Machines

Megacities is a documentary about the slums of four different metropolitan cities.

“The workers leave the Lumière factory.” Workers pass through the gate of the Lumière factory and are followed by a carriage drawn by two horses.

A prismatic meditation on pollution in the capital of the World’s biggest free-market democracy and the most polluted and populated city, Delhi – a film about the pollution inside of the human mind.

This portait of life on the tea plantations is decidedly rosy – clearly, there are no exploited workers here. However, the film provides an intriguing overview of tea production – from the planting of tea seeds to the final shipping of the precious leaves across the globe.

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Varanasi is the Indian city where Hindus go to die. Stretching along the Ganges, Varanasi holds great spiritual significance because Hindu scriptutres say that anyone who dies there will attain moksha—liberation from the cycle of rebirth. Berlin-based director Dan Braga Ulvestad captures life and death in India’s heartland in this moving documentary filled with exquisite cinematic moments. By the River starts its narrative journey with the city’s “death hotels,” dedicated apartments where people wait to die, sometimes for decades, so they can be cremated on the banks of the Ganges.

Take a closer look behind the processes of six different traditional Christmas items: Christmas Trees, Brussel Sprouts, Chocolate, Tinsel, Christmas Jumpers and Christmas Puddings!

Vaastu Marabu documents the theory and practice of the Vaastu tradition of Indian art, architecture, craft and design. One of the foremost shilpis (designer-builder-sculpter) of India, Shri. V. Ganapati Sthapati of Mammallapuram, meditates on his art and his occupation. The film shows the process of making stone idols at Mammallapuram, near Madras, of casting bronzes in Kumbakonam, and of building stone temples at Kamudhi, near Madurai and at Ratnagiri, near Vellore. It illustrates the continuity of the tradition and reveals a technology that is ancient, yet still relevant today. The film explores the process of translating inner experience into art, and invites us to experience the naked beauty of the form while understanding the metaphysical message. The art of the Vishwakarma has given form and expression to all denominations of metaphysical thought in India. The film also probes the underlying scientific and mathematical principles.

The high consumption of snacks and sweets in Germany keeps producers on their toes. In Viersen, consumer giant Mars produces 10 million cookie chocolate bars every day-and each of them must look and taste absolutely identical. In Erdmannhausen, snack pretzels are produced in the first Württemberg pretzel factory, Huober. And the Lübeck-based marzipan manufacturer Niederegger wants to use traditional production processes to produce what it claims is the best marzipan in the world.

Jana Beller won the TV show „Germany's Next Top Model“ in 2011. Today she is a businesswoman and runs two branches in Bochum of one of the most modern backshop chains in Europe. Model measurements and pastries - does that fit together? And how! The young entrepreneur gives insights into the business of sweet and salty snacks. Shock-frozen, the breads and desserts are delivered from a central production to the individual shops and sold to hungry walk-in customers.

Traveling the length and breadth of the country, S. Sukhdev constructs, a panoramic, non-narrated study of Indian life in the late 1960s. Shot across villages, deserts, countryside, and cities, the film observes daily labor, leisure, and movement without commentary, allowing humor, contradiction, and social texture to emerge organically. The result is a sensory encounter with India poised between inherited tradition and accelerating modernity.

A Suitable Girl follows three young women in India struggling to maintain their identities and follow their dreams amid intense pressure to get married. The film examines the women's complex relationship with marriage, family, and society.

Documentary on the construction of Chandigarh, the new capital of the Indian Punjab region, planned by Albert Mayer and Swiss architect Le Corbusier.

At the age of 54, Binode Bihari Mukherjee, an accomplished painter, lost his sight following an unsuccessful cataract operation. He continued to create art despite his loss of sight. The documentary explores Binode Bihari’s inner eye that guides his fingers to create art.

Worldy renowned for his masterpiece The Housemaid (1960), Kim Ki-young debuts with his first short film I Am a Truck (1953), which was sponsored by UN and made a year after the armistice of the Korean War. This film is a fascinating glimpse into the mind of a soon-to-be powerful auteur and influential filmmaker in the post-war Korean cinema, if not the whole history of Korean cinema.

The Jarawas live in the Andaman Islands on the Indian Ocean. The origin of the tribe is in Africa some 70,000 years back. They have lived in almost perfect isolation from the rest of the world until recent times.

Indian freedom fighter Gandhiji was killed by Nathuram Godse. But what made Nathuram Godse to take this extreme step?

India - unique in its diversity and breathtakingly beautiful. The subcontinent is characterized by scenic, cultural and ethnic diversity. After China, India is the second most populous country in the world. Despite growing space needs, there are efforts to preserve the wilderness through nature reserves and protected areas. So India still provides habitat for rare species such as the Bengal tiger or the Indian elephant. The 5-part series "India's wild beauty" leads to the most spectacular and beautiful regions and their inhabitants. The complete series in five parts: 1 The Thar Desert 2 In the jungle, the Ghats 3 Life on the holy river 4 The Himalayas 5 In the land of Naga

Based on the poetry of R. Raj Rao, Bomgay is a collection of six vignettes that depict the underground and complex nature of the gay identity in urban India. Part Genet, part Bollywood, this film combines acidic verse and insightful imagery to reveal the emerging gay community in the post-liberalized India of the 1990s.