A mysterious outbreak of tic disorders among young people leads Dr Robert Bartholomew to question whether social media is making us sick. Doctors have recently identified a concerning trend among young people: tic disorders potentially spread via TikTok videos. For sociologist Dr Robert Bartholomew, an expert in mass psychogenic illness, the trend isn’t surprising, but the potential consequences are alarming. Could the global scope of social media mean we are on the precipice of the world’s largest outbreak of psychogenic illness?
In today's climate debate, there is only one factor that cannot be calculated in climate models - humans. How can we nevertheless understand our role in the climate system and manage the crisis? Climate change is a complex global problem. Increasingly extreme weather events, rising sea levels, and more difficult living conditions - including for us humans - are already the order of the day. Global society has never faced such a complex challenge. For young people in particular, the frightening climate scenarios will be a reality in the future. For the global south, it is already today. To overcome this crisis, different perspectives are needed. "THE UNPREDICTABLE FACTOR" goes back to the origins of the German environmental movement, accompanies today's activists in the Rhineland in their fight against the coal industry and gives a voice to scientists from climate research, ethnology and psychology.
What’s it like to dedicate your life to work that won’t be completed in your lifetime? Fifteen years ago, filmmaker David Licata focused on four projects and the people behind them in an effort to answer this universal question.
Personal stories taken from a survey on how women's lives are affected by a culture obsessed with body image and thinness.
CodeSwitching is a mash-up of personal stories from three generations of African American students who participated in a landmark voluntary desegregation program. Shuttling between their inner-city Boston neighborhoods and predominantly white suburban schools in pursuit of a better education, they find themselves swapping elements of culture, language, and behavior to fit in with their suburban counterparts – Often acting or speaking differently based on their surroundings, called code-switching.
An old lady’s house is full of boxes filled with memories. Every Wednesday, along with her cockroach friends, she tells her granddaughter wonderful stories. But as the little girl grows bigger, they start running out of space inside the house.
Director Drew Stone’s New York Hardcore series returns with The New York Chronicles Film 1.5. Featuring never before seen footage and brand new interviews with Sammy Siegler (Youth Of Today / Judge), Jay Peta (Mindforce), Bob Riley Stigmata / Murderers Row) and more. The journey continues throught the community and culture of the iconic New York Hardcore scene that is still vibrant, relevant and going strong to this day. “NYHC Forever And Always!”
"Bias" challenges us to confront our hidden biases and understand what we risk when we follow our gut. Through exposing her own biases, award-winning documentary filmmaker Robin Hauser highlights the nature of implicit bias, the grip it holds on our social and professional lives, and what it will take to induce change.
Director Drew Stone’s The New York Hardcore Chronicles Film is an incredible journey through the community and culture of the iconic New York hardcore scene. Not the typical history of a local music scene but so much more. Shot in an episodic format, the film contains over 60 interviews, never before seen footage, photos and a blazing soundtrack. With appearances by Roger Miret & Vinnie Stigma (Agnostic Front), Lou Koller, Craig Setari (Sick Of It All), Ray Cappo (Youth Of Today), Billy Graziadei (Biohazard), Billy Milano (S.O.D. / M.O.D.) and Mike Judge (Judge). The film addresses the community, culture, straight edge and DIY ethic of the hardcore scene in the greatest city in the world that is still vibrant, relevant and going strong to this day.
Thirty-year-old Mia, going through a divorce, shifts into a small studio apartment in a public housing project. A former swimming champion, she finds herself giving swimming lessons to the building's inhabitants. Without a pool.
Hotel Coolgardie is a portrait of outback Australia, as experienced by two backpackers who find themselves the latest batch of “fresh meat” to work as barmaids in a remote mining town.
Adam Pearson - who has neurofibromatosis type 1 - is on a mission to explore disability hate crime: to find out why it goes under-reported, under-recorded and under people's radar.
A stranger in the city asks questions no one has asked before. Known only by his initials, the man's innocent questions and childlike curiosity take him on a journey of love, laughter and letting go.
The Fall of Womenland is a fascinating documentary on the unique sexual culture of the Mosuo people — a small minority situated in the southwest of China — and one of the last remaining matriarchal societies in the world. Without a formal marriage contract, the Mosuo traditionally build relationships based on free love and sexual satisfaction (‘walking marriages'). But can the sexual liberty and power of the Mosuo women survive as modern Chinese society slowly encroaches their ancestral land? The film explores the present reality for the Mosuo people as well as the dangers that threaten their inherited way of life.
Unlike anything else you will see in this year or any other, 'The Decline of the West' is a groundbreaking social allegory that challenges its audience to explore the effects of contemporary conditioning; of the stereotypes, and counter-stereotypes surrounding race and ethnicity. By employing a unique blend of absurdist humor and dry, dark comedy, both the insularity and the inertia of progressive society are put on trial and hanged in this bold film that goes places few have ever gone. The film maintains its extended, detailed allegory, in which the physical layout of Manhattan comes to life as its symbols of Progress slowly turn it into a comic liberal dystopia. Anything that "isn't allowed" is used to confront the audience with hypocrisy. Make-up plays a crucial role throughout the film, as a hinge that simultaneously showcases characters and the existential reality of the players behind them.
As we wait to see whether Rupert Murdoch will fall from power and lose control of News International, Every Day is Like Sunday tells the forgotten story of the dramatic downfall of Cecil King—the newspaper mogul who used to dominate British media in the 1960s, before Rupert Murdoch arrived.