Maria Florio Movies
- 2008
- Add Murder, Spies and Voting Lies: The Clint Curtis Story to QueueAdd Murder, Spies and Voting Lies: The Clint Curtis Story to top of Queue
Documentary filmmaker Patty Sharaf addresses the controversial topic of election fraud by exploring the case of an everyday computer programmer who was approached by a powerful Republican legislator from Florida to create vote-swapping software for electronic voting machines. Follow along as prominent journalist/blogger Brad Friedman shines a light on the dark side of American democracy by interviewing not only the very man who found himself at the wrong end of a smoking gun in the year 2000, but such prominent personalities as Gore Vidal, Harry Hursti, and Cynthia McKinney as well. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- 2008
Four time world record holding endurance swimmer Martin Strel attempts to swim all 3,375 miles of the mighty Amazon River as filmmaker John Maringoin follows him on every stroke of his treacherous and fantastic journey. Over the course of sixty-six grueling days, the hard-drinking, overweight, fifty-two year old Strel would draw on sheer willpower to accomplish his lofty goal as a hand-picked group of faith-healers, outsiders, and drunks cheered him along from the shoreline. The resulting is a film that not only focuses on the trials that Strel endured on his record-breaking swim, but also draws much-needed attention to the Amazonian Rain Forest - a landscape that faces an uncertain future due to the combined stresses of progress and pollution. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Martin Strel
- 2005
- Add Origins of Yoga: Quest for the Spiritual to QueueAdd Origins of Yoga: Quest for the Spiritual to top of Queue
Yoga expert Georg Feuerstein leads this yoga program designed to foster calmness and relaxation, discussing the long history of the practice and how it developed to meet practitioner's needs. ~ Cammila Albertson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Anuj Mazumdar, Stephen Long, (more)
In this intimate documentary about the lives of India's Yogis, filmmaker Paula Fouce explores the hearts and minds of these modern day holy men, who carry on a little seen spiritual tradition with little to no ties to conventional, material life. ~ Cammila Albertson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Mahant Sri Shiv Raj Giri, Raman Giri, (more)
Shortly after graduating from the University of California at Santa Barbara, filmmaker Tom Peosay and his wife Sue (an Asian Studies major) set out on a tour of Asia that culminated in an extended stay in the Chinese-occupied nation of Tibet. With that formative visit, the Peosays became actively interested in the small Himalayan nation's tempestuous history and, over the course of the next decade, made a number of return visits to document Tibet's story, as well as interview a number of its residents and higher-profile participants of the "Free Tibet" movement. Their completed documentary, entitled Tibet: Cry of the Snow Lion, encompasses a brief history of China's invasion and subsequent five decades of rule, as well as the various uprisings that have occurred over the years -- with particular emphasis on the 1987 riots. A number of high profile Hollywood actors lent their voices to this project, including Martin Sheen (who narrated the film), Tim Robbins, Susan Sarandon, and Ed Harris. ~ Ryan Shriver, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Martin Sheen
In 1983, Interior Secretary James Watt sold coal leases at unusually low prices to developers in New Mexico, and hundreds of Navajo families were torn from their homes and displaced to other areas. The tragedy of this occurrence and the lack of humanity or even minimal human understanding of the plight of the displaced Navajo is the topic of this moving documentary. This story barely surfaced on the U.S. national news before it was forgotten. As noted in the documentary, there is a long history of injustice and neglect on the part of a U.S. bureaucracy that seems only to respond to public pressure in correcting its transgressions against the Navajo. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
