Tag Archives: social

Body a la Carte

We live in a world where self-image has become an obsession, where we can no longer ignore the role that science and technology play in our never-ending quest for beauty and youth.

Through touching and meaningful stories, as well as the testimonies of plastic surgeons, and interviews with experts from related fields, Body à La Carte explores the increasingly popular and fascinating phenomenon of cosmetic procedures.

In a booming industry where plastic surgery is just another product to purchase, who knows when we will bite? Even the sceptics have mirrors.

Timelines

Three girls die before their 21st birthdays. Kayleigh, 19, a victim in a fatal car accident; Amber, 16, bullied into taking her own life; and Jenna, 20, lost a fight with a rare disease. Soon after, their stories go viral and the world is given access to their lives and deaths.

Kayleigh wrote a bucket list that was shared the world over after her death, inspiring thousands of strangers to live her dreams. Amber seemed to have it all, her suicide sent shockwaves through her small town, questions are asked and a portrait of online bullying and torment emerge. Jenna is diagnosed with a disease so rare that doctors didn’t know how to treat it, turning to social media to find support and raise awareness, her campaign ‘Get Me to 21’ makes her a star, and saves lives but sadly not her own.

Timelines is a documentary about three young girls who lived and died on the internet, a story about grief in the digital age and how personas are shaped online. And for the families the question remains, how do you say goodbye, when death goes viral?

Timelines from Sideways Film on Vimeo.

Why I’m Not On Facebook

One man’s soul searching decision on whether or not he should join Facebook sets him off on an epic journey of self-discovery as he weighs the pros and cons of becoming a member of the world’s largest social network.

From long lost high school friends who use it to stay in touch with classmates, to the pick-up artist who trolls the site to score with women, to the criminal who tracks your every movement to know when to rob your house, the best and worst of Facebook is on display. We meet couples bought together using the site, and those driven apart, people who are addicted to its charms and even the Winklevoss twins, the co-creators of Facebook.

Blending interviews with news clips, TV shows and other archival footage, Brant Pindivic documents his search for the meaning of Facebook with a storytelling style that is both personal and endearing, throwing up surprises through out his journey.

The deeper he explores the social network’s vice like grip on those who use it the more he realizes the answers to its popularity lie within.   Whether you’re a fan of Facebook or not, this is one film that is funny, fascinating and a must for anyone wondering what everyone is talking about.

How Colonial-Era Laws Still Punish Gay People

A set of laws known as the penal code was exported from Britain to its colonies and is still affecting LGBTQ politics to this very day.

The penal code laws made being gay a criminal offence, and while Britain decriminalized homosexuality in 1967, it’s still illegal in over 30 former British colonies.

These countries didn’t have a history of homophobia before Britain enforced their own ideas of morality, but thanks to the empire these laws mean many live in fear. Zing Tsjeng investigates how the legacy of the empire is still ruining lives to this day.

India’s Sex Toy Revolution

Sex Toys – are they legal? Should you be playing with them? Would your doctor recommend them? We visit a roadside sex toy stall, take part in a focus-group for an online sex toy company, and meet experts who give us the lowdown on everything you would need to know as a (first time) sex toy owner or even as a connoisseur of sexual aids.

We meet people at the centre of India’s sex positive revolution through its most intimate obsessions and explicit moments. Host Rytasha Rathore dives into sexuality of modern India probing at uncomfortable conversations that continue only behind closed doors.

The Psychedelic Boom

The UK is experiencing a psychedelic renaissance. Young people in England and Wales are taking three times more LSD than they did five years ago, scientists at top universities are claiming hallucinogens can revolutionise how we treat mental illness and the use of magic mushrooms has been increasing by around 40 percent year on year.

Music festivals are awash with recreational trippers, but we also see how psychedelics have become a new health craze by attending a shamanic magic mushroom ceremony in which 50 people trip out in a London warehouse. Despite studies showing that psychedelics are some of the safest drugs you can take, we meet one person who spilled a bottle of acid on himself and never stopped hallucinating.

What is making this new generation of drug takers so interested in self-transformation? And as the self-help trend grows, what happens when thousands of people start trying to solve their mental health problems themselves by taking powerful hallucinogens in unregulated settings?

The Rise of Deadly Tiger Attacks

Residents of the protected Leuser National Park in Aceh struggle to keep Sumatran tigers away from their livestock and homes. Once a rarity, these kinds of attacks are now on the rise in North Sumatra. Between 2019 and 2020, Sumatran tigers killed at least 20 cattle in this region alone.

The attacks are also an economic strain on the region’s farmers, costing around $10,000 in lost cattle. But there’s another, more concerning outcome of the rise in attacks—an environment of fear amongst those who call the forest borderlands their home.

The Freemasons and the Mafia

From a local accountant who tipped off a mob boss, to a national politician accused of being a Mafia fixer – in Italy, the lines between Masonry and Mafia are blurred.

We look at different parts of the criminal economy, separating fact from myth and find out how deep the links between Freemasons and Mafia run.

The Truth About Crystal Meth

Around 500,000 people in California are addicted to methamphetamine. Out of a population of almost 40 million, that’s one in every 200 people. But this goes way beyond the US: Meth is raging across Mexico, the Philippines and South-East Asia too.

Meth is also one of the most misunderstood and unfairly stigmatized of all the illegal drugs. Here we pick apart crystal meth fact from fiction and discover how the War on Drugs has created a world on speed.

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.

How America Got Hooked on Opioids

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.

Around 58,000 Americans were killed in the Vietnam War. But in 2017 alone, 70,237 Americans died of drug overdoses; the War on Drugs is like a Vietnam War every year.

This is the story of the North America Opioid Crisis – how an oversupply of the prescription drug oxycodone collided with fifty years of drug prohibition to create an epidemic every bit as serious as COVID-19.
This terrifying crisis reaches every corner of American life, far beyond the clichés of the ‘inner-city drug user’.

The 12-Year-Olds Drug Dealers

For the past decade, the UK has been horrified by the phenomenon of County Lines – big city criminal groups using kids as young as 12 to take over the drug supply of smaller towns and villages.

It’s taken years for the police to even begin to understand that many of these children are groomed and exploited, rather than just arresting them as dealers. We show how county lines are a direct product of the War on Drugs itself.

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.

The Opioid Crisis Sweeping Africa

As the world has been transfixed by the opioid crisis in North America, another crisis, just as serious, has been unfolding almost unreported across Africa.

The addictive prescription painkiller Tramadol has exploded in popularity, used by everyone from workers trying to cope with long hours and grueling labor, to university students looking to have a good time. It’s even the drug of choice for members of Islamist terrorist group Boko Haram, fueling their violence.

Now, governments are threatening to crack down, using the same War on Drugs methods of repression that have failed everywhere else. And meanwhile, as counterfeit pills flood the continent, new research is questioning whether people are even taking real Tramadol at all.