Waste = Food is an inspiring documentary on the Cradle to Cradle design concept of the chemist Michael Braungart and the architect William McDonough. Winner of the Silver Dragon at the Beijing International Science Film Festival 2006.
Synopsis: Man is the only creature that produces landfills. Natural resources are being depleted on a rapid scale while production and consumption are rising in nations like China and India. The waste production world wide is enormous and if we do not do anything we will soon have turned all our resources into one big messy landfill. But there is hope. The German chemist, Michael Braungart, and the American designer-architect William McDonough are fundamentally changing the way we produce and build. If waste would become food for the biosphere or the technosphere (all the technical products we make), production and consumption could become beneficial for the planet. A design and production concept that they call Cradle to Cradle. A concept that is seen as the next industrial revolution. Design every product in such a way that at the end of its lifecycle the component materials become a new resource. Design buildings in such a way that they produce energy and become a friend to the environment. Large companies like Ford and Nike are working with McDonough and Braungart to change their production facilities and their products. They realize that economically seen waste is destruction of capital. You make something with no value. Based on their ideas the Chinese government is working towards a circular economy where Waste = Food. An amazing story that will definitely change your way of thinking about production and consumption.
Super Rich: The Greed Game
As the credit crunch bites and a global economic crisis threatens, Robert Peston reveals how the super-rich have made their fortunes, and the rest of us are picking up the bill.
Horizon: Space Tourists
Over 40 years ago man first went into space. Ever since ordinary people have dreamt of getting there themselves. But after several false starts, a group of space obsessed entrepreneurs believe the first commercial flights into the final frontier are only a few years away.
In the uplifting and multi-award-winning documentary, filmmaker Angela Shelton drives around the United States surveying other Angela Sheltons. She discovers that 24 out of the 40 Angela Sheltons she speaks to are survivors of rape, childhood sexual abuse, and/or domestic violence (the number jumped to 28 out of 40 when 4 more Angelas broke their silence after the movie was completed).
Angela Shelton’s survey of women becomes a journey of self-discovery during which she decides to finally confront her own past and her abusive father on Father’s Day. The Angela Shelton’s complete the journey by teaching the filmmaker about healing, faith, and the power of the human spirit, no matter what your name is.
View the trailer for Searching for Angela Shelton or the full video above.
The Smartest Man in the World is about Chris Langan who has a very high IQ, somewhere between 195 to 210. In Malcolm Gladwell’s “Outliers: The Story of Success,” Gladwell writes about the issues surrounding people who have a high IQ yet aren’t as successful as he/she might think. Gladwell wrote about Chris Langan’s background to explain why Chris Langan’s not as rich or successful as people think he should be. Throughout the interview with Chris Langan, the viewer can start to tell what type of attitude Langan has towards academia. The documentary is a glimpse into a man’s potential and eventual downfall.
Part 2 & Part 3
Just To Let You Know is a short documentary which takes an honest look at the life of a 26 year old chap with Down syndrome. Hayden Stephen is a charismatic, charming man with a fantastic sense of humour. This documentary offers a glimpse into his desires and goals, and leaves the viewer with a warm heart and a sometimes conflicted mind.
When did your addiction to docs start? Michael Moore films? PBS? Or was it when you saw Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth?
For me the fascination began when my history teacher played educational movies in class. While my friends dreaded the boring videos, I was hooked learning about the life and times of Roosevelt and Jefferson, or the Depression Era, or even Roman Emperors. Whatever the topic, I was simply paralyzed not aware of the world around me.
One of the earliest doc that I can recall (and find a full vid of on the net) is The Prize. An eight part series based on the book of the same name.
The Prize has been called the “definitive” history of the oil industry, even a “bible” [1]; some critics, though, consider the book too sympathetic to the perspective of the oil industry, of which the author is, in a way, a part. The Prize was the basis for a six hour documentary television series titled “The Prize - The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, & Power”, narrated by Donald Sutherland. The series is frequently used as a source material in Middle Eastern studies classes and is said to have been seen by 20 million people in the United States.
Above is the first part.
