Fall and Winter

Vancouver-based filmmaker and TV news veteran Fred Peabody explores the life and legacy of the maverick American journalist I.F. Stone, whose long one-man crusade against government deception lives on in the work of such contemporary filmmakers and journalists as Laura Poitras, Glenn Greenwald, David Corn, and Matt Taibbi.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange battled extradition to the U.S., where he could've faced a lengthy sentence for publishing classified documents. His case, centered on press freedom, took unexpected twists as it unfolded.

Poverty, Inc. explores the hidden side of doing good. From disaster relief to TOMs Shoes, from adoptions to agricultural subsidies, Poverty, Inc. follows the butterfly effect of our most well-intentioned efforts and pulls back the curtain on the poverty industrial complex - the multi-billion dollar market of NGOs, multilateral agencies, and for-profit aid contractors. Are we catalyzing development or are we propagating a system in which the poor stay poor while the rich get hipper?

'The Weight of Chains 2' is a documentary film largely dealing with the effects of the Washington Consensus economic doctrine on the newly established former Yugoslav republics, but also with neoliberalism as an economic concept. Through interviews with Noam Chomsky, Oliver Stone and many others, the author, Serbian-Canadian Boris Malagurski, attempts to analyze why so many people in the Balkans are disappointed with the systems imposed after the fall of socialism and how capitalism could be improved. Looking at the examples of Ecuador and Iceland, the film tries to uncover alternatives to the prevailing orthodoxies of Western economic dictates and help developing nations find their own way to shape their economies and their countries.

Over the past 25 years, Lauren Greenfield's documentary photography and film projects have explored youth culture, gender, body image, and affluence. Underscoring the ever-increasing gap between the haves and the have-nots, portraits reveal a focus on cultivating image over substance, where subjects unable to attain actual wealth instead settle for its trappings, no matter their ability to pay for it.

What is the meaning of life? What is love, humor, fear and death? Is it all just a dream? Who are we and where are we heading? Will we wake up, will we remember?

This winner of the 1993 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature details the case that the 1989 invasion of Panama by the US was motivated not by the need to protect American soldiers, restore democracy or even capture Noriega. It was to force Panama to submit the will of the United States after Noriega had exhausted his usefulness.

The Weight of Chains is a Canadian documentary film that takes a critical look at the role that the US, NATO and the EU played in the tragic breakup of a once peaceful and prosperous European state - Yugoslavia. The film, bursting with rare stock footage never before seen by Western audiences, is a creative first-hand look at why the West intervened in the Yugoslav conflict, with an impressive roster of interviews with academics, diplomats, media personalities and ordinary citizens of the former Yugoslav republics. This film also presents positive stories from the Yugoslav wars - people helping each other regardless of their ethnic background, stories of bravery and self-sacrifice.

This feature-length documentary embarks on an adventurous journey to questions about death and the fear associated with it. Through Jaroslav Dušek's acting guide, he explores how we can use and control people's behavior through fear of death. The film looks at various cultural approaches to the topic of death, including those that do not perceive death as a scarecrow. Modern science, like traditional wisdom, offers alternative perspectives on death that can change our understanding of life. Through the personal stories of people who have overcome their fear of death, the film shows us that our approach to death can affect the quality of our lives.

Shadows of Liberty presents the phenomenal true story of today's disintegrating freedoms within the U.S. media, and government, that they don't want you to see. The film takes an intrepid journey through the darker corridors of the American media landscape, where global media conglomerates exercise extraordinary political, social, and economic power. The overwhelming collective power of these firms raises troubling questions about democracy. Highly revealing interviews, actuality, and archive material, tell insider accounts of a broken media system, where journalists are prevented from pursuing controversial news stories, people are censored for speaking out against abuses of government power, and individual lives are shattered as the arena for public expression has been turned into a private profit zone

The Way of the Psychonaut explores the life and work of Stanislav Grof, Czech-born psychiatrist and psychedelic psychotherapy pioneer. Stan’s quest for knowledge and insights into the healing power of non-ordinary states of consciousness, influenced the discipline of psychology and profoundly changed many individual lives. One of those transformed by Stan is filmmaker Susan Hess Logeais. The documentary utilizes Susan’s personal existential crisis as a gateway to Grof’s impact, from the micro to the macro.

