A thunderstorm. You can hardly breathe. Pressure swamps your chest, a lump slides up your throat. You tremble with anger, you brim with tears. Rain. Then, an endless feeling of numbing grey...
Sometimes it helps to see the jungle for the trees. Not always. But sometimes.
WILDLIFE offers thought-provoking documentaries, talks and podcasts.
EARTH FROM ABOVE
La Terre vue du ciel is a project led and conceived by photographer Yann Arthus-Bertrand dedicated to the major challenges faced by our planet.
It is supported by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). It includes a series of 15 documentaries of 90 minutes each, bringing the viewer beautiful High Definition images of the Earth. Each episode talks about a particular environmental challenge.
AMY WINEHOUSE DOCUMENTARY
AMY (2015) is powerful, witty, touching and authentic.
She is the documentary.
Contributions, recorded interviews, and archive footage from:
Mos Def aka Yasiin Bey // Pete Doherty // Tony Bennett // Mark Ronson, producer // Salaam Remi, producer // Darcus Beese, former A&R at Island Records // Nick Gatfield, president of Island Records // Lucian Grainge, head of Universal Music Group // Guy Moot, UK president of Sony ATV Music Publishing.
WOMEN OF THE VENEZUELAN CHAOS
HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH
This award-winning documentary offers fresh perspectives and critical insights on human rights concerns, impacting people in Venezuela today. In Margarita Cadenas' "Mujeres del caos venezolano" five resilient women creatively defend their fellow citizens, their families, and their survival amidst the national crisis that has enveloped their country.
GRIZZLY MAN
Grizzly Man (2005) gives an insight into a whole other world, the world of bear enthusiast Timothy Treadwell living with grizzly bears in Katmai National Park, Alaska. The documentary is captivating, amusing, yet hearttrending all at once. Timothy had spent 13 summers with the bears before he and his girlfriend were killed in October 2003. During the last five years of his life he filmed himself with the animals, intending to raise awareness for the threatened species. German director Werner Herzog used extracted sequences from more than 100 hours of video footage and conducted interviews with Treadwell's family and friends, and bear and nature experts. Some say what Timothy did was foolhardy or even dangerous. Others say he was warm-hearted and caring. One thing is certain: he lived life to the full.
WHAT HAPPENED, MISS SIMONE?
What happened, Miss Simone? (2015) is a biographical documentary film about one of the most dynamic artists and civil rights activists in American history: Eunice Kathleen Waymon, also known as Nina Simone.
It unfurls as a complex portrait of the person behind the performer:
Excited, ecstatic, ambitious, in love.
Not accepted, isolated, angry, vulnerable.
Carefully directed by Liz Garbus, and produced by Nina's daughter Lisa Simone Kelly, most of the content is extracted from Simone’s recorded interviews, aptly selected tunes from Simone’s discography, and an impressive collection of letters. It’s Simone's magnetic presence on screen that brings more life into the film than anything else. (Available on Netflix)
MONTAGE OF HECK
Montage of Heck (2015) is the first documentary about Kurt Cobain made with the cooperation of his family and access to a large portion of the Cobain's personal archives. Recordings of his happy early days in Aberdeen, a detailed story about his troubled family life and teenage years, private videos with Courtney Love and numerous diary entries make it a very intimate and touching documentary. It chronicles his rise to fame with Nirvana, up to his death at the age of 27, intensified by his own music and sound collages.
Benjamin Zander:
The transformative power of classical music
Don't like classical music?
You probably don't mind classical music. In the elevator.
Or in the background when sipping a glass of whiskey.
Or perhaps you think you're tone deaf.
This moving TED Talk is about much more than just the tinkle of a piano.
Benjamin Zander is full of sheer excitement and will leave you with a wonderful feeling inside.
E36 | THE LIMITS OF FREEDOM
A podcast by The Institute of Art and Ideas.
"Freedom is a goal we all endorse. Yet as neuroscience shows and history suggests, we are less content when we have more choice. Is too much freedom paradoxically debilitating? Do we need constraints to thrive, and might our chains be key to our freedom? Or is this a dangerous conceit of the privileged and free? Psychiatrist Theodore Dalrympe, Blair's former Senior Policy Advisor Julian Le Grand and Claire Fox, author of 'I find that offensive', interrogate choice."
KEITH RICHARDS: LIFE
This documentary, following the publication of Keith Richards' autobiography 'Life', cast a spell over me. Keith Richards counterposes his image of a boisterous, anarchic pirate with a twinkly-eyed, modest and reflective gentleman. In a candid interview, he talks with Andrew Graham-Dixon about his childhood in Dartford, his passion for music, and the decade that catapulted the Rolling Stones from back-room blues boys to one of the greatest rock 'n' roll bands in the world. We learn how Keith Richard's interest in music was triggered by his mother's collection of records including Sarah Vaughan, Billy Eckstein and Louis Armstrong; and how his love of blues music led to the formation of The Rolling Stones in 1962.