Being in the World

In the same boat

August 2016 •English

A documentary about the technological progress responsibility in employment destruction, analyzed by philosopher Zygmunt Bauman and others.

Examined Life

September 2008 •English

Examined Life pulls philosophy out of academic journals and classrooms, and puts it back on the streets. Offering privileged moments with great thinkers from fields ranging from moral philosophy to cultural theory, Examined Life reveals philosophy's power to transform the way we see the world around us and imagine our place in it.

LSD: The Beyond Within

January 1986 •English

This refreshingly frank and impartial study of the discovery and development of the notorious hallucinogenic drug is notably free of moral judgmental, and features contributions from such legendary heroes of psychedelia as Albert Hoffman - the Swiss scientist who discovered the drug - Aldous Huxley - author of 'The Doors of Perception' - Ken Kesey - author of 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

A Trip to Infinity

September 2022 •English

Does infinity exist? Can we experience the Infinite? In an animated film (created by artists from 10 countries) the world's most cutting-edge scientists and mathematicians go in search of the infinite and its mind-bending implications for the universe. Eminent mathematicians, particle physicists and cosmologists dive into infinity and its mind-bending implications for the universe.

American Hardcore

September 2006 •English

Inspired by Steven Blush's book "American Hardcore: A tribal history" Paul Rachman's feature documentary debut is a chronicle of the underground hardcore punk years from 1979 to 1986. Interviews and rare live footage from artists such as Black Flag, Bad Brains, Minor Threat, SS Decontrol and the Dead Kennedys.

Take the World From Another Point of View

January 1973 •English

In 1973 Yorkshire public television made a short film of the Nobel laureate while he was there. The resulting film, Take the World from Another Point of View, was broadcast in America as part of the PBS Nova series. The documentary features a fascinating interview, but what sets it apart from other films on Feynman is the inclusion of a lively conversation he had with the eminent British astrophysicist Fred Hoyle.

The Ister

January 2004 •English

The Ister is a 3000km journey to the heart of Europe, from the mouth of the Danube river on the Black Sea, to its source in the German Black Forest. Hailed by Scott Foundas of Variety as "a philosophical feast—at which it is possible to gorge oneself yet leave feeling elated,” the film is based on the work of one of the most influential and controversial philosophers of the 20th century, Martin Heidegger, who in 1933 swore allegiance to the National Socialists. By joining a vast philosophical narrative with an epic voyage along Europe’s greatest waterway, The Ister invites you to unravel the extraordinary past and future of ‘the West.’

The Pervert's Guide to Cinema

October 2006 •English

A hilarious introduction, using as examples some of the best films ever made, to some of Slovenian philosopher and psychoanalyst Slavoj Žižek's most exciting ideas on personal subjectivity, fantasy and reality, desire and sexuality.

Bruce Lee: A Warrior's Journey

October 2000 •English

Documentary on the legendary martial artist Bruce Lee, with a focus on the production of his unfinished film Game of Death. Using interviews and behind-the-scenes footage, Lee aficionado John Little paints a portrait of the world's most famous action hero, concluding with a new cut of Game of Death's action finale, reconstructed from Lee's notes and recently-recovered footage.

Anarchism in America

January 1983 •English

A colorful and provocative survey of anarchism in America, the film attempts to dispel popular misconceptions and trace the historical development of the movement. The film explores the movement both as a native American philosophy stemming from 19th century American traditions of individualism, and as a foreign ideology brought to America by immigrants. The film features rare archival footage and interviews with significant personalities in anarchist history including Murray Boochkin and Karl Hess, and also live performance footage of the Dead Kennedys.

Tawai: A Voice from the Forest

September 2017 •English

Explorer Bruce Parry visits nomadic tribes in Borneo and the Amazon in hope to better understand humanity's changing relationship with the world around us.

Speak of the Devil

January 1995 •English

But what is the Church of Satan? Who is Anton LaVey? Where is he from? Why does he do that? It does not take much to imagine the worst. Orgiastic ceremonies, where one revels in the blood of virgins, moonlight lamb sacrifices, noise concerts in the basement of a historical building… No, really nothing that amusing among the activities in the Church of Satan. Anton LaVey is nothing like a horned Charles Manson, and his path is all the more unexpected. Nick Bougas allows us to discover the artist, the musician, the philosopher, all through hallucinatory images retrieved from archives, making this rare documentary only two years before the author of the Satanic Bible disappeared.

