Mr. Symbol Man

The idea that there is a possibility of many worlds or multi universal theory is very new even though you may have learned about it in movies and comic books. Explore how this thinking was developed in the world of quantum mechanics and philosophy.

From the first camera to 45 billion cameras worldwide today, the visual sociologist filmmakers widen their lens to expose both humanity's unique obsession with the camera's image and the social consequences that lay ahead.

X-ray images were invented in 1895, the same year in which the Lumière brothers presented their respective invention in what today is considered to be the first cinema screening. Thus, both cinema and radiography fall within the scopic regime inaugurated by modernity. The use of X-rays on two sculptures from the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum generates images that reveal certain elements of them that would otherwise be invisible to our eyes. These images, despite being generally created for technical or scientific purposes, seem to produce a certain form of 'photogénie': they lend the radiographed objects a new appearance that lies somewhere between the material and the ethereal, endowing them with a vaporous and spectral quality. It is not by chance that physics and phantasmagoria share the term 'spectrum' in their vocabulary.

WE ARE BORN OF STARS is the first Anaglyph single projector 3D film created for IMAX/IMAX Dome projection. Using computer graphics, the film traces the development of life from the formation of atomic nuclei in stars to the molecular structure of water and DNA, zooming the audience through the five-billion-year evolution of our solar system.

The last collaboration of Artavazd Peleshian and cinematographer Mikhail Vartanov is a film-essay about Armenia's shepherds, about the contradiction and the harmony between man and nature, scored to Vivaldi's Four Seasons.

Buried Seeds, a film by Andrei Severny, is a timeless story of human passion, willpower, and resolve in the face of adversity. The film follows Michelin Star Chef Vikas Khanna's on his journey as an immigrant. Born with clubbed feet in Amritsar, Vikas is bullied by his classmates. Khanna takes refuge in his grandmothers kitchen and discovers his passion for the vivid traditions of Indian cuisine. At the age of 29, Vikas moves to New York with nothing in his pocket and ends up in a homeless shelter. Through years of struggle and hard work Vikas opens his first Indian restaurant in Manhattan. Over time Vikas Khanna grows to become one of the most influential chefs in the world and a cultural ambassador of his nation. While wealth and glory may be transient, what truly defines him is the will to create himself every single day.

A melancholy man encounters a woman from his past and reflects upon his memories with her.

The documentary tells the life story of the boxer Norbert Grupe, who was known by his fighting name Prince of Homburg.

The film is the documentary reappraisal of the carnival taboo topic par excellence, "Carnival under the swastika". First of all: He existed! See numerous historical recordings of Rose Monday parades and meetings of the 1930s.

Still I Strive is a story of transcendence through compassion, unity and hope. At one orphanage in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, the performing arts are the path to healing and transformation. Guided by their matriarch Peng Phan, a renowned actress in her own right, the children aspire to achieve one of the highest honors in Cambodian society, to perform in front of Princess Bopha Devi as a symbol of their culture and heritage. Interspersed throughout the documentary are narrative film sequences featuring the children as actors.

The film traces the journey of Stephanie Nyombayire, a young Rwandan anti-genocide activist who teams up with Sir Martin Gilbert, the renowned Holocaust historian, to travel across 15 countries and three continents interviewing survivors and descendants of the diplomats who rescued tens of thousands of Jews from the unspeakable horrors of the Nazi death camps. While Nyombayire embarks upon this quest in an effort to uncover potential solutions for the ongoing genocide in Darfur and elsewhere, what emerges from their journey is more a testament to the ways in which the inherent good in the human spirit can trump institutional evil no matter what the circumstance.

Beauty and the Beast: Comparing Two Igbo Masquerades By Herbert M. Cole