Social & External
The people behind it
This feature documentary is a profile of Canadian press tycoon Roy Thomson, whose single-minded attention to business brought him riches, power, and even a baronetcy in England. A native of Timmins, Ontario, Thomson had a tremendous career as publisher, television magnate, financier, and owner of many newspapers, including leading London dailies. The film is a frank study of an equally frank man.
Documentary about what makes a house a home.
Evan Birch is a family man and esteemed professor at a distinguished university. When a female student goes missing, police Detective Malloy has reason to be suspicious when crucial evidence makes Evan the prime suspect in her disappearance.
Through eyewitness accounts and archival footage, viewers are taken on a journey through the great battles that defined President Gamal Abdel Nasser's life—from dramatic economic development initiatives to his ambitions for creating a unified Arab nation. The film chronicles his inspiring success and tragic failures while also exploring how he inspired generations of global leaders in both politics and activism.
Fifteen years have passed since the spectacular images of Jean-Paul Janssen's "Life at Your Fingertips" introduced the general public to free climbing and its embodiment: Patrick Edlinger. We witnessed the birth of a sporting phenomenon that would leave a lasting mark on generations of climbers. But fifteen years later, in 1997, beyond the myth, where is Patrick Edlinger? Gilles Chappaz found him on some of the most beautiful walls of the Verdon Gorge and other cliffs during the filming of Maurice Rebeix's documentary "Roc'n Wall 97," where he shares his climbing practice and philosophy with the younger generation, including Liv Sansoz and Arnaud Petit.
The free, almost naive view from the perspective of a child puts the "68ers" in a new, illuminating light in the anniversary year 2008. The film is a provocative reckoning with the ideological upbringing that seemed so progressive and yet was suffocated by the children's desire to finally grow up. With an ironic eye and a feuilletonistic style, author Richard David Precht and Cologne documentary film director André Schäfer trace a childhood in the West German provinces - and place the major events of those years in completely different, smaller and very private contexts.
Filmmaker Froukje van Wengerden’s 86-year-old grandmother shares a powerful memory from 1944, when she was just 14. As her story unfolds, we see a group of contemporary 14-year-old girls. Their procession of portraits permits the spectator to see simultaneously forward and back, into the future and towards the past. A miraculous testimonial that uses eye contact to focus the viewer inward and evoke unexpected emotions.
The Common Touch tells the story of Jake Bailey, viral sensation and student of Christchurch Boys High School, who was told one week before his graduation speech about his diagnosis of life-threatening cancer.
Gaëtan Chataigner has been filming his friend Philippe Katerine for nearly thirty years. The director revisits all these accumulated images in an attempt to understand how and why his artist friend became such a phenomenon. By following him step by step, sometimes questioning him, listening to his loved ones, he weaves a touching, funny, and moving portrait of this unique artist.
A spirited cancer survivor goes on a spontaneous search for 'The Berlin Patient' - the first man in the world actually cured of HIV.
A woman with a deep love of the land, Yolande Simard Perrault sees her life as having been shaped by a planetary upheaval in Charlevoix, Quebec, millions of years ago. As enduring as the Canadian Shield, she’s a woman of strength and spirit, a child of the crater left by the meteor’s impact. This documentary portrays a determined woman who’s the reflection of a land created on an immense scale. She was the creative and life partner of filmmaker Pierre Perrault, who gave up everything to be by her side. The film charts the influence of her unquenchable dreams and her contribution to the building of a people’s collective memory. In a stream of images and words, Simard Perrault recounts the splendours of the landscape and the people who shaped it. Generous and boundless, she embarks on a quest for identity that nurtures and perpetuates the oeuvre of the man who breathed new life into Quebec cinema.
Follows the artist over two years as he explores his „life after Beethoven“, as he searches for his next challenge, his identity as an artist.
She was the first to study gorillas in their natural environment: the high mountains of Rwanda, where she settled in 1967. For nearly twenty years, Dian Fossey lived with the gorillas, observed their behavior, and changed the way people viewed them. Her relentless fight against poaching prevented the species from becoming extinct. But in December 1985, the primatologist was murdered, and the mystery surrounding her death remains unsolved. Former colleagues, scientists, and biographers shed light on the impact of her work, but also on the darker sides of her personality and her uncompromising commitment.
Facing the biggest challenge of his life, Sir Chris Hoy opens up about his journey with terminal cancer and how the mental strength he honed as a six-time Olympic gold medallist is now helping him to inspire others. Drawing on his Olympic career, Chris reconsiders his purpose and how he will choose to live with cancer – turning his focus towards raising awareness and inspiring others. The story follows Chris from the early stages of planning a brand new cycling event through to being joined by friends, including Sir Andy Murray, for the end result in Glasgow: the Tour de Four, a bike ride with the ambition to raise one million pounds for charity and show fellow sufferers that it’s possible to stay active throughout their treatment.
