A re-enactment of one of the biggest frauds of all time. In 1969, the Equity Funding Corporation of America lacked the facts to make an accurate profit forecast because of computer troubles. They made a guess – two million dollars too optimistic. So two young executives fed fictitious insurance polices in the computer – all prefixed “99” so that they could easily be cancelled when the temporary loan was paid off. But the temptation to escalate the fraud became irresistible.
Year: 2023
Made on a wind-up Bolex camera, The Sound of Seeing announced the arrival of 21-year-old filmmaker Tony Williams. Based around a painter and a composer wandering the city (and beyond), the film meshes music and imagery to show the duo taking inspiration from their surroundings. The Sound of Seeing served early notice on Williams’ editing talents, his love of music, and his dislike of narration. It was also one of the first independently-made titles screened on Kiwi television. Composer/author Robin Maconie later wrote pioneering electronic music.
In New York City’s Flatiron District, Lucky, newly arrived from Ghana, hocks fake designer products out of back rooms with his partner, Levon. Modestly successful in their gray market endeavors, the duo are satisfied. Lucky’s cheerful life takes an unexpected turn, however, when his toddler son comes to live with him. Now, burdened with the responsibility of fathering a child, Lucky must readapt to the pressures of life as a petty criminal.
The fauna of the megalopolis, the jungle of the supermarket, the bedlam of brothels and bars, the effect of the bars in the fog, the swaying ears of corn, the swaying of men hanging from the gallows, the ripple of water – seen by the eye of the animator in harmony and conflict and accompanied by the satirical, mocking, but sometimes pure lyrical music of Erik Satie.
A freewheeling cinematic experience, this film is the work of two filmmakers who relate their perceptions of each other through their respective animation techniques. Images and words are paired in startling associations. Each does a visual portrait of the other, based on characteristic gestures and impressions. A combination of techniques and materials produces a film of rich visual texture shaped by the hands and heads of two very different people.
At the age of 12, child activist Craig Kielburger, began his extraordinary fight against child labour. He went to India to find out about the realities of children who are forced to work in the carpet trade. He confronted the Canadian Prime Minister and then he toured the world, speaking out wherever he could. The film explores the complex issue of working children, and looks at “Free The Children” – the movement Craig and his school friends founded. Shot in India, Brazil & the Philippines.
Produced in the 1970s, and at the time dubbed “The greatest wildlife film ever” by the BBC, this dramatic film records the struggle in Kenya’s Tsavo National Park to protect elephants from bow and arrow hunters supplying a rampant international ivory trade…. The film follows Tsavo’s warden, the late David Sheldrick, and his ranger force in their daily fight against armed poachers intent on wiping out Tsavo’s magnificent elephant herds and its dwindling population of Black Rhinos. We also follow the story of the baby elephants, rhino and other animals that have been orphaned due to poaching, and watch them as they are hand-reared and eventually return to the wild.