Pearl Gluck travels to Hungary to retrieve a turn-of-the-century family heirloom: a couch upon which esteemed rabbis once slept. En route for the ancestral divan, Pearl encounters a colorful cast of characters who provide guidance and inspiration.
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Why would two New York-based filmmakers dedicate five years of their lives to following three white, Jesus-loving, spandex-clad men from the Bible Belt, particularly when the world of documentary filmmaking has generated its fair share of films concerning sensationalistic religious expression and contact sports in recent years? Because it's not about wrestling, and it's not about Jesus. Against a bizarre and entertaining backdrop, and through a motley cast of characters, we are reminded of what connects us all, lest we forget what it means to be human.
Documentary about red-bereted Jimmy Mirikitani, a feisty painter working and living on the street, near the World Trade Center, when 9/11 devastates the neighborhood. A nearby film editor, Linda Hattendorf, persuades elderly Jimmy to move in with her, while seeking a permanent home for him. The young woman delves into the California-born, Japan-raised artist's unique life which developed his resilient personality, and fuel his 2 main subjects, cats and internment camps. The editor films Jimmy's remarkable journey.
In Our Mothers' Gardens celebrates the strength and resiliency of Black women and Black families through the complex, and often times humorous, relationship between mothers and daughters.
A short companion to Leviathan, set inside the fishing vessel.
Jesus 'Chuy' Aceves and a dozen living members of his extended family suffer from the very rare condition of congenital hypertrichosis, meaning they were born with excessive hair on their faces and bodies. Due to their appearance, they suffer from discrimination in all areas of their lives: the children are made fun of at school and abandoned by their 'non-hairy' parents, and the adults cannot find work unless they choose to exhibit themselves as freaks in circuses. This moving and visually arresting documentary is a portrait of Chuy and his family members. It examines their day-to-day lives and their struggle to find love, acceptance and employment.
In 1957, Ghana was the first African country to become independent of its colonial rulers, in this case the British. Kwame Nkrumah, the first president of what in 1960 became the Republic of Ghana, called on Africans from all over the world to come to Ghana to help build the new nation. The most important aim was to "undo the damage caused by the slave trade" as filmmaker Shirikiana Aina expressed it in her documentary Footprints of Pan Africanism. Several people speak in Aina’s film about the reconstruction of Ghana and Nkrumah, who was deposed in 1966, offering room for their frequently gripping personal stories. These are often marked by racism, the emerging civil rights movement and what it’s like to be black and live elsewhere. For many, returning to Africa was like going home.
A Suitable Girl follows three young women in India struggling to maintain their identities and follow their dreams amid intense pressure to get married. The film examines the women's complex relationship with marriage, family, and society.
Travel alongside the astronauts as they deploy and repair the Hubble Space Telescope, soar above Venus and Mars, and find proof of new planets and the possibility of other life forming around distant stars.
Robert De Niro, Sr., was a celebrated painter obscured by the pop-art movement. His life and career are chronicled in the artist's own words by his contemporaries and, movingly, by his son, the actor Robert De Niro.
NiiSoTeWak means “walking the path together.” Tapwewin and Pawaken are 10-year-old brothers trying to make sense of the world, their family and each other. They’re already grappling with some heady questions about identity. What does it mean to be a twin? What does it mean to be Cree? How do you define yourself when you’re forever linked to someone else? The twins discuss these questions with their two elder brothers — 22-year-old actor Asivak and 20-year-old basketball player Mahiigan — and their parents, Jules and Jake.
One Saturday morning, filmmaker Madison Thomas has a revelation: she’s just like her mother. As she thinks about a friend going through tough times, she feels the sudden urge to clean. Through the scrubbing and wiping and rinsing, Madison's thoughts drift to her mother — and her obsessive need to tidy. Madison’s mother survived a traumatic childhood: her own mother never reconciled what she went through at residential school. Cleaning offers moments of control that she didn’t have as a child. She’s fought hard, against all odds, to become a strong woman. They say trauma is in the genes, that it’s passed from one generation to the next. But strength is inherited too. Through rituals as simple as spending time together and smudging, Madison and her mother are beginning to mend the cycle of pain in their family. Declutter is an intimate look into a private moment between mother and daughter and the strength that carries them both.
Israel is the only country in the world where 18-year-old girls are drafted for compulsory military service. The frank testimonials of six female Israeli soldiers stationed in Gaza and the West Bank sees the young women revisit their tours of duty in the occupied territories, and share shocking moments of negligence, flippancy, immaturity and power-tripping.
Filmed at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and the Tate Britain, London, the exhibition reveals Sargent’s power to express distinctive personalities, power dynamics and gender identities during this fascinating period of cultural reinvention. Alongside 50 paintings by Sargent sit stunning items of clothing and accessories worn by his subjects, drawing the audience into the artist’s studio. Sargent’s sitters were often wealthy, their clothes costly, but what happens when you turn yourself over to the hands of a great artist? The manufacture of public identity is as controversial and contested today as it was at the turn of the 20th century, but somehow Sargent’s work transcends the social noise and captures an alluring truth with each brush stroke.
