Acting
An in-depth look at news stories. Documentaries that take you behind the scenes giving an insight into people's lives or institutions.
Frank is an expert professional safecracker, specialized in high-profile diamond heists. He plans to use his ill-gotten income to retire from crime and build a nice life for himself complete with a home, wife and kids. To accelerate the process, he signs on with a top gangster for a big score.
This is a tale of hidden treasure and the scientific shaping of our past, told through the stories of the adventures and discoveries of great archaeologists.
Set during World War II, a German army garrison is sent to guard a mountain pass in a village in Romania's Carpathian mountains and sets up barracks in an ancient stone fortress. Two of the soldiers unwittingly release a mysterious entity that kills or corrupts those within its influence, drawing the attention of a Gestapo commander, a Jewish scholar, and a mysterious traveller.
Julian Assange. Bradley Manning. Collateral murder. Cablegate. WikiLeaks. These people and terms have exploded into public consciousness by fundamentally changing the way democratic societies deal with privacy, secrecy, and the right to information, perhaps for generations to come. We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks is an extensive examination of all things related to WikiLeaks and the larger global debate over access to information.
The fighting between the Sandinista government in Nicaragua and the Contra rebels backed by U.S. money and expertise is the focus of this pro-Sandinista film by Haskell Wexler. On a secret mission to help the U.S. Special Forces train Contra rebels in the jungles of Nicaragua, American soldier Eddie Guerrero begins to question the morality of the task at hand and consider how his actions may influence the fate of a nation.
Investigate the rise and fall of one of the world's most mysterious civilizations.
The Bezeklik Grottoes in the Flaming Mountains near Turfan hang precariously off a cliff above a steep gorge. However, the Buddhist carvings and murals within these caves were not sufficiently remote to escape both the onslaught of Islam and the intentions of foreign archaeologists and treasure seekers. Now there is a new threat: that of numerous coach loads of foreign and domestic tourists, keen to see what's left.
The monuments of ancient Egypt dominate her desert landscape. They remind the world of fabulous power and the wealth of a civilization that flourished thousands of years before the birth of Christ. Two obsessed treasure Seekers would devote their lives to uncovering the secrets Buried deep beneath the sands. One was a circus strongman, Giovanni Belzoni, who was drawn to Egypt's mystique and developed a passion for uncovering its secrets. The other, a stellar English archaeologist, Howard Carter, who was convinced the tomb of King Tutankhamen rested in the Valley of the Kings. He and his team worked ceaselessly for seven years to locate it and in 1922 they Unearthed the elusive tomb. Journey back thousands of years with these two famous archaeologists and then unmatched passion to bring Egypt's past to life.
This astonishing documentary investigates how an advertising slogan invented by Madison Avenue executives in 1948 has come to define our most intimate and romantic rituals and ideals. The Diamond Empire, which sent shockwaves through the transnational diamond industry when it first appeared, systematically takes apart the myth that "diamonds are forever." It exposes how one white South African family, through a process of monopoly and fantasy, managed to exert control over the global flow of diamonds and change the very way we think about courtship, marriage, and love - an achievement all the more stunning given that diamonds are in fact neither scarce nor imperishable. Zeroing in on how "the diamond empire" managed to convert something valueless into one of the most coveted commodities in history, the film provides a riveting look at how marketing and consumer culture shape not only global trade and economics, but also our very identities.
Capturing the story of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange with unprecedented access, director Laura Poitras finds herself caught between the motives and contradictions of Assange and his inner circle in a documentary portrait of power, betrayal, truth and sacrifice.
Documentary on Julian Assange, Wikileaks and more.
In the 19th century, as it became aware of the colonial designs of European power on central Asia, Tibet expelled westerners and closed its frontiers. As its isolation deepened, so did Tibet's allure and mystique. But in the early 1900s, Francis Younghusband, a British colonialist, managed to penetrate the hidden city of Lhasa and bring to an end the country's years of isolation.
