Separated from his incarcerated mother at birth, the filmmaker searches for her identity and uncovers deep ancestral bloodlines. As he gets closer to this life-altering truth, he navigates his way through systems designed to keep him in the dark.
Social & External
The people behind it
Olivia Washington
Young Mother
Tommy Franklin
self
Henry Hayes
Young Tommy
Alicia Roach
This documentary film includes never-before-seen footage and exclusive interviews to tell the story of Charity Hospital, from its roots to its controversial closing in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. From the firsthand accounts of healthcare providers and hospital employees who withstood the storm inside the hospital, to interviews with key players involved in the closing of Charity and the opening of New Orleans’ newest hospital, “Big Charity” shares the untold, true story around its closure and sheds new light on the sacrifices made for the sake of progress.
The Hundred Squares: "No more delays," the cry of citizens echoes from the lives of those barely holding out against discrimination and hatred. Struggling with diverse identities in their daily lives, citizens reflect on the meaning of "discrimination" through their own experiences and testimonies. They question and reflect on what is needed to eliminate it and speak out before the camera. The Blooming Equalities: discrimination law that has been on hold for 20 years. A lawyer, a researcher, a religious figure, a writer, and an activist stand in the square again after a year, and, in this time of rampant right-wing extremism and hate, they speak of an anti-discrimination law as "the right answer to ending the insurrection, the last line of defense for human dignity, a current that can no longer be held back, a square that cannot at all harm families, churches, and the nation, and a place where the voices of the less fortunate can be heard."
The filmmakers' 21-year-old daughter journeys from locked-down psych wards and diagnostic labels toward expansive worlds of creativity, connection, and greater meaning. Featuring insights from trauma experts and others, the film challenges the widespread idea that mental illness should be understood purely in biological terms, revealing the myriad ways that madness has meaning beyond brain chemistry.
After a spell cast by Grandma Faraway, the oldest son of a small family encounters the ghost of his late Grandma Maria still living in her old house, and they chat as they used to.
An epic journey of courage, hope and generosity, filmed in 15 countries. Child of Nature follows 5 connected stories of young people who, against all odds are transforming their lives and the lives of those around them.
A brief glimpse through the life of Granny Lue. A woman of faith, fearlessness, and fierce energy, she never allowed her disability to determine her ability to live.
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.
We were just 15 minutes away from the end of the world. ABOVE ALL is a revealing short documentary about the life of an American man who ended up onboard with an atomic bomb, in the midst of the 1962 Cuban Crisis. The world was never been closer to nuclear war than this moment. A surprisingly heart-warming story told with his own words and pictures, the film is made from family home movies, including previously unseen footage from inside the US airbases. This film juxtaposes love, family and war through the arc of one man’s life. As President Kennedy addressed the world in a live televised speech of extraordinary gravity, we glimpse at the true psychology of what is was like to be in the air in those infamous moments, whilst the very essence of life on Earth was on the line.
Four families recount how they met and formed their families at a time when marriage and civil unions were denied to LGBT+ people. The film demonstrates what homophobia seeks to attack: love and family.
After learning to 'write what you know,' in film school, Half-Filipino and Half-White aspiring filmmaker Andrew Orticio travels back to his father's village in the Philippines to understand his mixed identity.
At age 25, Olivier Rousteing was named the creative director of the French luxury fashion house, Balmain. At the time, Rousteing was a relatively unknown designer, but in the decade since, he’s proven his business prowess and artistic instinct by leading Balmain to new heights. Wonderboy gives the viewer the rare opportunity to experience the inner sanctum of the fashion world, as we stand shoulder-to-shoulder with this extraordinary individual while he works.
A year after Thadd and Shannon gave birth to their son, A Conversation Between Parents highlights a climactic conversation in their lives -- as both young parents grasp at the last threads of their ideal family. On an afternoon off of work, the couple sits on their couch, while their son sleeps in his crib, and the family grapples with their limited options one last time. Dietrich’s camera ties the couple’s painful conversation together with flashbacks of both parents’ precious memories of their first year with Jasper, attempting to find a way to articulate their struggles in the last conversation they have together as a couple.
Memory is a collaboration with musician Noah Lennox (Panda Bear), exploring the relationship between a musician and filmmaker and their personal reflection on memories. From Super 8 home movies and entirely handmade, this film explores familiar memories, the present moment combined with past experiences and how it all seems to evade from our present memory.