When the global economy collapses the only true victors are those that weren't invited to the boom. Petey plays in a band and works in a pornography warehouse; Ginger works the night shift in a bar. From opposite coasts of the country, the two provide their personal takes on individual vs. collective crisis, together weaving a narrative that exposes a wasteland of shattered economic dreams, unfulfilled social promises and a bleak reality that only music and friendship can float freely above.
Monte Hellman was born in 1932. By 1986 he made eight features, but had not directed for six years. I had made as many documentaries, but had not turned a foot of film through a camera for two years. I decided to break the silence by spending a day with him. Nine rolls were loaded into the camera. We talked until either we or the camera ran out.
Ella Fitzgerald's voice is a phenomenon and unrivalled to this day. She had the perfect pitch and perfect intonation. Ella's voice spanned three octaves, her phrasing seemed effortless. There is almost no style of music, in which she did not excel, and her numerous - now legendary - recordings of the 'Great American Songbook' with pieces of US composers such as George and Ira Gershwin, Harald Arlen, Cole Porter or Duke Ellington, remained a benchmark for the "right" interpretation of those songs for generations of singers. In the film the focus will be on the voice of Ella Fitzgerald. We want to unravel the secret of her voice through many different people (musicians, singers, critics etc.), who will tell about what impact her voice had on them and still has. We want to learn more about Ella´s life to find out what made her sing like she did and only she could.
An epistolary feature film: a cinematic discourse between a British director Mark Cousins, and an Iranian actress and director Mania Akbari which extends the concept of "essay film" with startling confrontations in the arenas of cultural issues, gender politics and differing artistic sensibilities. A unique journey into the minds of two exceptional filmmakers which becomes a love affair on film.
Five women arrive in Italy from different countries in search of love, work, freedom.
The Hobbit Enigma examines one of the greatest controversies in science today: what did scientists find when they uncovered the tiny, human-like skeleton of a strange creature, known to many as the Hobbit, on the Indonesian island of Flores in 2003?
Starting with a long and lyrical overture, evoking the origins of the Olympic Games in ancient Greece, Riefenstahl covers twenty-one athletic events in the first half of this two-part love letter to the human body and spirit, culminating with the marathon, where Jesse Owens became the first track and field athlete to win four gold medals in a single Olympics.
In 1977, a book of photographs captured an awakening - women shedding the cultural restrictions of their childhoods and embracing their full humanity. This documentary revisits those photos, those women and those times and takes aim at our culture today that alarmingly shows the need for continued change.
Life Is But a Dream is a HBO documentary about the life of US singer Beyoncé Knowles during the years 2011 and 2012 and on the recording of her fifth album. The film was directed by Beyoncé herself. The film shows Beyoncé from intimate moments of her pregnancy to behind the scenes and rehearsals of the main concerts of that time.
Using the book 'Fragments', which collects Marilyn Monroe's poems, notes and letters, and with participation from the Arthur Miller and Truman Capote estates who have contributed more material, each of the actresses will embody the legend at various stages in her life.
Musician and performance artist Laurie Anderson reflects on the deaths of her husband Lou Reed, her mother and her beloved dog.
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.
In the Realms of the Unreal is a documentary about the reclusive Chicago-based artist Henry Darger. Henry Darger was so reclusive that when he died his neighbors were surprised to find a 15,145-page manuscript along with hundreds of paintings depicting The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What is Known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glodeco-Angelinnian War Storm, Cased by the Child Slave Rebellion.
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.
Over seven decades, actor and activist George Takei journeyed from a World War II internment camp to the helm of the Starship Enterprise, and then to the daily news feeds of five million Facebook fans. Join George and his husband, Brad, on a wacky and profound trek for life, liberty, and love.
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.
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.
BBC Arena's documentary on the Dames of British Theatre and film featuring Maggie Smith, Eileen Atkins, Judi Dench and Joan Plowright on screen together for the first time as they reminisce over a long summer weekend in a house Joan once shared with Sir Laurence Olivier.
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.
The film MISS REPRESENTATION exposes how American youth are being sold the concept that women and girls’ value lies in their youth, beauty and sexuality. Explores the under-representation of women in positions of power and influence in America, and challenges the media's limited portrayal of what it means to be a powerful woman. It’s time to break that cycle of mistruths.
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.
A documentary on the expletive's origin, why it offends some people so deeply, and what can be gained from its use.
An intimate portrait of Hollywood royalty featuring Debbie Reynolds, Todd Fisher, and Carrie Fisher.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg now 84, and still inspired by the lawyers who defended free speech during the Red Scare, Ginsburg refuses to relinquish her passionate duty, steadily fighting for equal rights for all citizens under the law. Through intimate interviews and unprecedented access to Ginsburg’s life outside the court, RBG tells the electric story of Ginsburg’s consuming love affairs with both the Constitution and her beloved husband Marty—and of a life’s work that led her to become an icon of justice in the highest court in the land.
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.
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.
An IMAX 3D camera chronicles the effort of 7 astronauts aboard the Space Shuttle Atlantis to repair the Hubble Space Telescope.