Profit Motive and the Whispering Wind

As he did with his critically-acclaimed "Blockade," a documentary re-creation of the WWII siege of Leningrad, which received its NY theatrical premiere in March 2007, filmmaker Sergei Loznitsa has once again scoured the Russian film archives for "Revue," selecting excerpts from newsreels, propaganda films, TV shows and feature films that present an evocative portrait of Soviet life during the 1950s and 1960s. With scenes taken from the length and breadth of the “Soviet Motherland,” "Revue" illustrates industry and agriculture, political life, popular culture, and technology. The film’s fascinating flow of disparate scenes representing typical Soviet life of the period is, seen from today’s perspective, alternately poignant, funny, and tragic

Popularity: 7.0

This American Experience tells Whitman's life story, from his working-class childhood in Long Island, to his years as a newspaper reporter in Brooklyn when he struggled to support his impoverished family, then to his reckless pursuit of the attention and affection he craved for his work, to his death in 1892.

Popularity: 5.0

Esther Robinson's portrait of her uncle Danny Williams, Warhol's onetime lover, collaborator and filmmaker in his own right, offers a exploration of the Factory era, an homage to Williams's talent, a journey of family discovery and a compelling inquiry into Williams's mysterious disappearance at age 27.

Popularity: 5.8

Explores the Ottoman Empire killings of more than one million Armenians during World War I. The film describes not only what happened before, during and since World War I, but also takes a direct look at the genocide denial maintained by Turkey to the present day.

Popularity: 6.7

Focuses on the people, their stories and architecture spanning from the mid-1800s, when Shanghai was opened as a trading port, to the present day.

Popularity: 6.7

Filmmaker Jarreth Merz directs this eye-opening documentary about the 2008 presidential elections in Ghana, chronicling the start-to-finish drama of campaigning in a nation that's long served as a measure of the continent's political stability.

Popularity: 7.4

As he did with his critically-acclaimed "Blockade," a documentary re-creation of the WWII siege of Leningrad, which received its NY theatrical premiere in March 2007, filmmaker Sergei Loznitsa has once again scoured the Russian film archives for "Revue," selecting excerpts from newsreels, propaganda films, TV shows and feature films that present an evocative portrait of Soviet life during the 1950s and 1960s. With scenes taken from the length and breadth of the “Soviet Motherland,” "Revue" illustrates industry and agriculture, political life, popular culture, and technology. The film’s fascinating flow of disparate scenes representing typical Soviet life of the period is, seen from today’s perspective, alternately poignant, funny, and tragic

Popularity: 7.0

This American Experience tells Whitman's life story, from his working-class childhood in Long Island, to his years as a newspaper reporter in Brooklyn when he struggled to support his impoverished family, then to his reckless pursuit of the attention and affection he craved for his work, to his death in 1892.

Popularity: 5.0

Esther Robinson's portrait of her uncle Danny Williams, Warhol's onetime lover, collaborator and filmmaker in his own right, offers a exploration of the Factory era, an homage to Williams's talent, a journey of family discovery and a compelling inquiry into Williams's mysterious disappearance at age 27.

Popularity: 5.8

Explores the Ottoman Empire killings of more than one million Armenians during World War I. The film describes not only what happened before, during and since World War I, but also takes a direct look at the genocide denial maintained by Turkey to the present day.

Popularity: 6.7

Focuses on the people, their stories and architecture spanning from the mid-1800s, when Shanghai was opened as a trading port, to the present day.

Popularity: 6.7

Filmmaker Jarreth Merz directs this eye-opening documentary about the 2008 presidential elections in Ghana, chronicling the start-to-finish drama of campaigning in a nation that's long served as a measure of the continent's political stability.

Popularity: 7.4

The images comprise only of material Sergei Loznitsa found in the Moscow film archives about the siege of Leningrad during the World War II. By providing the originally silent images with a meticulously reconstructed soundtrack, the scenes from everyday life under siege seem to be set in the present. By not intervening in the montage but giving the scenes room to tell a story, the scenes transcend the specific historic events and lead a new life. They do not evoke memories of the past, but become a breathtaking reanimation of reality.

Popularity: 6.4

Dollan Cannell's documentary on the hundreds of alleged plots to assassinate Fidel Castro, and a look at the evolution of Cuban politics. If the title of this extraordinary film sounds ludicrous, don't be fooled. This film looks at the incredible story of the 638 alleged plots by the CIA and Cuban exiles to kill the Cuban leader Fidel Castro.

Popularity: 6.2

The Kabul National Museum, once known as the "face of Afghanistan," was destroyed in 1993. We filmed the most important cultural treasures of the still-intact museum in 1988: ancient Greco-Roman art and antiquitied of Hellenistic civilization, as well as Buddhist sculpture that was said to have mythology--the art of Gandhara, Bamiyan, and Shotorak among them. After the fall of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan in 1992, some seventy percent of the contents of the museum was destroyed, stolen, or smuggled overseas to Japan and other countries. The movement to return these items is also touched upon. The footage in this video represents that only film documentation of the Kabul Museum ever made.

Popularity: 9.0