Rocky Braat went to India as a disillusioned tourist. When he met a group of children with AIDS, he decided to stay. He never could have imagined the obstacles he would face, or the love he would find.
Many movies lend themselves to dramatic interpretations, but none are as rich and far ranging as Stanley Kubrick's The Shining. In LA filmmaker Rodney Ascher's ROOM 237, we hear from people who have developed far-reaching theories and believe they have decoded the hidden symbols and messages buried in the late director's film. Carefully examining The Shining inside out, and forwards and backwards, and backwards and forwards, ROOM 237 as captivating, provocative as it is pure pleasure". It gives voice to the fans and scholars who espouse these theories, reworking the film to match their ideas and intercutting it with layers of dreamlike imagery to illustrate their streams of consciousness. Sometimes outrageous, always engaging, the words of those who were interviewed are given full force by Ascher's compelling vision. Also featured at the 2012 Sundance, Cannes and Toronto film festivals.
In 2006, an Iceland-based outfit called The Sunshine Press launched the website WikiLeaks.org. As run by Australian Internet activist Julian Assange, the site's mandate involved regularly publishing top-secret documents and covert information, often regarding governments and their respective military operations". As might be expected, this set off a firestorm between those who admired the organization's bravado and resourcefulness, and those who argued, not unjustly, that the dissemination of data regarding such events as the U.S. war in Afghanistan could put untold numbers of lives at risk. In We Steal Secrets, Gibney relays the story of the WikiLeaks website from the inside, and moves beyond black and white to penetrate a complex network of activity guided by courage and idealism but also allegedly guilty of ethical insensitivity and hypocrisy. Acclaimed documentarian Alex Gibney (Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room) takes the reins for this no-holds-barred look at one of the most unusual phenomena of early 21st century media.
Follows Vice journalists Shane Smith, Ryan Duffy and Suroosh Alvi as they go to different parts of the world telling us surprising and shocking stories. In Afghanistan, the Taliban has ramped up its use of children in suicide bombing terrorist attacks. Ranging from teenagers to children as young as six years old, they are routinely manipulated and lied to as they are sent to blow up their targets. The Philippines are the most dangerous place in the world to run for office, as politicians are routinely killed by their rivals.
In the National Geographic tradition of powerful natural-history images and storytelling, this film reveals once-invisible dimensions of nature that are filled with beauty and wonder-and hold secrets crucial to our survival. It shines a fascinating spotlight on objects and events that escape the naked eye every minute of every day. Visually stunning and rooted in cutting-edge research, the film blends high-speed and time-lapse photography, electron microscopy and nanotechnology.
Super quick computers and advanced mathematical formulas have taken over trading on the financial markets from human beings -algorithms- which seem to have a life of their own. The only ones who understand the system in any way are its architects, the algorithm developers. Haim Bodek is one such algo-developer. After finding some strange wrongdoings he set out on a personal crusade against this elusive system". The machinery behind our financial markets, consisting of mathematical models, data centers and miles and miles of fiber optic cables, is disguised by technological complexity and secrecy. The builders of this financial system are a new breed of Wall Street employees -quants- mathematicians and physicists who are responsible for a technological revolution. Haim Bodek is a quant; he specialized in artificial intelligence and worked for Goldman Sachs. He knows the system from the inside, he helped build it. Haim Bodek was invited to tell his story at the "Battle of the Quants" - a recurring event where quants discuss high-frequency trading, amongst other things. Bodek wrote an algorithm for trading machines that would generate guaranteed income - a money machine that weathered the financial meltdown of 2008. But then from one day to the next the algorithm stopped working.