A democracy should protect its most vulnerable citizens, but increasingly the United States is failing to do so. This investigation blends the insights of experts with the experiences of citizens of the Rust Belt in the Midwest where the steel industry once flourished, but where closures and outsourcing have left urban areas desolate. It is here where Donald Trump finds some of his most fervent supporters.

Carlos Castaneda (1925–1998) has been called the “godfather” of the human potential movement. In this film, Castaneda’s closest apprentices—in addition to contemporary practitioners of spiritually-oriented psychology—discuss his quest to become real.

This film explores the evolution of propaganda and public relations in the United States, with an emphasis on the elitist theory of democracy and the relationship between war, propaganda and class. Includes original interviews with a number of dissident scholars including Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Michael Parenti, Peter Phillips (Project Censored), John Stauber (PR Watch), Christopher Simpson (The Science of Coercion) and others. A deep, richly illustrated study of the nature and history of propaganda, featuring some of the world’s most insightful critics, Psywar exposes the propaganda system, providing crucial background and insight into the control of information and thought.

A detailed investigation into the political and economic interests that, since the beginning of the 20th century, have pulled the strings of the arms trade, hidden in the shadows, feeding the shameful corruption of politicians and government officials and promoting a state of permanent war throughout the world, while they cynically asked for a lasting and universal peace.

Liberty Bound takes an entertaining look at America's ongoing struggle to keep a comfortable balance between democracy, capitalism, and fascism. This is a film about historic events that shape history. It is a film about courage and fear; ignorance and knowledge; propaganda and rhetoric. Through original footage, archived footage, and interviews with people such as Howard Zinn, Michael Parenti, and Michael Ruppert, Liberty Bound explores the state of the union and its ostensible move toward fascism. We talk with people who have been interrogated by the Secret Service and threatened with arrest for doing such benign things as sending an email, turning around during a Bush speech, and having a philosophical discussion on a train.

Two decades after the initial exposé of the corporation, this follow-up unveils a world now fully remade in its image and perilously close to fascism.

Examining the meaning and significance of the insights that WikiLeaks shared with the world, the resulting behaviour of the governments involved, the extraordinary personal risk taken by Assange, and the wider fundamental issues around press freedom that affect all of us and our right to know.

An examination of occultism as practiced in different parts of the world.

Journalism in times of war has become an increasingly lethal and traumatic endeavor for the men and women who face constant threats to their lives and psyches. With the death toll skyrocketing from only two reporters killed in World War I to almost a journalist a week being killed in the last two decades, UNDER FIRE weaves together portraits, battlefield accounts and combat footage to reveal what the reporters see, think and feel. Martyn Burke, documentary filmmaker whose work has brought him to battlefields around the world, and Anthony Feinstein, the psychiatrist who works with journalists to heal the trauma, delve into the experiences of top tier correspondents from AP, New York Times, BBC, and LA Times, among others, bringing a unique understanding and insight into the psychological cost of covering war

An account of the life and work of Swiss painter, sculptor, architect and designer H. R. Giger (1940-2014), tormented father of creatures as fearsome as they are fascinating, inhabitants of nightmarish biomechanical worlds.

The film offers a unique insight into the world of Giger's creation and his private life. In addition to the interview with the artist himself, a considerable part of the documentary is formed by interviews with personalities such as Ernst Fuchs, Stanislav Grof and Debbie Harry. Though the authors do not avoid particular developmental periods of Giger's work, the main purpose was not to create the artist's biography. In this case, it is more likely considered to be an authentic perspective on the peculiar world of this Swiss surrealist artist.

An engaging reflection on the meaning of existence and on the theme of death in the different spiritual traditions of the East and West.

True happiness is based on the realized life and development of humanity to the Highest. The film tells us about the Great Search for Paradise, Happiness, Love, Truth, Freedom, Holiness, Joy, Knowledge, Creativity and High Perfection carried out by humanity.

A look at post-industrial Detroit and its burgeoning urban agricultural movement.

1999 documentary film, first broadcast in daily half-hour installments, about the November 1999 protests against the Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in Seattle, Washington.

Michael Parenti's speaks on domestic Anti-Sovietism in the USA at UMass