Over nearly 20 years, filmmaker Carlos Nader lived with the Paraná truck Nilson de Paula and his family. From the beginning, the project was to conduct a documentary whose intentions become viscerally, a process also captured by the camera. During this period, becomes the lives of Nilson, who gets sick, his wife, Jane, and his only daughter, Liciane, as well as the director, who happens to be part of this circle also affectively. Major issues such as the meaning of life, are incorporated into the very fabric of the film, which oppose excerpts from the classic "The Word" (Ordet), Carl Dreyer, highlighting aesthetic and existential connections.
The story of television news correspondent Betty Rollin and her battle with breast cancer, and how her subsequent mastectomy changed her marriage, her philosophy and her entire life.
A documentary about the corrupt health care system in The United States whose main goal is to make profit even if it means losing people’s lives. "The more people you deny health insurance, the more money we make" is the business model for health care providers in America.
For over 40 years Val Kilmer, one of Hollywood's most mercurial and/or misunderstood actors, has been documenting his own life and craft through film and video. He has amassed thousands of hours of footage, from 16mm home movies made with his brothers, to time spent in iconic roles for blockbuster movies like Top Gun, The Doors, Tombstone, and Batman Forever. This raw, wildly original and unflinching documentary reveals a life lived to extremes and a heart-filled, sometimes hilarious look at what it means to be an artist and a complex man.
From the heights of her modeling fame to her tragic death, this documentary reveals Anna Nicole Smith through the eyes of the people closest to her.
In an intimate and joyful story of love in the face of loss, celebrated poets Andrea Gibson and Megan Falley find strength—and unexpected hilarity—in what might be their final year together.
With this inventive portrait, director Kirsten Johnson seeks a way to keep her 86-year-old father alive forever. Utilizing moviemaking magic and her family’s dark humor, she celebrates Dr. Dick Johnson’s last years by staging fantasies of death and beyond. Together, dad and daughter confront the great inevitability awaiting us all.
A group of British children aged 7 from widely ranging backgrounds are interviewed about a range of subjects. The filmmakers plan to re-interview them at 7 year intervals to track how their lives and attitudes change as they age.
A compilation of over 30 years of private home movie footage shot by Lithuanian-American avant-garde director Jonas Mekas, assembled by Mekas "purely by chance", without concern for chronological order.
Ozzy Osbourne faces his identity and mortality after his world stops. Dealing with health issues and Parkinson's, he questions if he can perform again while music remains his life's cornerstone.
An impressionistic portrait of the iconic actor Harry Dean Stanton comprised of intimate moments, film clips from some of his 250 films and his renditions of American folk songs.
A look behind the lens of Christopher Nolan's space epic.
On September 15, 1963, a bomb destroyed a black church in Birmingham, Alabama, killing four young girls who were there for Sunday school. It was a crime that shocked the nation--and a defining moment in the history of the civil-rights movement. Spike Lee re-examines the full story of the bombing, including a revealing interview with former Alabama Governor George Wallace.
A documentary on the making of the three Godfather films, with interviews and recollections from the film makers and cast. This feature also includes the original screen tests of some of the actors for "The Godfather" film, and some candid moments on the set of "The Godfather: Part III."
Musician and performance artist Laurie Anderson reflects on the deaths of her husband Lou Reed, her mother and her beloved dog.
Featuring a wealth of previously unseen archive, this film looks at how Bowie continually evolved: from Ziggy Stardust to the Soul Star of Young Americans, to the ‘Thin White Duke’. It explores his regeneration in Berlin with the critically acclaimed album Heroes, his triumph with Scary Monsters and his global success with Let’s Dance. With interviews with all his closest collaborators, David Bowie - Five Years presents a unique account of why Bowie has become an ‘icon of our times’.
An inside look at the years of effort and craft that went into the final installment of the Duffer Brothers' generation-defining series.
A tribute to Chadwick Boseman, celebrating his life and legacy.
The life and career of an actor, artist, and icon. His own journey through his own camera.
Alexander McQueen's rags-to-riches story is a modern-day fairy tale, laced with the gothic. Mirroring the savage beauty, boldness and vivacity of his design, this documentary is an intimate revelation of McQueen's own world, both tortured and inspired, which celebrates a radical and mesmerizing genius of profound influence.
Journey into the extraordinary world of "The Witcher" — from casting the roles to Jaskier's catchy song — in this behind-the-scenes look at the series.
As a visually radical memoir, CAMERAPERSON draws on the remarkable footage that filmmaker Kirsten Johnson has shot and reframes it in ways that illuminate moments and situations that have personally affected her. What emerges is an elegant meditation on the relationship between truth and the camera frame, as Johnson transforms scenes that have been presented on Festival screens as one kind of truth into another kind of story—one about personal journey, craft, and direct human connection.
A raw and honest behind-the-scenes look at the iconic superstar's struggle with a life-altering illness. Serving as a love letter to her fans, this inspirational documentary highlights the music that has guided her life while also showcasing the resilience of the human spirit.