TimeWave Zero

January 1994 •English

Terence McKenna gives us a detailed description of his TimeWave concept and a demonstration of the software Terence originated in his early exploratory period of deep study with the I Ching, the ancient oracular Chinese Book of Changes. He proudly takes us on a biographical tour of our culture from his personal library in the early 80's to what he saw the TimeWave project to 2012. Terence describes the Time Wave as his "only original work". The first part of this piece is the first visual description of Terence's unique theory. The second chapter of the tape astounds the viewer with the display of the the historical resonances that demonstrates how the last 4000 years are compressed into the increasingly speeded up, drawn and squeezed collective thoughts of the "Gaian matrix". Terence McKenna partnered with Sound Photosynthesis' media magicians Faustin Bray and Brian Wallace at the helm to create the visuals that dance and spiral with Terence's every suggestion.

Ayurveda: Art of Being

September 2001 •English

Ayurveda is a science of life and a healing art, where body, mind and spirit are given equal importance. This voyage of thousands of miles across India and abroad takes you on a unique poetic journey, where we encounter remarkable men of medicine or simply a villager who lives in harmony with nature. "Hope is nature's way of enabling us to survive so that we can discover nature itself."

L'oreille décollée

April 2018 •French

Notfilm

October 2015 •English

NOTFILM is a feature-length experimental essay on FILM -- its author Samuel Beckett, its star Buster Keaton, its production and its philosophical implications -- utilizing additional outtakes, never before heard audio recordings of the production meetings, and other rare archival elements.

After Work

August 2023 •English

Kuwait’s constitution says that every person has the right to a job, so in some places 20 people are employed for one person’s job. In South Korea, they work so much that a policy has been introduced to turn off computers at the end of the day so that employees can’t work any more. In the US, they give up over 500 million holiday hours each year, while Amazon’s drivers are trying to form a union. Meanwhile, robots are poised to take over most jobs and put the rest of us out of work. Work is so crucial to our identity and what we spend our waking hours on that it is barely noticed anymore. A lot has happened since a group of Puritan priests invented the concept of work ethic in the 1600s, and in the 21st century the very concept of work is in many ways disintegrating. A perfect situation for a filmmaker like Swedish mastermind Erik Gandini, who travels the world to explore what the concept of work means today – if it means anything at all.

The End of Quantum Reality

January 2020 •English

Almost one hundred years ago, the project to reduce the world to mathematical physics failed suddenly and completely: “One of the best-kept secrets of science,” physicist Nick Herbert writes, “is that physicists have lost their grip on reality.” The world, we are now told, emerges spontaneously, out of “nothing,” and constitutes a “multiverse,” where “anything that can happen will happen, and it will happen an infinite number of times.” Legendary reclusive genius Wolfgang Smith demonstrates on shockingly obvious grounds the dead end at which physics has arrived, and how we can “return, at last, to the real world.” The End of Quantum Reality introduces this extraordinary man to a contemporary audience which has, perhaps, never encountered a true philos-sophia, one as intimately at ease with the rigors of quantum physics as with the greatest schools of human wisdom.

The Unanswered Question I : Musical Phonology

January 1976 •English

This series comprised six lectures on music, which cumulatively took the title of a work by Charles Ives, The Unanswered Question. Bernstein drew analogies to other disciplines, such as poetry, aesthetics, and especially linguistics, hoping to make these lectures accessible to an audience with limited or no musical experience, while maintaining an intelligent level of discourse: Phonology is the linguistic study of sounds, or phonemes. Bernstein's application of this term to music results in what he calls "musical phonology".

Carrière, 250 Meters

January 2011 •English

A portrait documentary tracing the inspiration, philosophy and imagination of the celebrated theatre and screen writer - and Bunuel's long term collaborator - Jean Claude Carrière. Carrière predicts that between the house he was born in and the cemetery in which he will end there is a life journey of just 250 meters. "Carrière: 250 Meters" follows him as he reflects on the wealth of global traditions of storytelling, travelling through past and present, across countries and cultures from Paris to New York, Mexico and India and joined by his family, friends and collaborators. A testament to the life and work of an extraordinary man and a key architect in contemporary cinema.