PowaqqatsiMovies like Powaqqatsi
- Key Features:
- Technological advancement, Cultural impact, Modernization, Globalization, Social commentary, Human impact, Non-narrative, Visual storytelling, Human condition, Transformation, Tradition vs. modernity
- Tone:
- serious, poetic
- Target Audience:
- Globetrotters, Socially conscious viewers, Documentary enthusiasts, Cerebral
- Emotional Arc:
- ['Observation → Reflection']
Powaqqatsi

An exploration of technologically developing nations and the effect the transition to Western-style modernization has had on them.
Powaqqatsi
A visual montage portrait of our contemporary world dominated by globalized technology and violence.

Takes us to locations all around the US and shows us the heavy toll that modern technology is having on humans and the earth. The visual tone poem contains neither dialogue nor a vocalized narration: its tone is set by the juxtaposition of images and the exceptional music by Philip Glass.

A paralysingly beautiful documentary with a global vision—an odyssey through landscape and time—that attempts to capture the essence of life.

Carefully picked scenes of nature and civilization are viewed at high speed using time-lapse cinematography in an effort to demonstrate the history of various regions.

In the Bolivian altiplano, Virginio and Sisa, an elderly Quechua couple who have lived a quiet life for years, face an impossible dilemma during an unusually long drought: resist or be defeated by the hostile environment and the relentless passage of time.

A look at how climate change affects our environment and what society can do to prevent the demise of endangered species, ecosystems, and native communities across the planet.

Documentary on psychedelic potash mines, expansive concrete seawalls, mammoth industrial machines, and other examples of humanity’s massive, destructive reengineering of the planet.

While on a trip to Thailand, a successful American businessman tries to radically change his life. Back in New York, his wife and daughter find their relationship with their live-in Filipino maid changing around them. At the same time, in the Philippines, the maid's family struggles to deal with her absence.

Filmed over nearly five years in twenty-five countries on five continents, and shot on seventy-millimetre film, Samsara transports us to the varied worlds of sacred grounds, disaster zones, industrial complexes, and natural wonders.

A documentary shot by filmmakers all over the world that serves as a time capsule to show future generations what it was like to be alive on the 24th of July, 2010.

An epic cinematic and musical collaboration between SHERPA filmmaker Jennifer Peedom and the Australian Chamber Orchestra, that explores humankind's fascination with high places.

A Coca-Cola bottle dropped from an airplane raises havoc among a normally peaceful tribe of African bushmen who believe it to be a utensil of the gods.

Never-before-seen footage shows how our living in lockdown opened the door for nature to bounce back and thrive. Across the seas, skies, and lands, Earth found its rhythm when we came to a stop.

As a director and his crew shoot a controversial film about Christopher Columbus in Cochabamba, Bolivia, local people rise up against plans to privatize the water supply.

A collection of stories about and images of our world, offering an immersion to the core of what it means to be human. Through these stories full of love and happiness, as well as hatred and violence, it brings us face to face with the Other, making us reflect on our lives. From stories of everyday experiences to accounts of the most unbelievable lives, these poignant encounters share a rare sincerity and underline who we are – our darker side, but also what is most noble in us, and what is universal. Our Earth is shown at its most sublime through never-before-seen aerial images accompanied by soaring music, resulting in an ode to the beauty of the world, providing a moment to draw breath and for introspection. This film is a politically engaged work which allows us to embrace the human condition and to reflect on the meaning of our existence.

A young Japanese woman named Yoko finds her cautious and insular nature tested when she travels to Uzbekistan to shoot the latest episode of her travel variety show.

Aningaaq, an Inuit fisherman camping on the ice over a frozen fjord, talks through a two way radio with a dying astronaut who is stranded in space, 500 kilometers above Earth. Even though he doesn't speak English and she doesn't speak Greenlandic, they manage to have a conversation about dogs, babies, life and death.

An ecological drama/documentary, filmed throughout the globe. Part thriller, part meditation on the vanishing wonders of the sub-aquatic world.

A drama about explorer John Smith and the clash between Native Americans and English settlers in the 17th century.

Newly elected President Nelson Mandela knows his nation remains racially and economically divided in the wake of apartheid. Believing he can bring his people together through the universal language of sport, Mandela rallies South Africa's rugby union team as they make their historic run to the 1995 Rugby World Cup Championship match.

An epic story of adventure, starring some of the most magnificent and courageous creatures alive, awaits you in EARTH. Disneynature brings you a remarkable story of three animal families on a journey across our planet – polar bears, elephants and humpback whales.

A visually stunning documentary that reflects human's relationship to other species on Earth as humanity becomes more and more isolated from Nature.

