatu, bossa nova, MPB, brazilian rock, axé and others.

Pick of the Hot Docs Festval 2009, Incident at Restigouche recalls June 9, 1981, when the Quebec Minister of Fisheries, Lucien Lessard, demanded the Mi’kmaq of Restigouche (now Listuguj) remove all nets from their traditional fishing waters. For the Mi’kmaq, salmon has been an essential source of food and income for thousands of years. Poverty and unemployment makes salmon fishing crucial to the community’s survival, though their take accounts for less than 0.5% of commercial fishing in the region. Within 48 hours of Lessard’s demand, a force of almost 400 Quebec provincial police and fisheries wardens brutally raid the reserve to find and destroy the six or seven nets left in the water. Outraged by the invasion and violence, First Nations groups across the country show solidarity; barricades spring up, tension escalates. The second police raid is even more brutal, and the ensuing trial a farce. Obomsawin’s formidable cross-examination of Lessard is the cornerstone of this eloquent examination of justice and sovereignty.
In a heated exchange, the director of the film  and Lessard touch on issues of sovereignty. Obomsawin calls Lessard to task for having no understanding of Native issues, especially as a Quebecois. She cannot believe what he said to the chief during the incident at Restigouche and quotes him, “You cannot ask for sovereignty because to have sovereignty one must have one’s own culture, language and land.” Absurd.

Stacy Peralta has produced two of the best documentaries  “Dogtown and Z-Boys” and “Riding Giants,” exhilarating, informative works with reverence for the cultures (skateboarding and surfing, respectively) they chronicle. With the sobering “Crips and Bloods: Made in America,” Peralta goes outside subjects of personal expertise, tackling the gang war that has long convulsed Los Angeles’ African American community.The documentary film  does paint a the rather long history of this area of Los Angeles including immigration during Second World War, both riots and the civil rights struggles. The documentary is well shot with great music and narration by Forest Whitaker  and a nice selection of both interview subjects and ideas. You very well may learn something and you cannot help feel for those that have senselessly suffered from the violence.  With out much of a solution given, despite the enforced gang violence-prevention sequence, not much of an impression is left that anything will improve with the gang warfare. As one Crip makes the observation of, “It is what it is.” A bloody, chilling fact!?

This documentary film profiles the controversial life and times of this important moral and political philosopher, militant, refugee and so called enemy of the state. It traces Negri’s roots in the history of radical left-wing movements in Italy during the sixties and seventies, illustrated through archival footage of workers’ strikes, factory occupations, terrorist actions, violent street confrontations, political repression, and government trials of dissidents.
During these tumultuous decades, finding himself branded as an evil ideologue with alleged ties to the Red Brigades terrorist group, Negri spent many years in prison and in exile in Paris, where he contributed to philosophical debates with authors such as Deleuze and Guattari. The film features interviews with Negri, conducted following his April 2003 release from confinement, as well as public speaking appearances at seminars and protest demonstrations, plus commentary from his co-author Michael Hardt and Italian and French colleagues.

This bold and avocative documentary film tells a story of The Weatherman/ Weather Underground Organization derived from a frustration inside the U.S. Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), a group of ’70′s radicals who, outraged by the Vietnam War and racism in America, went on low-level war against the U.S government throughout the decade.  This is an absolutely great film: an unflinching, often graphic, look at the realities of the Vietnam War, its casualties and devastation.  Inspiring era of activism, more than anything, it’s a coming of age story of sorts. The studenst that once comprised the Underground are now all adults, chastened by the lessons of their past (they embraced an ideology that only marginalized them when it came time to give up their arms and join the “real world”), seasoned by their experience, and ever hopeful and eager for a more just future.

What happens in a city of mass government corruption, where poor and the rich live in a same area. the division is growing, corruptions goes unpunished. The system is failing and the hungry are getting very angry. Sao Paulo, Brazil is facing major kidnapping problem for ransom. The ransom money is then put in to use  in poor neighborhoods. The law of the jungle in its prime state, returning to metropolitan cities. If anything, this documentary film displays what is coming in 21  century, in order for the starved to survive. Change of the system is desperately needed or the consequences will be horrific. Manda Bala tells a story in a way where no one has gone before. An eye opener, heart felt or shell I say ear ripping experince? Is anyone listening?