Educational

Just Do It

Given an exclusive access by two (Climate Camp and Plane Stupid) environmental and climate change protest groups, Emily James (director, camera) followed them in their endeavors as they enthusiastically executed their plans by putting up camp sites in air strips, super gluing themselves to each other to form human barricades, and serving cups of tea to bystanders to show their passionate sense of responsibility for the future.

John and Joe

A sure heart-melter, John and Joe shows an emotionally moving story of a father... told in a unique way. This short animation is based on the real recollection of John Vigiano Sr., a retired New York City firefighter who loses both of his sons in the September 11 attack at the World Trade Center. It was directed by The Rauch Brothers and was produced by Lizzie Jacobs and Mike Rauch.

The Man with the Beautiful Eyes

Beautifully combining the world of animation and the world of literature, Charles Bukowski's poem The Man with Beautiful Eyes is put into life by the collaboration of animator Jonathan Hodgson and illustrator Johnny Hannah. Bukowski was an American poet, novelist and short story writer from Los Angeles. His works are highly influenced by the social and cultural status of his home town and further "marked by an emphasis on the ordinary lives of poor Americans, the act of writing, alcohol, relationships with women and the drudgery of work"

A Life on Hold

There are those films that on some primal level touch straight into your heart, and A Life on Hold certainly fits this category. Directed by Nick Francis and Marc Silver, the film tells the life of Omar, a 17-year old Somalian who’s stranded in a refugee camp since the 2011 war in Libya. When the war broke out, thousands of citizens and refugees from Somalia, Sudan, and Eritrea who were staying or working at the country during that time were forced to leave their lives. In the camps, Omar and the other refugees are left with the hope that they would be relocated to a safer place.

To Shoot an Elephant

To Shoot an Elephant is a licensed documentary directed by Alberto Arce and Mohammad Rujailah about life on the Gaza Strip. This hard-hitting film has already gained international acknowledgement and awards such as the “Most Innovative Filmmaker” at Florence’s Festival dei Popoli. Despite the Israeli ban on foreign correspondents and humanitarian aid workers to cover and witness operation "Cast Lead" on the ground, there was a small group of international volunteers that managed to remain present in Gaza when the bombing started on December, 27th 2009. To Shoot an Elephant is therefore a collection of stories gathered by the only foreigners who decided and managed to stay embedded inside Gaza strip ambulances, with Palestinian civilians.

The Revolution Will Be Animated

The Revolution Will Be Animated is a twenty-minute documentary created by Marie Lormant Sebag that presents multiple viewpoints on the concept of copyright laws and free culture. It focuses on Nina Paley, the creator of the animated film Sita Sings the Blues which is available for free download. The film captures well-selected footages of Paley while talking about the copyright problems that she had encountered while creating the said film. These experiences lead to her new advocacy of allowing free content dissemination to the public domain.

American Censorship Day: November 16th, 2011 – STOP SOPA and PROTECT IP from passing!

The House Judiciary Committee scheduled a hearing on SOPA for November 16, 2011 - Today. The hearing today showed that both the sponsors and the supporters the bill have little understanding of the under workings of Internet Industry, that the opposition of this bill in Congress is not as active as the necessary and that the chance of this bill passing is still very much so real. Watch the videos below, read the articles and contact your representatives to voice your opinion. Passing of those bills are going to be the first cornerstones for open censorship in United States and quite possibly, around the world.

Marcin Jakubowski: Open-sourced blueprints for civilization

Using wikis and digital fabrication tools, TED Fellow Marcin Jakubowski is open-sourcing the blueprints for 50 farm machines, allowing anyone to build their own tractor or harvester from scratch. And that's only the first step in a project to write an instruction set for an entire self-sustaining village (starting cost: $10,000).

Khan Academy

The Khan Academy is "an organization on a mission". By providing absolutely free of charge instructional videos on topics covering anything from Algebra, Banking, Biology, Calculus, Chemistry, Astronomy, Economics, History, Geometry, Physics, Statistics, etc., it aims to help anyone, be it a professional wanting to brush up on his/her skills, middle school/University student, or a person who can not otherwise afford basic education, to live up to his/her full potential. Salman Khan, the founder of Academy, have already appeared on PBS, CNN, NBC, ABC, CBS; has been invited for talks at local schools, TED, MIT, NPR; and have been featured in Forbes' blog, just to name a few. The more recently received donation from the Gates Foundation and the prize of two million dollars from Google for winning it's Project 10 to the 100 of Ideas to change the world (selected from 150,000 submissions), have given the necessary resources to further expand this amazing project into a full blown open education movement. Today, Khan Academy team is constantly introducing, in addition to its 2100+ instructional videos, new learning tools and software to make the learning experience that much better.