After the uprising at Wushe, Mona Rudao faces a guerrilla war against the militarily superior Japanese and Seediq clans. He and his followers must fight for their dignity and honor so that they can truly be "Seediq Bale" or "real men." Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale - Part 2: The Rainbow Bridge is Part two of the two-part, four-hour Taiwanese edition of the film Warriors of the Rainbow.

In this special documentary that inspired a two-season television series, scientists and other experts speculate about what the Earth, animal life, and plant life might be like if, suddenly, humanity no longer existed, as well as the effect humanity's disappearance might have on the artificial aspects of civilization.

More than 65 million people around the world have been forced from their homes to escape famine, climate change and war, the greatest displacement since World War II. Filmmaker Ai Weiwei examines the staggering scale of the refugee crisis and its profoundly personal human impact. Over the course of one year in 23 countries, Weiwei follows a chain of urgent human stories that stretch across the globe, including Afghanistan, France, Greece, Germany and Iraq.

A documentary consisting of a series of travelogue vignettes providing glimpses into cultural practices throughout the world intended to shock or surprise, including an insect banquet and a memorable look at a practicing South Pacific cargo cult.

Forget all you have heard about how “Renewable Energy” is our salvation. It is all a myth that is very lucrative for some. Feel-good stuff like electric cars, etc. Such vehicles are actually powered by coal, natural gas… or dead salmon in the Northwest.

A documentary about the design of cities, which looks at the issues and strategies behind urban design and features some of the world's foremost architects, planners, policymakers, builders, and thinkers.

A man is forced to completely change his habits when he decides to move from the country to the city.

A presentation of a case for a needed transition out of the current socioeconomic monetary paradigm which governs the entire world society. This subject matter will transcend the issues of cultural relativism and traditional ideology and move to relate the core, empirical 'life ground' attributes of human and social survival, extrapolating those immutable natural laws into a new sustainable social paradigm called a 'Resource-Based Economy'.

Climate is changing. Instead of showing all the worst that can happen, this documentary focuses on the people suggesting solutions and their actions.

The destinies of two families are irrevocably tied together after a cyclist is hit off the road by a jeep in the night before Christmas Eve.

In an attempt to move on from the death of Paul, the love of her life, Korine leaves Paris to undertake a project in Mongolia. But after meeting the shaman, Oyun, her trip takes a different direction. Korine has a rare gift that Oyun intends to unveil. She agrees to initiate herself in the practice of Shamanism, leading her to discover an ancient and forgotten culture, but most importantly herself.

Film adaptation of French economist Thomas Piketty's ground-breaking global bestseller of the same name: an eye-opening journey through wealth and power.

In the 22nd century, a paraplegic Marine is dispatched to the moon Pandora on a unique mission, but becomes torn between following orders and protecting an alien civilization.

When a dispute occurs between a logging operation and a nearby Native American tribe, Dr. Robert Verne and his wife, Maggie, are sent in to mediate. Chief John Hawks insists the loggers are poisoning the water supply, and, though company man Isley denies it, the Vernes can't ignore the strangely mutated wildlife roaming the woods. Robert captures a bear cub for testing and soon finds himself the target of an angry mutant grizzly.

A hard-nosed Chicago journalist has an unlikely love affair with an eagle researcher.

Xixo is back again. This time, his children accidentally stow away on a fast-moving poachers' truck, unable to get off, and Xixo sets out to rescue them. Along the way, he encounters a couple of soldiers trying to capture each other and a pilot and passenger of a small plane, who are each having a few problems of their own.

A feature-length documentary about our complex relationship with manufactured objects and, by extension, the people who design them.

Never before have we watched as much porn as today yet the traditional porn industry is dying. The arrival of web sites showing amateur clips has transformed the way porn is made and consumed. Behind this transformation lies one opaque multinational.

A bright young yeti finds something he thought didn't exist—a human. News of this “smallfoot” throws the simple yeti community into an uproar over what else might be out there in the big world beyond their snowy village.

Pocahontas, daughter of a Native American tribe chief, falls in love with an English soldier as colonists invade 17th century Virginia.

Passionate about ocean life, a filmmaker sets out to document the harm that humans do to marine species — and uncovers an alarming global conspiracy.

The residents of an isolated town look to revive their home's identity when a group of foreigners unexpectedly arrive, bringing culture shock with them.

A woman with a tragic past decides to start her new life by hiking for one thousand miles on the Pacific Crest Trail.

An ordinary man sees a bright light descend from the sky, and discovers he now has super-intelligence and telekinesis.

Just outside of the Malian city of Timbuktu, now occupied by militant Islamic rebels who impose the Sharia on civilians and inconvenience their daily life, a cattleman kills a fisherman.

At an idyllic writers retreat in Morocco, a newly single novelist finds an unexpected connection with a younger man who's reevaluating his life choices.

A non-verbal, autistic girl and a chatty boy are partnered on a canoeing trip. To complete their journey across an urban lake, they must both learn how the other experiences the world.

