Anastasia Trofimova gains unprecedented access to follow a Russian Army battalion in Ukraine. Without any official clearance or permits, she earns the trust of foot soldiers and over seven months embeds herself with the battalion as it makes its way across the frontlines.
What she discovers is far from the narratives propagated by the East or West: a war cutting through family and historical ties, soldiers disillusioned and often struggling to understand what they are fighting for.
When Russian forces invaded Ukraine and bombed Kyiv, film director Stas Kapralov’s family dog, Nika, ran away… Determined to find her, Stas sets out into the devastation and documents his journey as he joins volunteers helping to rescue animals. Becoming a part of their cause, Stas films the trials and successes of the volunteers as he continues his search for Nika, which takes him to ‘Sirus’ Animal Shelter, the largest in Europe, housing 3,500 animals, and still receiving emaciated and hungry dogs daily. There he meets Alexandra, the shelter director, who regularly risks her life to find food for the animals and is determined never to abandon them. Alexandra’s iron inspires Stas, and even though he is unable to locate Nika, he does not give up hope and decides to take a more active role in helping the volunteers and animals in need.
Joining forces with another volunteer, Olena, Stas documents and aids in rescuing a blind and abandoned lion, Ruru, as she’s brought across the Ukrainian border to Poland. Later, he meets Alex, a volunteer who helped Kyiv inhabitants escape the city at the start of the war and now risks his life rescuing cats left behind by their owners… Among the rubble of a bombed and burned stables, Stas hears Yura’s story, whose horses were like family members, many dying in the bombings, as he now searches for a safe home for them… In another instance, Stas journeys to Harkov, experiencing mortar shelling first-hand, as he becomes part of urgent evacuations of animals at a zoo actively being bombed, where two volunteers had been killed in previous days…
What begins as a journey motivated by the disappearance of his dog, Nika, becomes a mission to document and aid in a humanitarian movement to help as many animals as possible in Ukraine. Documenting and participating in this journey, Stas discovers stories of altruism and humanity amidst the harshest landscape of war… and by the end of his journey, Stas finally finds out what happened to his dog Nika.
The War on Drugs has failed. Okay, but ending it is more complex than just letting people sell heroin to kids in supermarkets.We think about what a legal market might actually look like. We look at different classes of drugs, exploring exactly how legal, regulated markets for heroin, cocaine and MDMA can be structured in order to protect users from harm.
We examine the social implications of prohibition worldwide. Any attempt to shut down the trade in drugs such as heroin, cocaine, ecstasy, ketamine or weed invariably sets off a chain of events that just makes things worse, leaving a trail of death, illness, violence, slavery, addiction, crime and inequality across the globe.
Everyone loses – except, in a weird kind of way, the drugs themselves.
Over the past decade or so, South American cartels have found a new way to get their product into the vast European marketplace – West Africa.
The region’s porous borders, endemic poverty and weak law enforcement make it an easy target for international organised crime. But now drug use is spilling over into local markets, and the corruption inherent in the War on Drugs has begun to warp entire societies, leading to the emergence of Africa’s first real narco-states.
We examine the social implications of prohibition worldwide. Any attempt to shut down the trade in drugs such as heroin, cocaine, ecstasy, ketamine or weed invariably sets off a chain of events that just makes things worse, leaving a trail of death, illness, violence, slavery, addiction, crime and inequality across the globe. Everyone loses – except, in a weird kind of way, the drugs themselves.
Kasey Altman lived an almost ideal life in NYC before she was diagnosed with a rare form of juvenile cancer, rhabdomyosarcoma. Instead of choosing to battle this cancer alone, she created a Tiktok account to document her journey and find community. Through the cancertok community, Kasey became a leading advocate and activist for the cancertok community.
Damian Abraham goes to Delaware to get an inside look at one of the most violent forms of professional wrestling in the world. Deathmatch is an ultra-violent style of wrestling that includes makeshift weapons, light bulb tubes, and barbed wire to ensure a maximum amount of bloodletting.
This documentary tells the story of Deathmatch wrestler David Markland (aka DJ Hyde) who organizes the controversial CZW Tournament of Death, a yearly highlight in the wrestling community that sees many fans traveling from all over the world to attend.
The Camorra is one of the oldest criminal institutions in the world, but how it functions in Naples is changing. New child criminal gangs, and the rise of stunting on social media, as opposed to the long-standing rule of omertà, means that the Camorra seemingly will never be the same.
We head to the infamous Le Vele Di Scampia, and Parco Verde, to meet a child gang that operates there, and a social worker trying to prevent these children from ending up in the clan, prison, or dead. For the first time on camera, we will hear directly from Camorra members, speaking about how they recruit and use children.
Firearms are illegal in China, but that hasn’t stopped gun enthusiasts from trying to get their hands on a loaded weapon. Many end up trekking to the Philippines to meet an ex-military man who teaches tourists gun safety—training them to fire at a target in any situation with deadly accuracy.
