Among those DVDs recently added to the Film Library...

AWAKENING THE DREAMER  (Ref. 392)

Of all the innumerable beliefs and hypotheses that make up our contemporary industrial perspective on life there is one that is dominant and very frequent. That's the assumption that we are disconnected, from everyone and everything. This belief configures basically all our ideas and actions. There's a crucial fallacy that we are separate. But, if there is only one, then whatever I do to you I'm actually doing it to myself, my family, and my children.
Spiritual attitude has long instructed that partition is actually an illusion. However, in the past, the narrative that's been exchanged in the modern world, whether consciously or unconsciously, has been that the world functions like a huge machine made of separate parts like a big clock. For the past four centuries, the scientific established practice has been trying to take the clock apart, and figure out how it functions, so we can use it for our own ambitions.
This rigid aspect meant that instead of realizing the relation between things, we were analyzing and taking apart those very same things. So, what developed was kind of disintegrated view of the natural world. And we became entranced with the ability that came out of this technology, and we lost our relations to each other; we lost our connection to the enigma of the cosmos.
Although the modern worldview is superior on Earth, it's valuable to identify that it's not the only worldview. Traditional, native cultures are not so concentrated on "advancement", rather they're focused on their health and persistence of the community, and they see the interdependence of all things. They try to recognize that we're related to everything... to the animals, fish, plants, trees, birds, and even to the microorganisms. Indigenous people of the world have a particularly important role to play at this moment in history. We need them to come forward and explain how they see things.
(2 hour 50 minutes)

ADAPTATION  (Ref. 389)

The self-loathing Charlie Kaufman is hired to write the screenplay adaptation for Susan Orlean's ‘The Orchid Thief’. Kaufman is going through depression and is not happy that his twin brother, Donald, has moved into his house and is taking advantage of him. Donald decides to become a screenwriter like Charlie and attends one of Robert McKee's famous seminars. Charlie, who rejects formulaic script writing, wants to ensure that his script is a faithful adaptation of The Orchid Thief. However, he comes to realize that the book does not have a usable narrative and that it is impossible to turn into a film, leaving him with a serious case of writer's block.  Things take a turn for mayhem…

KYMATICA  (Ref. 388)

We may be quick to blame secret organizations, corporations and corrupt politicians for the state of the environment. The harsh truth is that the world is in its current state because humanity is evolving and taking the world with it.

THE SHAPE OF WATER  (Ref. 352)

At a top secret research facility in the 1960s, a lonely janitor forms a unique relationship with an amphibious creature that is being held in captivity. From master storyteller Guillermo del Toro comes THE SHAPE OF WATER, an otherworldly fable set against the backdrop of Cold War era America circa 1962.

PLANETARY  (Ref. 308)

Filmmaker Guy Reid interviews NASA astronauts, environmentalists and philosophers to show that all life on the planet is inseparably interconnected. (1 hour 24 minutes)

SEARCHING FOR SUGAR MAN  (Ref. 311)

In the early 1970s, Sixto Rodriguez was a Detroit folksinger who had a short-lived recording career with only two well received but non-selling albums. Unknown to Rodriguez, his musical story continued in South Africa where he became a pop music icon and inspiration for generations. Long rumored there to be dead by suicide, a few fans in the 1990s decided to seek out the truth of their hero's fate. What follows is a bizarrely heartening story in which they found far more in their quest than they ever hoped, while a Detroit construction laborer discovered that his lost artistic dreams came true after all. (1 hour 23 minutes)

I AM NOT YOUR NEGRO  (Ref. 303)

I Am Not Your Negro is a 2016 documentary film directed by Raoul Peck, based on James Baldwin's unfinished manuscript, Remember This House. Narrated by actor Samuel L. Jackson, the film explores the history of racism in the United States through Baldwin's reminiscences of civil rights leaders Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King, Jr, as well as his personal observations of American history. It was nominated for Best Documentary Feature at the 89th Academy Awards and won the BAFTA Award for Best Documentary. (1 hour 30 minutes)

CRAZYWISE  (Ref. 300)

What can we learn from those who have turned their psychological crisis into a positive transformative experience? During a quarter-century documenting indigenous cultures, human-rights photographer and filmmaker Phil Borges often saw these cultures identify "psychotic" symptoms as an indicator of shamanic potential. He was intrigued by how differently psychosis is defined and treated in the West. Through interviews with renowned mental health professionals including Gabor Mate, MD, Robert Whitaker, and Roshi Joan Halifax, PhD, Phil explores the growing severity of the mental health crisis in America dominated by biomedical psychiatry. He discovers a growing movement of professionals and psychiatric survivors who demand alternative treatments that focus on recovery, nurturing social connections, and finding meaning. CRAZYWISE follows two young Americans diagnosed with "mental illness." Adam, 27, suffers devastating side effects from medications before embracing meditation in hopes of recovery. Ekhaya, 32, survives childhood molestation and several suicide attempts before spiritual training to become a traditional South African healer gives her suffering meaning and brings a deeper purpose to her life. CRAZYWISE doesn't aim to over-romanticize indigenous wisdom, or completely condemn Western treatment. Not every indigenous person who has a crisis becomes a shaman. And many individuals benefit from Western medications. However, indigenous peoples' acceptance of non-ordinary states of consciousness, along with rituals and metaphors that form deep connections to nature, to each other, and to ancestors, is something we can learn from. CRAZYWISE adds a voice to the growing conversation that believes a psychological crisis can be an opportunity for growth and potentially transformational, not a disease without a cure.

A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH (Ref. 384)

It’s night over Europe, the night of the 2nd May 1945. A crippled Lancaster Bomber struggles home across the English Channel. All the crew are dead save for the young pilot desperately scanning the radio waves for signs of life. His prayers are answered. June, a young radio operator picks up his signal and in the final moments of the young flyer’s life, a special bond is formed. The next morning, washed up on an English beach, Squadron Leader Peter carter is still alive! He finds June and the two fall instantly in love. Somehow he has survived. It’s a miracle... or is it? Peter Carter should have died that night but a heavenly escort missed him in the fog over the channel, and now he must face the celestial court of appeal for his right to live.

“Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s most well-known work and a perennial entry in ‘Best British films of all time’ is back on the big screen in a shiny, colour-added restoration.” - Rachel Meaden

“With its melodrama, romance and end-of-war spectral visions, the Powell and Pressburger film baffled critics in 1946. But its strangeness makes it a masterpiece.” - The Guardian

“The story is both awesome and intimate, suggesting that a single tear shed for love might stop heaven in its tracks.” - Roger Ebert

“The filmmakers' creativity is both fantastic and organic, their imagery spellbinding and gorgeous, and their scripting clever and witty.” - Parallax View

ALIVE INSIDE (Ref. 345)

Alive Inside is a joyous cinematic exploration of music's capacity to reawaken our souls and uncover the deepest parts of our humanity.  Filmaker Michael Rossato-Bennett Chronicles the astonishing experiences of individuals in America who have been revitalised and awakened by the simple act of listening to the music of their youth.

"Joyous and unexpectedly uplifting" - Los Angeles Times

"Gloriously inspirational" - The Hollywood Reporter

"A genuinely honest tearjerker" - Huffington Post

preview 'Alive Inside'...