Philip Haas

The first U.S.-made film drama set during the Iraq war, THE SITUATION chronicles the tragic death of an Iraqi teenager at the hands of U.S. soldiers. The incident sets off an "investigation," a cover-up, and complications involving Iraqi mayor Sheikh Tahsin (Saïd Amadis), who has a complex relationship with the Americans.

In a near future society a man claims that his dreams physically change reality. His therapist is confused at first but soon decides to use him for his own gain. The 2002 adaptation discards a significant portion of the original plot, some essential characters, and much of the philosophical underpinnings of the book and the original PBS production. Ursula K. Le Guin disapproved of the A&E production, and stated that she found it "misguided and uninteresting".

Superficial people are revealed and drastically changed by circumstance or luck in this a tale of death, seduction, blackmail and theft among British and Americans in Florence in the turbulent days just before World War II.

In Victorian England, wealthy patriarch Sir Harald Alabaster invites an impoverished biologist, William Adamson, into his home. There, William tries to continue his work, but is distracted by Alabaster's seductive daughter, Eugenia. William and Eugenia begin a torrid romance, but as the couple become closer, the young scientist begins to realize that dark, disturbing things are happening behind the closed doors of the Alabaster manor.

Two men face the consequences of gambling after playing with men beyond their league.

A documentary on Australian Aboriginal art. The fist part is about a group of desert tribesmen who retell their legends by creating three large and elaborate ground paintings. In the second part the Aborigines of the northern coast depict the story of their ancestors in bark paintings.

MONEY MAN is a documentary film about an artist, J. S. G. Boggs, who draws money. Boggs draws his "notes" (as he calls them) with the same face as regular U.S. currency with his thumbprint on the back. He goes around trying to sell his notes to people in exchange for goods and services.

Seni Camara lives with her husband and family in the village of Bigona, in the Casamance region in southern Senegal. Working outside the local tradition of making pots and “useful” objects out of clay, Seni claims that through a “gift of God” she has been able to create thousands of bizarre, magnificent creatures — clay sculptures of astonishing originality. Although the villagers don’t know quite what to make of Seni and her art, she continues to work to support her family and to satisfy her own creative urge. The film follows Seni and her husband as they prepare the materials of her art. Together they dig up the hard dirt of the land and slowly mix it with water and sand until the clay is ready to be molded (she tells by taste). While Seni does the intense work of shaping the wet clay into her truly original forms, her husband prepares the final dye bath by harvesting and soaking wild nuts in water. Finally they fire the sculptures and dye them.

Filmmaker Philip Haas traveled to the southernmost tip of Madagascar to meet Efiaimbelo, a man in his mid-sixties who works as a funerary sculptor. The film follows Efiaimbelo as he travels to an isolated area in the countryside to cut down a special tree for sculpting. He makes it into a pole of geometric shapes, which he then tops with a finely honed sculpture of a cow. This beautiful sculpture is funerary piece, designed to ornament a grave. The film features remarkable footage of huge tombs covered with cow antlers and poles like the one we see Efiaimbelo sculpt. The tops of these poles are decorated with all sorts of animals, people and tableaux associated with the dead person. Very little has been known or seen of this funereal and artistic tradition outside the region and the film provides an extraordinarily rich visual experience.

Director Philip Haas and artist David Hockney invite you to join them on a magical journey through China via a marvelous 72-foot long 17th-century Chinese scroll entitled The Kangxi Emperor's Southern Inspection Tour (1691-1698), scroll seven . As Hockney unrolls the beautiful and minutely detailed work of art, he traces the Emperor Kangxi’s second tour of his southern empire in 1689.

Cyprien Tokoudagba is from the city of Abomey in the Benin Republic of West Africa, where he paints the religious houses of the vodun. Haas and his film crew follow Cyprien as he first paints and then takes part in the ceremony to open a new temple. The paintings include three vodun figures and several emblems, including a pipe and a duck. Cyprien explains his work in the context of the religion and takes the crew to film two other local ceremonies, one where the dead are believed to come back to instruct the living through wild dancing and, another, where women warriors perform their war dances.