To Watch

The unprecedented success story of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi began high up in the Himalayas. In the late 50s the guru arrived in Hollywood to propagate his school of meditation and "achieve world peace". He attracted numerous prominent followers, including the Beatles, Mia Farrow and Clint Eastwood. Today almost six million people worldwide practice transcendental meditation (TM). David, a young filmmaker seeking inspiration, is also prepared to give TM a try. Not least because his great professional idol, legendary director David Lynch, has personally assured him that this form of meditation is a great source of creativity and the key to success. David determines to take his hero's word for it: he submits himself to the expensive TM training, receives his personal mantra and has a go at "yogic flying". But incongruities soon begin to pile up. Among other things, the organization of the humble Indian guru has, in the meantime, grown into an empire worth billions. When the Maharishi dies suddenly, conflict over succession arises. David Lynch becomes the organization's most important international ambassador. Despite mounting doubts and a split from his girlfriend, David Sieveking still holds out hope of enlightenment. The young filmmaker sets out on a pilgrimage to the stations of the TM movement. Along the way he manages to come a little too close to some well-kept secrets and David Lynch reacts to the research of the film team by threatening legal action. That really ignites young David's seeking spirit. He travels all over the USA and then on to India, penetrating ever deeper into the Maharishi's bizarre empire. Instead of the promised "heaven on earth", David gazes into abysmal depths. Finally, upon arrival in the Himalayas, at the frigid source of the Ganges, he finds his own truth. David Sieveking successfully pulls off a delicate balancing act, telling the story of his investigative truth-seeking as a light-footed journey into the cinematic self. On an adventurous odyssey that takes him from Berlin's Teufelsberg via Hollywood to the Himalayas he interweaves his spiritual experiences and observations of the eccentric with a gripping gumshoe saga.

What do you get when you ask the people of the world to chronicle a single day in their lives? You get 80,000 submissions, 4500 hours of footage, from 192 countries. Kevin Macdonald has taken this raw material, all shot on July 24, 2010, and created a 90-minute paean to what it means to be human in the world today.

BEING IN THE WORLD takes us on a journey around the world to meet philosophers influenced by the thought of Martin Heidegger, as well as experts in the fields of sports, music, craft, and cooking, in a celebration of human beings, and our ability to find meaning in life through the mastery of physical, intellectual, and creative skills.

A look at one year in the life of four babies from around the world, from Mongolia to Namibia to San Francisco to Tokyo.

A look at the controversial author, philosopher and candidate for Slovenian presidency: Slavoj Zizek.

Without words, cameras show us the world, with an emphasis not on "where," but on "what's there." It begins with morning, natural landscapes and people at prayer: volcanoes, water falls, veldts, and forests; several hundred Balinese Hindu men perform kecak, the monkey chant. Indigenous peoples apply body paint; whole villages dance. The film moves to destruction of nature via logging, blasting, and strip mining. Images of poverty, rapid urban life, and factories give way to war, concentration camps, and mass graves. Ancient ruins come into view, and then a sacred river where pilgrims bathe and funeral pyres burn. Prayer and nature return. A monk rings a huge bell; stars wheel across the sky.

A documentary about typography, graphic design, and global visual culture.

Our film, The Living Matrix - The Science of Healing, uncovers new ideas about the intricate web of factors that determine our health. We talk with a group of dedicated scientists, psychologists, bioenergetic researchers and holistic practitioners who are finding healing potential in new places. The documentary brings together academic and independent researchers, practitioners, and science journalists whose work reveals scientific evidence that energy and information fields, not genetics, control health and wellbeing. These include internationally known healer, Dr. Eric Pearl; cellular biologist and former Stanford University professor Dr. Bruce Lipton; author Lynne McTaggart, and former U.S. astronaut Dr. Edgar Mitchell, among others. Through in-person interviews and dramatized video vignettes that document the stories of people who recovered from chronic illness - including a five-year-old boy born with cerebral palsy, an osteopathic doctor with a brain tumor, and a housewife bedridden with chronic fatigue syndrome - the film demonstrates the effectiveness of bioenergetic medicine where traditional medicine has not succeeded.