Millions of people worldwide are physically dependent on commonly prescribed psychiatric drugs. While these drugs can provide effective short-term relief, pharmaceutical companies have hidden -from both doctors and patients- their dangerous side effects, addictive nature and long-term harm.
Combining cinema verité and investigative journalism, Medicating Normal follows the stories of those whose lives have been torn apart by the very medications they believed would help them. Expert testimony and undercover footage reveal a systemically corrupt industry.
Medicating Normal is the untold story of the disastrous consequences that can occur when profit-driven medicine intersects with human beings in distress.
If you were able to create an immortal version of yourself, would you? Until this decade, that question was the stuff of science fiction, but now experts in the fields of artificial intelligence and robotics suggest it will indeed be possible.
This cinematic documentary explores the latest technological advancements in AI, robotics and biotech, and poses the question: what is the essence of the human mind, and can this be replicated? Or even more unsettling, could we one day meet cloned versions of ourselves – clones which are better, smarter, and immortal?
This film explores these questions with visionaries including: Nick Bostrom, author of Superintelligence, Hiroshi Ishiguro, developer of his own uncannily realistic clone Geminoid; Douglas Rushkoff, author of Team Human; Ben Goertzel, founder of Singularity.net who coined the term Artificial General Intelligence; and Deepak Chopra, who is creating his own A.I. mind twin. These visionaries see humanity advancing toward a new age of post-biological life, a world of intelligence without bodies, immortal identity without the limitations of disease, death, and unfulfilled desire. As scientists on the forefront of technology show that a world where humans and machines merge isn’t so far away, we have to ask ourselves will AI be the best, or the last thing we ever do?
Opening film at Hot Docs 2021
¨A fascinating foray deep into the realms of artificial intelligence, machine learning and biotechnology.¨ National Post Chris Knight
¨The movie at once understands both the beauty and enormity of the possibilities.¨ Global News Chris Jancelewicz
The World Health Organisation puts the number of deaths from climate change at 250,000 by 2050.
We travel the world to see how the devastation wrought by droughts, wildfires, floods and catastrophic rains – all the direct results of climate change – are a political problem, and require political solutions. From the outback of Australia, to the Pakistani Himalayas and Brazilian Amazon, this series takes us to the front line of the approaching disaster.
Along the way, we meet people and activists trying to find ways to tackle the biggest issue of the 21st century.
A combination of bad policies and political apathy is speeding up climate change. Have we reached the tipping point? Can it be reversed?
Episode 1 – Australia´s Coal Conundrum
Against the backdrop of dwindling water resources, ravaging bushfires and high unemployment, a controversial new mine set to be built in Central Queensland is being met with controversy and passionate resistance. Further mining activities promise to exacerbate the region’s already dwindling water resources while raising Australia’s contribution to global greenhouse gas emissions. The perceived silver lining in the building of the controversial Carmichael Mine is the promise of job creation. But, at what cost?
Episode 2 – Brazil´s Amazonian Battle
Deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon increased 30% since Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro came to power. More than 120,000 square kilometers of the Amazon forest have been destroyed: an area a fifth the size of Wales in the last 10 years. It’s displaced around 400 indigenous groups but has also decimated a vast store of carbon that is vital for tackling climate change. The jungles produce 20% of the world’s oxygen. We go on an investigative journey to reveal the gold rush pushing communities over the edge. Along the way, we meet the Mundurukku aboriginal tribes and activists fighting to stop the destruction of Amazon jungles. We also meet activists seeking solutions for a sustainable lifestyle.
Episode 3 – Pakistan´s Himalayan Meltdown
The word Himalaya means House of Snow, and is the second largest icecap outside the polar regions. But it is melting at the fastest rate in human history. One-third of the Himalayan glaciers are projected to disappear by the end of this century due to climate change, threatening the supply of water to nearly 2 billion people across South Asia. We discover how water became a major flash point between arch-rivals India and Pakistan, due to the Siachen glacier conflict, and go undercover to observe the proliferation of water thieves in Karachi. We also examine the impact of Prime Minister Imran Khan’s billion tree tsunami, Pakistan’s bold bid to mitigate worsening climate change.
With the world fighting a deadly pandemic, another heartbreaking public health crisis is raging in North America. A new synthetic drug is killing more than gun crime, homicide and car accidents combined.
100 times stronger than heroin, the deadly opioid fentanyl is cheap, potent and small enough to send in the post. These market forces have seen it replacing the heroin supply, spreading unprecedented death, destruction and misery. And, like all epidemics, it is spreading fast.
The death toll has disproportionately affected the homeless and marginalised. And now, due to its strength and low cost, the drug is also starting to appear in party drugs, such as cocaine and cannabis – with fatal results.
We travel to Vancouver, the epicentre of the fentanyl epidemic to meet with health care workers, activists, fentanyl dealers and people who use it.
We learn of radical initiatives to fight back against a toxic drug supply and ask what the world should expect if the fentanyl epidemic spreads outside of North America.