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Mechanical Marvels: Clockwork Dreams

   2013    Technology
Professor Simon Schaffer presents the amazing and untold story of automata - extraordinary clockwork machines designed hundreds of years ago to mimic and recreate life. The film brings the past to life in vivid detail as we see how and why these masterpieces were built. Travelling around Europe, Simon uncovers the history of these machines and shows us some of the most spectacular examples, from an entire working automaton city to a small boy who can be programmed to write and even a device that can play chess". All the machines Simon visits show a level of technical sophistication and ambition that still amazes today. As well as the automata, Simon explains in great detail the world in which they were made - the hardship of the workers who built them, their role in global trade and the industrial revolution and the eccentric designers who dreamt them up. Finally, Simon reveals that to us that these long-forgotten marriages of art and engineering are actually the ancestors of many of our most loved modern technologies, from recorded music to the cinema and much of the digital world.

Metal

   2005    Culture
An examination of the heavy metal music subculture that tries to explain why, despite the longevity and popularity of the genre, fans are marginalized and ridiculed for their passion.
Sam Dunn is a anthropologist and a lifelong metal fan. After years of studying diverse cultures, Sam turns his academic eye a little closer to home and embarks on an epic journey into the heart of heavy metal. His mission: to figure out why metal music is consistently stereotyped, dismissed and condemned, even while the tribe that loves it stubbornly holds its ground -- spreading the word, keeping the faith and adopting styles and attitudes that go way beyond the music.
Sam visits heavy metal landmarks as far flung as L.A.'s Sunset Strip, the dirty streets of Birmingham and the dark forests of Norway. Along the way, the two sides of Sam Dunn -- curious anthropologist and rabid fan -- collide, as Sam explores metal's obsession with sex, religion, violence and death, meets his heroes, and discovers some things about the culture that even he can't defend.

Metallica: Some Kind of Monster

   2004    Art
A music documentary about Metallica's making of their album 'St. Anger' and the difficulties they had to go through in the process. Joe Berlinger shot over 1200 hours and followed one of the most successful heavy-metal band in history around night and day for over a year to create this documentary. It tells the trials and tribulations of the group as they cut their first album in six years. The members of the band submitted to two years of intensive group therapy to work through conflicts in their 20-year working relationship.

Michael Jackson Journey from Motown to Off the Wall

   2016    Art
A look at the life of Michael Jackson from his early days at Motown Records to the release of his hit 1979 album, Off the Wall. One morning, a television set broke down in a living room in Gary, Indiana, leaving a large family of children with nothing to do, so they started singing. Soon the family was singing at talent shows and winning trophies. Their first four recorded songs would top the charts, and launch the career of one of the greatest entertainers the world has ever known. Journey from Motown to Off the Wall allows audiences to travel with Michael as he gets his start at Motown, strikes a new path with CBS records, and forges a relationship with legendary producer Quincy Jones. An illuminated portrait emerges of how an earnest, passionate, hard-working boy would become the "King of Pop".

Moonage Daydream

   2022    History
David Bowie was one of the most prolific and influential artists of our time. Working most notably in music and film, Bowie also explored various other art forms: dance, painting, sculpture, video collage, screenwriting, acting and live theatre. Bowie’s creative output and personal archives span over five million assets.
Moonage Daydream is the first film sanctioned by the Bowie estate. In 2017, the estate presented filmmaker Brett Morgen unfiltered access to Bowie’s archives, including all master recordings, to create an artful and life-affirming journey through David Bowie’s creative life. Over five years, Morgen constructed a genre-defying cinematic experience that grapples with spirituality, transience, isolation, creativity, and time to reveal the celebrated icon in his own voice.

Mountain

   2018    Nature    HD
Jaw-dropping exploration of our obsessions with high places and how they have come to capture our imagination. Only three centuries ago, climbing a mountain would have been considered close to lunacy. The idea scarcely existed that wild landscapes might hold any sort of attraction. Peaks were places of peril, not beauty. Why, then, are we now drawn to mountains?
Filmed by the world's leading high-altitude cinematographers, narrated by William Dafoe and set to a specially curated musical performance by the Australian Chamber Orchestra, Mountain captures the fierce beauty of some of the world's most treacherous landscapes and the awe they inspire.