A close-up portrait of the daily lives of a pair of cows: told by way of some narrative-free, intimate POV photography, with plenty of close shot images, we follow the daily routine of these animals as they live what can only be described as mundane, boring lives - all with an ultimate purpose within the human food chain.

As a child, Ali Neuman narrowly escaped being murdered by Inkhata, a militant political party at war with Nelson Mandela's African National Congress. Only he and his mother survived the carnage of those years. But as with many survivors, the psychological scars remain.

A comedy/drama set in a village and centered on a battle of the sexes, where women threaten to withhold sexual favours as long as the men refuse to install a water pipe.

A love story situated in the Himalayas. A Buddhist monk can't choose between life and the way of the Buddha.

A group of women in an isolated religious colony struggle to reconcile their faith with a series of sexual assaults committed by the colony's men.

From the UFC Octagon in Las Vegas and the anthropology lab at Dartmouth, to a strongman gym in Berlin and the bushlands of Zimbabwe, the world is introduced to elite athletes, special ops soldiers, visionary scientists, cultural icons, and everyday heroes—each on a mission to create a seismic shift in the way we eat and live.

In post-Sept. 11 Los Angeles, tensions erupt when the lives of a Brentwood housewife, her district attorney husband, a Persian shopkeeper, two cops, a pair of carjackers and a Korean couple converge during a 36-hour period.

Blackfella Charlie is getting older, and he's out of sorts. The intervention is making life more difficult on his remote community, what with the proper policing of whitefella laws that don't generally make much sense, and Charlie's kin and ken seeming more interested in going along with things than doing anything about it. So Charlie takes off, to live the old way, but in doing so sets off a chain of events in his life that has him return to his community chastened, and somewhat the wiser.

In the Old West, a 17-year-old Scottish boy teams up with a mysterious gunman to find the woman with whom he is infatuated.

A spiritual adventure film chronicling the discovery of ancient scrolls in the rainforests of Peru. The prophecy and its nine key insights predict a worldwide awakening, arising within all religious traditions, that moves humanity toward a deeper experience of spirituality.

In 1972, disenchanted about the dreary conventions of English life, 25-year-old Julia heads for Morocco with her daughters, six-year-old Lucy and precocious eight-year-old Bea.

A documentary on a former Miss Wyoming who is charged with abducting and imprisoning a young Mormon Missionary.

When a woman visits a Chinese doctor, she discovers her pain is due to pent-up rage, and the only cure is to fully express herself, whatever may come.

In a traditional tribal society in the South Pacific, a young girl, Wawa, falls in love with her chief’s grandson, Dain. When an inter-tribal war escalates, Wawa is unknowingly betrothed as part of a peace deal. The young lovers run away, refusing her arranged fate. They must choose between their hearts and the future of the tribe, while the villagers must wrestle with preserving their traditional culture and adapting it to the increasing outside demands for individual freedom.

Born a fully grown black man in a village in the Brazilian jungle, Macunaíma later magically transforms into a white man before making an adventure-filled trip to the city of São Paulo. Once there, he becomes something of a dandy, falling in love with Ci, a revolutionary who dies in an accidental bombing. After robbing a ruthless industrialist, Macunaima returns to his village where he finds his newly acquired knowledge and possessions of little use.

A renowned professor is forced to reassess her life when she is diagnosed with terminal ovarian cancer.

When a remote village is plagued by a deadly curse, one brother must fight to save his family from a terrifying supernatural threat.

A contemporary story of love, rejection, and triumph as a young Maori girl fights to fulfill a destiny her grandfather refuses to recognize.

Three New York businessmen decide to take a "Wild West" vacation that turns out not to be the relaxing vacation they had envisioned.

After a film production wraps in Peru, an American wrangler decides to stay behind, witnessing how filmmaking affects the locals.

In 1969, a young Beijing student, Chen Zhen, is sent to live among the nomadic herdsmen of Inner Mongolia. Caught between the advance of civilization from the south and the nomads' traditional enemies - the marauding wolves - to the north; humans and animals, residents and invaders alike, struggle to find their true place in the world.

Ian begins a relationship with Drew's daughter, who works in the financial sector. The couple gets involved in a tragic accident that will change their lives forever. At the same time, the accident has a major impact on both their families who, despite the class difference, cross paths.

Before entering a prestigious American university, Gabriel Buchmann decides to travel the world for one year. After ten months on the road with his backpack full of dreams, immersed at the heart of various countries, he arrives in Kenya determined to discover the African continent. Until he reaches the top of Mount Mulanje, Malawi, his final destination.

Tokyo engineer Kariya arrives on a primitive tropical island, where he interacts with the Futori clan, to drill a well to power a sugar mill.

