Keyword Progress

Surfer Jay Moriarity sets out to ride the Northern California break known as Mavericks.

The story is set at the beginning of the 20th century in Sicily. Salvatore, a very poor farmer, and a widower, decides to emigrate to the US with all his family, including his old mother. Before they embark, they meet Lucy. She is supposed to be a British lady and wants to come back to the States. Lucy, or Luce as Salvatore calls her, for unknown reasons wants to marry someone before to arrive to Ellis Island in New York. Salvatore accepts the proposal. Once they arrive in Ellis Island they spend the quarantine period trying to pass the examinations to be admitted to the States. Tests are not so simple for poor farmers coming from Sicily. Their destiny is in the hands of the custom officers.

The story of a century: a decades-long second World War leaves plague and anarchy, then a rational state rebuilds civilization and attempts space travel.

Atomic scientist Peter Standish travels back in time to 1784, an era he has read about in his forefather's diaries. He falls in love with his forefather's cousin, Helen, but his contemporaries of 1784 are perplexed by his strange talk and the odd knowledge he possesses. Remake of Berkeley Square (1933).

The onset of the 21st Century will be an era in which the very nature of what it means to be human will be both enriched and challenged as our species breaks the shackles of its genetic legacy and achieves inconceivable heights of intelligence, material progress, and longevity. While the social and philosophical ramifications of these changes will be profound, and the threats they pose considerable, celebrated futurist Ray Kurzweil presents a view of the coming age that is both a dramatic culmination of centuries of technological ingenuity and a genuinely inspiring vision of our ultimate destiny.

Shankar lives in a remote village in rural India with his mother and sister, Manju, and drives a horse-carriage for a living. The main employer in the region is a kind-hearted businessman Maganlal. When Maganlal announces that he would like to undertake a religious pilgrimage, his son, Kundan, takes over and wants to cut back on labor and mechanize the business - thus leading to loss in jobs

Truth or Consequences is a speculative documentary about time and how we weave the past into the present and our possible future. Set in the small desert town of Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, the film takes place in the shadow of a nearby Spaceport and the commercial exploration of space. Through the lives of the people in town and a filmmaker from the future, the film explores progress, echoes of history, and how we each navigate a sense of loss, within ourselves and within a changing world.

"Fim do Sem Fim" is a feature-length documentary that has as its backdrop the imminent disappearance of certain trades and professions in Brazil. Shot in 10 Brazilian states, the film is a dive into the inventiveness and resistance of men in the face of technological and cultural changes.

In the modern village of the future, everything is mechanized, but the dreams of the village musician remain the same. He wants to become an artist. Thanks to the fact that an Art Nouveau goddess gave him a helping hand, Janko Muzykant saves his life and escapes from the village on a Pegasus.

Ismail Merchant's feature directorial debut addresses a subject close to his heart: the expressive Urdu language of Northern India, in danger of extinction as political trends and modernization obscure its contributions to Indian culture. Merchant 's treatment is wry and good humored , as his characters - an aging Urdu poet (Shashi Kapoor) and a worshipful young college lecturer - clash despite their shared passion for the beauty of words.

Bad Times At Conformity High follows Thomas (Riley Danson). A sarcastic, fly under the radar kind of guy, who by an all power, British political goddess (Lucrita Hodkinson) has been forced into The Australian School System of All Things Conformity at -- you guessed it -- Conformity High!! Everything has been taken from him by the system, reluctantly pairing up with the mysterious Violet (Holly O'Kelly) in order to seek their completely irresponsible justice.

A prairie landscape undergoes a metamorphosis: rural idyll to over-urbanized dystopia. Director Anne Koizumi laments the changing face of her hometown of Calgary in this critique of the bacteria-like spread of suburbia and exurbia. This film was made as part of the third edition of the NFB's Hothouse apprenticeship.

Dedicated to the contradictions of scientific and technical progress, warning against one-sided technical developments that turn a person into an involuntary consumer.

We have been colonised by the machines we have built. Although we don't realise it, the way we see everything in the world today is through the eyes of the computers.