Bureaucracy shapes our lives and guides us from the cradle to the grave. This documentary lays bare the idiosyncrasies of bureaucracy, whether in Canada, Austria, Hungary, the Vatican or the Virgin Islands. It also attempts to make the functioning of the public service more comprehensible. The absurdities of bureaucratic behaviour are exposed with humour and irreverence.
29 Jul 1962
Made at the height of 'cold war' paranoia, this drama-documentary shows the work of the UK Warning and Monitoring Organisation, who's duties included the issuing of public warnings of any nuclear missile strike and the subsequent fallout.
01 Jun 2021
Severely battered from the Beirut Port Explosion on August 4th, Minerva passed away eight days later. Her son Joseph, while still grieving for his loss, sunk into a long and absurd bureaucratic path through the inept system that disowned his mother as a victim of the blast. Minerva is gone. The explosion has snatched her soul, and the city walls have not yet recognized her as a martyr. There is no poster of her smiling face among those of the victims. Their faces are memories that will haunt us for the rest of our lives. Perhaps her son, devastated by her passing, seeks to etch her image into the city's memory. Perhaps he is seeking some confession to the crime. This is a place that casts out its children, whether dead or alive.
18 May 2007
A documentary about the corrupt health care system in The United States whose main goal is to make profit even if it means losing people’s lives. "The more people you deny health insurance, the more money we make" is the business model for health care providers in America.
01 May 2004
Twenty-five films from twenty-five European countries by twenty-five European directors.
01 Jan 1979
Public information film regarding female safety and how to safeguard against rape
15 Nov 2023
The only thing colder than a Canadian winter is Canadian bureaucracy (probably). Based on five real life stories, Romy Boutin St-Pierre and Joe Nadeau pay homage to the nation-wide stress headache of phone calls with the government in this surprising short.
01 Jan 1995
A biographical documentary on the life and career of U.S. Army General Colin Powell.
29 Sep 2021
In April 1918, a disease of unknown origin swept across the five continents. In 18 months, millions of lives that had not been taken by the war were swept away by a virus that would cause the worst pandemic in history: the Spanish flu.
01 Jan 1952
Film produced for a coalition of public service groups to combat racial and ethnic hatred. The narrative follows an emotionally insecure Chicago teenager whose bigoted thinking leads him to violence. Explores how prejudices are passed like "a contagious disease" from parent to child, teacher to pupils, and youth to youth, and suggests strategies for breaking the cycle.
01 Jan 1981
A short film to warn children of sexual predators.
16 Sep 2024
In 2023, there were an estimated 30.6 thousand homeless people. This number continues to rise at an alarming rate. One of them is the headstrong Ruurdt. He has difficulty getting help and cannot adapt well to our society. He is now also in danger of losing the houseboat that was assigned to him. 'Ruurdt' is an intimate portrait of a man on the fringes of our society.
01 Sep 2023
The documentary explore the intersection between humor, satire, and religion, analyzing how they mutually influence each other. Through interviews with comedians, artists, and scholars, we will discover irreverent jokes, clever parodies, and bold caricatures that challenge religious dogmas, exploring the power of comedy within the context of religions and opening new perspectives on cultural dynamics.
31 Dec 1967
Documentary about the potentially dangerous and unpredictable drug LSD. Various experts discuss how LSD is made and the hazards involved in using it while avid users explain why they enjoy taking it.
23 Sep 2012
The dramatic inside story of the monumental collision of interests at Ground Zero in the decade after 9/11.
23 Sep 2015
A Good American tells the story of the best code-breaker the USA ever had and how he and a small team within NSA created a surveillance tool that could pick up any electronic signal on earth, filter it for targets and render results in real-time while keeping the privacy as demanded by the US constitution.
23 Sep 1975
WELFARE shows the nature and complexity of the welfare system in sequences illustrating the staggering diversity of problems that constitute welfare: housing, unemployment, divorce, medical and psychiatric problems, abandoned and abused children, and the elderly. These issues are presented in a context where welfare workers as well as clients struggle to cope with and interpret the laws and regulations that govern their work and life.
01 Jan 1973
After receiving an anonymous phone call, the cops pick up a young woman who is wandering around alone in the desert. She tells them that she was given a lift by a stranger, who abandoned her there. Or are there more sides to one story? Part of a series of scare movies called Under the Law, distributed by Disney in the 1970s.
31 Dec 1969
A young girl relates what happened during her first LSD trip, when – among other things – her food began talking to her.
27 Apr 2012
Between 2007 and 2011, 725 Quebecers aged 16 to 24 were killed in car accidents. Excessive speed and alcohol were involved in half of these deaths. To try to understand what is going on in these young drivers' heads when they get behind the wheel, host and documentary filmmaker Paul Arcand met with some of them. On one hand, he gives a voice to these young people who love driving fast. On the other hand, he provides a forum for two accident victims who were injured both physically and psychologically. Finally, the director meets the mother of little Bianca Leduc, who was killed by a drunk driver while she was in the care of her babysitter, and the parents of Michael Borduas, 23, who is severely disabled from an accident.
04 Jun 1973
"Juvenile Court" shows the complex variety of cases before the Memphis Juvenile Court: foster home placement, drug abuse, armed robbery, child abuse, and sexual offenses. The sequences illustrate such issues as community protection vs. the desire for rehabilitation, the range and the limits of the choices available to the court, the psychology of the offender, and the constitutional and procedural questions involved in administering a juvenile court.