1242 -Les glaneurs et la glaneuse (2000 documentary)

The Gleaners and I (French: Les glaneurs et la glaneuse; “The gleaners and the female gleaner”, a reference to the director herself) is a 2000 French documentary film by Agnès Varda that features various kinds of gleaning. It was entered into competition at the 2000 Cannes Film Festival (“Official Selection 2000”), and later went on to win awards around the world. In a 2014 Sight and Sound poll, film critics voted The Gleaners and I the eighth best documentary film of all time. In 2016, the film appeared at No. 99 on BBC’s list of the 100 greatest films of the 21st century.   /   Cinematic significance   (wiki)

imdb: Les glaneurs et la glaneuse (2000)   /   Les glaneurs et la glaneuse… deux ans après (2002)

1211 – The Toys That Made Us (TV Series 2017– )

timespace coordinates: (S01) “Star Wars” 1977 – / “Barbie” 1959 – / “He-Man” 1982 – / “G.I. Joe” 1964 – // (S02) “Star Trek” 1966 – / “Transformers” 1983 – / “LEGO” 1949 – / “Hello Kitty” 1960 – //  USA – Japan – Denmark

The Toys That Made Us is an American documentary web television series created by Brian Volk-Weiss. The first four episodes of the series began streaming on Netflix on December 22, 2017, and the next four were released in May 25, 2018.

“The minds behind history’s most iconic toy franchises discuss the rise — and sometimes fall — of their billion-dollar creations.” rottentomatoes

imdb   /   toy culture   /   netflix

1195 – Red Riding: The Year of Our Lord 1974 / 1980 / 1983 (2009)

timespace coordinates:  Yorkshire 1974 / 1980 / 1983

Red Riding (2009) is a three-part television adaptation of English author David Peace‘s Red Riding Quartet (1999–2002). The quartet comprises the novels Nineteen Seventy-Four (1999), Nineteen Seventy-Seven (2000), Nineteen Eighty (2001) and Nineteen Eighty-Three (2002) and the first, third, and fourth of these books became three feature-length television episodes: Red Riding 1974, Red Riding 1980, and Red Riding 1983. They aired in the UK on Channel 4 beginning on 5 March 2009 and were produced by Revolution Films. The three films were released theatrically in the US in February 2010.

Set against a backdrop of serial murders from 1974 to 1983, including the Yorkshire Ripper killings, the books and films follow several recurring fictional characters through a bleak and violent world of multi-layered police corruption and organised crime. Although there are allusions to real-life crimes, the plot is fictional rather than a documentary or factual account of events. Both the books and films mix elements of fact, fiction, and conspiracy theory – a confection dubbed “Yorkshire Noir” by some critics – and are notable for a chronologically fractured narrative and for defying neat or trite endings and resolutions. The name of the series is a reference to the murders and to their location, the historic county of Yorkshire being traditionally divided into three areas known as ridings.

imdb – 74 80 83 /   Historical basis   /  Theatrical film adaptation

1178 – Pandora’s Promise (2013 documentary)

Pandora’s Promise is a 2013 documentary film about the nuclear power debate, directed by Robert Stone. Its central argument is that nuclear power, which still faces historical opposition from environmentalists, is a relatively safe and clean energy source which can help mitigate the serious problem of anthropogenic global warming. Richard Branson is credited as an executive producer, as are Paul and Jody Allen, whose production company, Vulcan Productions, helped provide financial support.  A total of $1.2 million (US) was raised to finance the film, “particularly through Impact Partners, which provides documentary financing from individual investors. Mr. Stone said the money came mainly from wealthy “tech heads” who have worked in Silicon Valley.”