A bush pilot in nothern Canada who with the aid of modernity thinks he can handle it all & knows it all. After reluctantly agreeing to transport a local indian girl to a medical facility his light plane crashes & they have to survive whilst finding their way back to civilization. Along the journey the man finds a new respect for the native ways as they battle to survive the elements.

An alien narrates the story of his dying planet, his and his people's visitations to Earth and Earth's self-made demise, while human astronauts in space are attempting to find an alternate planet for surviving humans to live on.

In 200,000 years of existence, man has upset the balance on which the Earth had lived for 4 billion years. Global warming, resource depletion, species extinction: man has endangered his own home. But it is too late to be pessimistic: humanity has barely ten years left to reverse the trend, become aware of its excessive exploitation of the Earth's riches, and change its consumption pattern.

When two corrupt police officers investigate the brutal murder of a young girl, tensions come to a head in their small, racially-segregated town.

An indigenous clan-based people living in harmony with nature find their way of life threatened when violent interlopers from another culture arrive, intent on seizing their natural resources and enslaving them. Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale - Part 1: The Sun Flag is Part one of the two-part, four-hour Taiwanese edition of the film Warriors of the Rainbow.

A young boy living in a remote village in the Andes Mountains dreams of becoming shaman.

Tragedy strikes a married couple vacationing in the Moroccan desert, which jumpstarts an interlocking story involving four different families.

A young woman, Chloe, living by her wits on the streets of New York City, has a chance meeting with a wise Inuit Eskimo, Theo, who was sent to New York by his elders to provide a message to the people of the world – We either change our destructive was or be destroyed by them. Chloe, who has been searching for something to believe in, becomes inspired by Theo and , with the help of a kind lawyer, Monica, the three of them present Theo’s story to the United Nations in hopes of creating a better future for all of us.

The life of Tao, and those close to her, is explored in three different time periods: 1999, 2014, and 2025.

Three stories about persons forced to think about the ethics and moral issues raised by medical advances.

Zeitgeist: Addendum premiered at the 5th Annual Artivist Film Festival. Director Peter Joseph stated: "The failure of our world to resolve the issues of war, poverty, and corruption, rests within a gross ignorance about what guides human behavior to begin with. It address the true source of the instability in our society, while offering the only fundamental, long-term solution."

A New York University professor returns from a rescue mission to the Amazon rainforest with the footage shot by a lost team of documentarians who were making a film about the area's local cannibal tribes.

J.C. Wiatt is a talented and ambitious New York City career woman who is married to her job and working towards partner at her firm. She has a live-in relationship with Steven, a successful investment broker who, along with J.C., agreed children aren't part of the plan. J.C.'s life takes an unexpected turn when a distant relative dies and the will appoints her the caretaker of their baby girl, Elizabeth. The baby's sudden arrival causes Steven to leave, breaking off their relationship. Juggling power lunches and powdered formula, she is soon forced off the fast track by a conniving colleague and a bigoted boss. But she won't stay down for long. She'll prove to the world that a woman can have it all and on her own terms too!

Pope Francis responds to questions from around the world, discussing topics including ecology, immigration, consumerism and social justice.

A small-town news reporter and a Greenpeace volunteer enlist the help of rival superpowers to save three majestic gray whales trapped under the ice of the Arctic Circle.

When her husband abruptly ends their marriage, empty nester Kate embarks on a solo second honeymoon in Africa, finding purpose and potential romance.

Two projectionists discover a disturbing film featuring the lynching of a woman. Not only are they troubled by the content of the movie, but strange events befall them following the viewing.

A young woman held in captivity discovers the realities of truth and lies in the outside world.

When a young rancher crosses paths with a Lakota girl from a nearby reservation, her mysterious disappearance sparks a search that uncovers a harrowing past and hints at a dire future.

Two missionaries come into conflict with the authorities when they turn their missionary into a parrot farm. The Bishop of Maracaibo calls them his 'black sheep' and the Monsignore has been called to check on their behavior. Like usual, our heroes help the poor to defend themselves and provoke some funny fist fights in the process.

Obsessive scientist Nathan and his lover, the naturalist Lila, discover Puff: a man born and raised in the wild. As Nathan trains the wild man in the civilized ways of the world, Lila fights to preserve the man’s natural state. In the power struggle that ensues, an unusual love triangle emerges.

When news of John Smith's death reaches America, Pocahontas is devastated. She sets off to London with John Rolfe, to meet with the King of England on a diplomatic mission: to create peace and respect between the two great lands. However, Governor Ratcliffe is still around; he wants to return to Jamestown and take over. He will stop at nothing to discredit the young princess.

As the Earth wrestles with its agonizing birth, the peoples of this barren and desolate world struggle to survive. Driven by animal instinct they compete against the harsh conditions, their giant predators, and warring tribes. When two people from opposing clans fall in love, existing conventions are shattered forever as each tribe struggles for supremacy and Man embarks on his tortuous voyage of civilization.



