61st Berlinale: World Cinema in the Panorama After visiting Asia, North and South America as well as many European countries to view and select films, 24 works - that is just under half of the 50 films to be presented in the Panorama section - are now certain. They provide lively insight into the creations of world cinema during the so-called post-crisis era. What's more, they reveal that documentary film continues to be strong in 2011: documentaries again make up about a third of the pro...

"ONE LUCKY ELEPHANT" is a unique documentary starring elephants, one female in particular, who will break your heart if nothing else. The fortunate elephant in question is Lorna, a lovable pachyderm who was released from a life sentence as a St. Louis circus slave at the age of seventeen by her keeper and trainer who had fallen deeply in love with her -- and turned over to an Elephant refuge where she could live out the rest of her days free to roam greener pastures in the company of other four ...

Feuding Anthropologists, an Elephant who got away, The abuse of Vlast, and Rich space cadetsThis year's LA Film Festival had a particularly strong slate of documentaries.and the following are a few mini-reviews of the creme-de-la-creme. "SECRETS OF THE TRIBE" compiled and directed by Brazilian filmmaker José Padilha, is a very thought-provoking documentary focusing on the interference of academic anthropologists in the life of an extremely primitive tribe in the Amazon jungle, the Yanomami, in...