The title is derived from the ancient Greek myth of Pandora, who released numerous evils into the world, yet as the movie’s tagline recalls: “At the bottom of the box she found hope.” (wiki)

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The New York Times: “You need to make an argument. A parade of like-minded nuclear-power advocates who assure us that everything will be all right just doesn’t cut it.” > Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists: “In the end, by dismissing the protesters and failing to engage them in significant debate about the pros and cons of nuclear energy, the film undermined its own message.” > Seattle Weekly: “But the doc’s bigger flaw is that no one is allowed to make a reasoned anti-nuclear argument. To the well-made film’s many statistics, graphics, and common-sense assertions, the lack of a rebuttal is deafening.”

imdb   / Q&A with Jeremy Rifkin   /  review

1177 – Fukushima: A Nuclear Story (2015 Documentary, News)

“A four-year long journey in the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster and twofold tragedy that befell Japan in the March 2011, directed by Matteo Gagliardi, written by Christine Reinhold, Matteo Gagliardi e Pio d’Emilia.  (…) “Fukushima: A Nuclear Story” offers a completely original point of view on the tragedy, narrated by the actor Willem Dafoe in the English version.

Christine Reinhold and Matteo Gagliardi combine different elements in the film: The story of a journalist, Pio d’Emilia, who refused to abandon his job even when the nuclear danger was at its greatest; the doubts and fears of man in the days following the threefold tragedy; the search for the truth regarding what really happened inside the Fukushima Daiichi plant. The former prime minister Naoto Kan, in a previously unreleased interview, will reveal how Tokyo, and probably the whole of Japan, avoided a much bigger tragedy thanks to sheer luck.

The director describes the tragic events using Manga Drawings, to make them more comprehensible to our perception (…)” – vimeo

imdb

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see also https://timespacewarps.wordpress.com/2018/11/29/868-william-t-vollmann/

1171 – The Electronic Doppelganger: The Mystery of the Double in the Age of the Internet (Book by Rudolf Steiner / Andreas Neider 1917 – 2016)

“Large temptations will emanate from these machine-animals, produced by people themselves, and it will be the task of a spiritual science that explores the cosmos to ensure all these temptations do not exert any damaging influence on human beings.” —Rudolf Steiner 
In an increasingly digitized world, where both work and play are more and more taking place online and via screens, Rudolf Steiner’s dramatic statements from 1917 appear prophetic. Speaking of “intelligent machines” that would appear in the future, Steiner presents a broad context that illustrates the multitude of challenges human beings will face. If humanity and the Earth are to continue to evolve together with the cosmos, and not be cut off from it entirely, we will need to work consciously and spiritually to create a counterweight to such phenomena.
In the lectures gathered here, edited with commentary and notes by Andreas Neider, Rudolf Steiner addresses a topic that he was never to speak of again–the secret of the geographical, or ahrimanic, Doppelganger. The human nervous system houses an entity that does not belong to its constitution, he states. This is an ahrimanic being that enters the body shortly before birth and leaves at death, providing the basis for all electrical currents needed to process and coordinate sensory perceptions and react to them.
Based on his spiritual research, Steiner discusses this Doppelganger, or double, in the wider context of historic occult events relating to spirits of darkness. Specific brotherhoods seek to keep such knowledge to themselves to exert power and spread materialism. But this knowledge is critical, says Steiner, if the geographical Doppelganger and its challenges are to be understood.

goodreads   /   amazon

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The Computer and the Incarnation of Ahriman

By David B. Black (online)

1147 – Captain Fantastic (2016)

timespace coordinates: 2010’s Washington wildernes / New Mexico

Captain Fantastic is a 2016 American comedy-drama film written and directed by Matt Ross and starring Viggo Mortensen. The story centers on a family that is forced by circumstances to reintegrate into society after living in isolation for a decade.

[plot] Ben Cash and his wife Leslie and their six children live in the Washington wilderness. Ben and Leslie are former anarchist activists disillusioned with capitalism and American life, and chose to instill survivalist skills, left wing politics, and philosophy in their children – educating them to think critically, training them to be self-reliant, physically fit and athletic, guiding them without technology, demonstrating the beauty of coexisting with nature and celebrating Noam Chomsky‘s birthday instead of Christmas… (read more – wiki)

imdb