Sun Ra was born on the planet Saturn some time ago. The best accounts agree that he emerged on Earth as Herman Blount, born in Birmingham, Alabama in 1914, although Sun Ra himself always denied that Blount was his surname. He returned to Saturn in 1993 after creating a stunningly variegated and beautiful assemblage of earthly and interplanetary music, most notably with his fervently loyal Arkestra
Talks and Q&A Meetings at Brockwood Park, 1982.Jiddu Krishnamurti was born on 11 May 1895 in Madanapalle, a small town in south India. He and his brother were adopted in their youth by Dr Annie Besant, then president of the Theosophical Society. Dr Besant and others proclaimed that Krishnamurti was to be a world teacher whose coming the Theosophists had predicted. To prepare the world for th
Rule Britannia scours the UK to partake of all the sordid offerings of this green, pleasant and messed-up land. Under the surface of Swansea, things are a little different than it initially looks.Here they befriend a gang of young addicts caught up in South Wales’ largely ignored heroin epidemic. We find topless fire-breathing dance troupes, old sailors, and two little kids in one of the city’
Chronos is an abstract film made in 1985 and directed by Ron Fricke, created with custom-built time-lapse cameras. Chronos has no actors or dialog. The soundtrack consists of a single continuous piece by composer Michael Stearns. Filmed in dozens of locations on five continents, the film relates to the concept of time passing on different scales — the bulk of the film covers the history of civiliz
Powaqqatsi, or Powaqqatsi: Life in Transformation, is the 1988 sequel to the experimental 1982 documentary film Koyaanisqatsi, by Godfrey Reggio. It is the second film in the Qatsi trilogy.Powaqqatsi is a Hopi word meaning “parasitic way of life” or “life in transition” . While Koyaanisqatsi focused on modern life in industrial countries, Powaqqatsi, which similarly has no dialogue, focuses more
A short documentary made about the survivors of the earthquake and tsunami that occurred in Japan in March 2011."We visited a town on the east coast called Ishinomaki, part of which was completely erased by the tsunami. Made up of interviews with survivors, Then and Now lets the survivors tell us about their experiences during the event and the progress of the recovery that has been taking pla
The Tea Party movement has taken American politics by storm. But is this truly a populist uprising or one of the greatest feats of propaganda ever seen? Australian filmmaker Taki Oldham sets out answer this question, finding that behind the movement’s rhetoric of ‘freedom’ versus ‘socialism’ lies a highly co-ordinated network of shadow groups, funded by the likes of billionaire ideologues Charles
The inside story of Mark Kennedy, the police officer who spent eight years undercover as a dedicated activist, having infiltrated the environmental movement and Europe’s left-wing extremist political groups. Now, with his cover blown, Kennedy has lost his wife and children, and the friends he made during his time with the protesters have labelled him a traitor. In this Cutting Edge film, he discus
A four-part examination of organized crime includes comments from former gangsters and law-enforcement officials.Episode 1: Mafia, What Mafia?The first of a four-part series on the American mafia reveals how the FBI ignored their existence until a meeting in a sleepy upstate New York hollow showed them something they couldn’t deny. In the 1950s, America was booming. The economy was flourishing