The sun does not always shine in Barcelona, the “best shop in the world” according to the slogan of a City Council campaign. The thousands of tourists who visit Barcelona every month boost the city's economy, but their social and human impact is often overlooked. The precarious nature of jobs in tourism, real estate pressure from the hotels, and the types of problems that crop up when a city turns into a kind of theme park in an attempt to seduce outsiders. The classic problems of global capitalism, reflected in one of the country's major industries... “BCN Thematic Park” talks about all this... about Barcelona, a city-advertisement that is turning into the newest theme park on the international market.

Twenty-eight members of filmmaker Claudia Lisboa's family have been operated at least once by her brother, who is a plastic surgeon in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. Her sister Juliana can't look angry thanks to her anti-wrinkle injections, Sergio himself has undergone four nose reductions, and their mother has had so many facelifts she is ageless. Claudia is the only one who has been spared the knife, and that's a real eyesore for the rest of them. She calls herself a “beauty refugee” and lives in Sweden, far away from the obsessions of her Brazilian family. In this personal documentary the filmmaker tries to reconstruct her youth and explores her own penchant for perfection.

Moqtada al Sadr and his militia, the Mehdi Army, have been America's most intractable opponents in Iraq. For five years, they have controlled large sections of the country - including half of Baghdad, defied attempts to marginalize them politically, fought pitched battles with the US Marines and only grown in size and influence. But in the Spring of 2008, the Iraqi and U.S. military launched surprising attacks against Sadr strongholds in Basra and Baghdad. After a few weeks of stiff resistance, cease-fires were negotiated and the Mehdi Army melted away from the street.

Bilal can see but his parents cannot. He is only three years old and hardly understands what blindness is. Bilal also has a little brother, Hamza. And inside a tiny dark and dank room together they live in a curious game of seeing and not seeing. Neighbors and relatives surround them. The film tells this unusual story by observing the little boy over a year by capturing rare moments of sharing love, fun, cruelty and hope... the wonder world of Bilal.

In this documentary, director Ethem Ozguven records the gradually disappearing culture of fishermen in small Turkish towns and villages on the Mediterranean coast. He only occasionally lets local fisherman talk to his disinterested camera, as they nostalgically recall the days when fishing could maintain an entire family without any problems. In recent years, however, they can barely scrape by due to various directives limiting fishing an ever-declining fish stocks. The film also draws attention to the fact that it is not just fish that are disappearing from these places, but the previously numerous Greek community as well.

Quick, ragged clips produced for Democracy Now's daily coverage of the Democratic and Republican Conventions.

With breathtaking clarity, renowned University of Massachusetts Economics Professor Richard Wolff breaks down the root causes of today's economic crisis, showing how it was decades in the making and in fact reflects seismic failures within the structures of American-style capitalism itself. Wolff traces the source of the economic crisis to the 1970s, when wages began to stagnate and American workers were forced into a dysfunctional spiral of borrowing and debt that ultimately exploded in the mortgage meltdown. By placing the crisis within this larger historical and systemic frame, Wolff argues convincingly that the proposed government “bailouts,” stimulus packages, and calls for increased market regulation will not be enough to address the real causes of the crisis - in the end suggesting that far more fundamental change will be necessary to avoid future catastrophes.

Like a puzzle, this film works on different elements: a guided tour in the waste lands of three cities (Brussels, Hamburg, Roma), a documentary about stray cats and the people who food it, some choreography of daily gesture, a question about cartography (and the common using of space), like a “wink” about the human Order and Chaos... and a statement on the present difficulties of the Inutility!

Concrete Coast is about the social, cultural and environmental effects of the last section of un-urbanized Spanish Mediterranean coast being built up for residential tourism in the Region of Murcia. Agriculture is disappearing along this 230 km stretch of coastline and being replaced by 60 golf courses, marinas, freeways and new large-scale planned communities with 1,000,000 residences, mainly for sunseeking British retirees who are set to double the population of Murcia within few years. The impacts of these large-scale economic and political forces are illustrated by a Spanish farming family having their land expropriated and a retired British couple embarking on their new life in a country where they do not even speak the language. How will all of this change the culture of the region? Will the populations integrate? Will these and other Spanish farmers have to emigrate?

Conversations With the Earth is a global indigenous-led multimedia initiative that is amplifying indigenous voices in the global discourse on climate change and enhancing local capacity for action. CWE conveys local accounts of the impacts of climate change on indigenous communities, stories of the unintended consequences of imposed mitigation efforts on local livelihoods, and examples of traditional knowledge and its value in developing appropriate responses to climate change. CWE is a way of listening closely to traditional stewards of the Earth in order to formulate a viable global response to the challenges of climate change.