In Search of Wabi Sabi with Marcel Theroux

Olympia Part One: Festival of the Nations

1938

Starting with a long and lyrical overture, evoking the origins of the Olympic Games in ancient Greece, Riefenstahl covers twenty-one athletic events in the first half of this two-part love letter to the human body and spirit, culminating with the marathon, where Jesse Owens became the first track and field athlete to win four gold medals in a single Olympics.

Lilja 4 real

2003

Lukas Moodysson's acclaimed film Lilja 4-ever, seen by 100,000's of moviegoers is based on a real life story. The film's Lily was in fact called Danguole Rasalaites and came from Lithuania to Sweden when she was 16 years old. She was stripped of her passport and held captive in an apartment in Malmö where she was forced into prostitution.

Samurai Beyond Their Dreams: Becoming the Best in the World

2023

In December 2021, Hideki Kuriyama began devoting his days to one singular goal: hoisting the championship trophy at the 2023 World Baseball Classic. How did he mold his players into one of the best and strongest Samurai Japan teams in history? A close-up documentary that looks back on Samurai Japan's path to becoming world champions, along with valuable behind-the-scenes footage captured by the team's dedicated crew.

Floral Japan

1937

This Traveltalk visit to Japan starts with a look at the country's cherry blossom trees, tulips, and ubiquitous gardens. We then see the proper manner for preparing a woman's hair and wearing a kimono.

Samurai Headhunters

2013

A documentary on the dark and brutal side of the Samurai warrior clans featuring the life of peasant Masa who is pressganged into the ruthless world of the Samurai.

L'air mouillé

2025

The Codes of Gender

2010

Arguing that advertising not only sells things, but also ideas about the world, media scholar Sut Jhally offers a blistering analysis of commercial culture's inability to let go of reactionary gender representations. Jhally's starting point is the breakthrough work of the late sociologist Erving Goffman, whose 1959 book The Presentation of the Self in Everyday Life prefigured the growing field of performance studies. Jhally applies Goffman's analysis of the body in print advertising to hundreds of print ads today, uncovering an astonishing pattern of regressive and destructive gender codes. By looking beyond advertising as a medium that simply sells products, and beyond analyses of gender that tend to focus on either biology or objectification, The Codes of Gender offers important insights into the social construction of masculinity and femininity, the relationship between gender and power, and the everyday performance of cultural norms.

The Witches of the Orient

2021

The Japanese volleyball players called the “Oriental Witches” are now in their 70s. From the formation of the team at the factory until their victory at the Tokyo Olympics in 1964, memories and legends rise to the surface and blend inextricably.