Amateur's Riot (Shirōto no ran) is a Japanese association of activists, committed to the living conditions of the poor people (binbōnin) in Tōkyō. The association was founded in 2005 by Matsumoto Hajime, Yamashita Hikaru, Futatsugi Shin, Mochitsuki Rui and Ogasawara Keita. The protagonists of Shiroto no Ran played an important role in the anti-nuclear demonstrations that appeared in response to the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe.
An intimate insider’s journey to uncover buried truths and explore how the community in Monroe, Georgia has been impacted by the 1946 quadruple lynching and decades of racial injustice, shattering a code of silence that has distanced neighbor from neighbor for generations.
As a centuries-old black community, contaminated and uprooted by petrochemical plants, comes to terms with the loss of its ancestral home, one man standing in the way of a plant's expansion refuses to give up.
A mother and daughter, estranged by divorce and mental health issues, reconnect through patience, understanding, and their a shared appreciation of their Native Hawaiian heritage.
Police pull over a woman who claims she just gave birth. But the baby — and the blood — aren't hers. Twisted lies unravel in this true-crime documentary.
New York, 1980. Three complete strangers accidentally discover that they're identical triplets, separated at birth. The 19-year-olds' joyous reunion catapults them to international fame, but also unlocks an extraordinary and disturbing secret that goes beyond their own lives – and could transform our understanding of human nature forever.
A documentary directed by Winding Refn's wife, Liv Corfixen, and it follows the Danish-born filmmaker during the making of his 2013 film Only God Forgives.
An intimate portrait of Hollywood royalty featuring Debbie Reynolds, Todd Fisher, and Carrie Fisher.
Ranjit, a farmer in India, takes on the fight of his life when he demands justice for his 13-year-old daughter, the victim of a brutal gang rape. His decision to support his daughter is virtually unheard of, and his journey unprecedented.
Musician and performance artist Laurie Anderson reflects on the deaths of her husband Lou Reed, her mother and her beloved dog.
Serving life in prison for murdering their parents, Lyle and Erik Menendez speak out in this documentary explaining the shocking crime and ensuing trials.
Unravel the case of Utah therapist Jodi Hildebrandt, whose child abuse arrest with parenting YouTuber Ruby Franke exposed a twisted tale of manipulation.
In 2001, Andrew Bagby, a medical resident, is murdered not long after breaking up with his girlfriend. Soon after, when she announces she's pregnant, one of Andrew's many close friends, Kurt Kuenne, begins this film, a gift to the child.
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.
The film chronicles Nina Simone's journey from child piano prodigy to iconic musician and passionate activist, told in her own words.
A behind-the-scenes documentary about the recording of Aretha Franklin's best-selling album finally sees the light of day more than four decades after the original footage was shot.
Locked away from society in an apartment on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, the Angulo brothers learn about the outside world through the films that they watch. Nicknamed ‘The Wolfpack’, the brothers spend their childhood reenacting their favorite films using elaborate home-made props and costumes. Their world is shaken up when one of the brothers escapes and everything changes.
A documentary about the making of David Fincher's 2008 film THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON. Virtually every element in the evolution of the Fincher's film is documented here, from the project's attachment to numerous other directors during the 1990s, to its shoot in 2006 and 2007 in New Orleans, to its complex, CGI-intensive postproduction process.
Through deeply personal interviews with her siblings and an examination of the photographs, letters, and belongings left behind, Mariska assembles a new portrait of her mother Jayne Mansfield, an extraordinary and complex woman.
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 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.
Alternately hilarious and horrifying, Overnight chronicles one man's misadventures of making a Hollywood movie. It starts out as a rags to riches story as Troy Duffy, a Boston-bred bartender, sells his first screenplay for The Boondock Saints.
SEDUCED AND ABANDONED combines acting legend Alec Baldwin with director James Toback as they lead us on a troublesome and often hilarious journey of raising financing for their next feature film. Moving from director to financier to star actor, the two players provide us with a unique look behind the curtain at the world's biggest and most glamourous film festival, shining a light on the bitter-sweet relationship filmmakers have with Cannes and the film business. Featuring insights from directors Martin Scorsese, 'Bernando Bertolucci' and Roman Polanski; actors Ryan Gosling and Jessica Chastain and a host of film distribution luminaries.
A documentary on the expletive's origin, why it offends some people so deeply, and what can be gained from its use.