East meets West in the Deep South. An overcrowded maximum-security prison-the end of the line in Alabama's correctional system-is dramatically changed by the influence of an ancient meditation program. Behind high security towers and a double row of barbed wire and electrical fence dwells a host of convicts who will never see the light of day. But for some of these men, a spark is ignited when it becomes the first maximum-security prison in North America to hold an extended Vipassana retreat, an emotionally and physically demanding course of silent meditation lasting ten days. The Dhamma Brothers tells a dramatic tale of human potential and transformation as it closely follows and documents the stories of the prison inmates at Donaldson Correction Facility who enter into this arduous and intensive program.

The story of a band of brothers who travel the world in search of the answers to the burning questions: Who am I? Who is Man? Why do we search for meaning? Their journey brings them into the middle of the lives of the homeless on the streets of New York City, the orphans and disabled children of Peru, and the abandoned lepers in the forests of Ghana, Africa. What the young men discover changes them forever. Through one on one interviews and real life encounters, the brothers are awakened to the beauty of the human person and the resilience of the human spirit.

A collection of stories about and images of our world, offering an immersion to the core of what it means to be human.

Humanity's ascent is often measured by the speed of progress. But what if progress is actually spiraling us downwards, towards collapse? Ronald Wright, whose best-seller, A Short History Of Progress inspired SURVIVING PROGRESS, shows how past civilizations were destroyed by "progress traps" - alluring technologies and belief systems that serve immediate needs, but ransom the future. As pressure on the world's resources accelerates and financial elites bankrupt nations, can our globally-entwined civilization escape a final, catastrophic progress trap? With potent images and illuminating insights from thinkers who have probed our genes, our brains, and our social behaviour, this requiem to progress-as-usual also poses a challenge: to prove that making apes smarter isn't an evolutionary dead-end.

Jeremy Irons sets out to discover the extent and effects of the global waste problem, as he travels around the world to beautiful destinations tainted by pollution. This is a meticulous, brave investigative journey that takes Irons (and us) from skepticism to sorrow and from horror to hope.

Unique biopic about Yogananda, author of The Autobiography of a Yogi. In the 1920s, he brought Hindu spirituality to the West. This tells the story of his life and influence on yoga, religion and science, combining re-enactment, interviews, and verité.

We do not live in the physical world! Where we really live is in the invisible world of experience. It is in this world, and only in this world, that we have infinite possibilities, and are safe and at peace at all times. As long as we don't realize that this is the world in which we truly live, not only does nothing in metaphysics make any sense, but no matter what we do, what methods we use, what systems we follow, we will not achieve what it is we truly want.

In Nepal, a venerable monk, Geshe Lama Konchog, dies and one of his disciples, a youthful monk named Tenzin Zopa, searches for his master's reincarnation. The film follows his search to the Tsum Valley where he finds a young boy of the right age who uncannily responds to Konchog's possessions. Is this the reincarnation of the master? After the boy passes several tests, Tenzin takes him to meet the Dalai Lama. Will the parents agree to let the boy go to the monastery, and, if so, how will the child respond? Central to the film is the relationship the child develops with Tenzin.

How do you reconcile a commitment to non-violence when faced with violence? Why do the poor often seem happier than the rich? Must a society lose its traditions in order to move into the future? These are some of the questions posed to His Holiness the Dalai Lama by filmmaker and explorer Rick Ray. Ray examines some of the fundamental questions of our time by weaving together observations from his own journeys throughout India and the Middle East, and the wisdom of an extraordinary spiritual leader. This is his story, as told and filmed by Rick Ray during a private visit to his monastery in Dharamsala, India over the course of several months. Also included is rare historical footage as well as footage supplied by individuals who at great personal risk, filmed with hidden cameras within Tibet. Part biography, part philosophy, part adventure and part politics, "10 Questions for The Dalai Lama" conveys more than history and more than answers - it opens a window into the heart of an inspiring man. If you had only one hour, what would you ask?

Despite the advent of science, literature, technology, philosophy, religion, and so on -- none of these has assuaged humankind from killing one another, the animals, and nature. UNITY is a film about why we can't seem to get along, even after thousands and thousands of years.