"The fire started long before the city burned"
An in-depth and provocative look at the 1992 Los Angeles riots exploring the roots of civil unrest in California and the relationship between African Americans and LAPD.
Social & External
The people behind it
Danny Bakewell Sr.
Self
Karen Bass
Charlie Beck
Self - Chief of Police
Jeff Chang
Perry Farrell
Everlast
B-Real
Malcolm X
Self (archive footage)
Elijah Muhammad
Connie Riggs
In 1997, before the visit of the pope to Rio de Janeiro, Captain Nascimento from BOPE (Special Police Operations Battalion) is assigned to eliminate the risks of the drug dealers in a dangerous slum nearby where the pope intends to be lodged.
Unravel the case of Utah therapist Jodi Hildebrandt, whose child abuse arrest with parenting YouTuber Ruby Franke exposed a twisted tale of manipulation.
Bora Bora is the most popular destination in French Polynesia, certainly because of its lagoon, considered the most beautiful lagoon in the world. In this context, the islet could have sunk under concrete and pollution, and the reef could have been irreparably impacted. However, thanks to the will of a handful of inhabitants including the mayor of the island, Bora Bora is today a model of sustainable development, with water treatment technologies that are 15 years ahead of France, programs to rebuild corals and protect wildlife, educational actions and the rehabilitation of Polynesian traditions such as “rahui” and the establishment of a monitoring network using new technologies. All of this makes the island a veritable open-air laboratory that shows the way for all tropical coastal environments around the world.
A documentary about a 15-day river-rafting trip on the Colorado River aimed at highlighting water conservation issues.
380 kilometers from Nairobi, in the Samburu territory, lies a unique village: Umoja. Defended by a thorn fence, access is strictly forbidden to men. Created in 1991, it offers refuge to women repudiated by their husbands or victims of domestic violence. A nerve center for the community, its school is open to children from other villages, provided their families undertake not to subject them to genital mutilation or early marriage. As the new school year approaches, Jane, co-founder of the community, and Rose, teacher, meet little Samella's parents.
Sal is the Italian owner of a pizzeria in Brooklyn. A neighborhood local, Buggin' Out, becomes upset when he sees that the pizzeria's Wall of Fame exhibits only Italian actors. Buggin' Out believes a pizzeria in a black neighborhood should showcase black actors, but Sal disagrees. The wall becomes a symbol of racism and hate to Buggin' Out and to other people in the neighborhood, and tensions rise.
A young police woman is faced with the difficulties between her responsibilities at work and her personal responsibilities.
Set in the South just after the US Civil War, Laurel Sommersby is just managing to work the farm without her husband, believed killed in battle. By all accounts, Jack Sommersby was not a pleasant man, thus when he suddenly returns, Laurel has mixed emotions. It appears that Jack has changed a great deal, leading some people to believe that this is not actually Jack but an imposter. Laurel herself is unsure, but willing to take the man into her home, and perhaps later into her heart.
The film explores the pursuit of the “Chinese Dream.” Driven by mesmerizing—and sometimes humorous—imagery, this observational documentary presents a contemporary vision of China that prioritizes productivity and innovation above all.
Matimekush is landlocked in the former mining town of Schefferville, 700 km north of Sept-Îles. It was founded in the 1950s, when the Canadian government and Iron Or forced the Innu to settle down. In Canada’s Far North, there is a dire labour shortage. At Kanatamat School, the heart of the community, most of the high school teachers are from Africa.
When a worker is found murdered on the construction side, the investigation swiftly turns from things criminal to the political circumstances surrounding the building itself. Widespread corruption and neglect by the builder himself are seen to have brought the situation about. Much of the movie is filmed using hand-held cameras, and the majority of the dialogue is in the difficult-to-understand and very slangy Spanish dialect of Mexico City's bricklayers.
Air Jaws claims new turf in South Africa. Dr. Neil Hammershlag and Enrico Gennari follow with brand new technology: a "drone-towed" seal decoy to study and capture the harrowing and dramatic battles between shark and seal.
The story of Bobby Sands, the IRA member who led the 1981 hunger strike during The Troubles in which Irish Republican prisoners tried to win political status.
African-American Philadelphia police detective Virgil Tibbs is arrested on suspicion of murder by Bill Gillespie, the racist police chief of tiny Sparta, Mississippi. After Tibbs proves not only his own innocence but that of another man, he joins forces with Gillespie to track down the real killer. Their investigation takes them through every social level of the town, with Tibbs making enemies as well as unlikely friends as he hunts for the truth.
After leading his football team to 15 winning seasons, coach Bill Yoast is demoted and replaced by Herman Boone – tough, opinionated and as different from the beloved Yoast as he could be. The two men learn to overcome their differences and turn a group of hostile young men into champions.
Trucker Rubber Duck and his buddies Pig Pen, Widow Woman and Spider Mike use their CB radios to warn one another of the presence of cops. But conniving Sheriff Wallace is hip to the truckers' tactics, and begins tricking the drivers through his own CB broadcasts. Facing constant harassment from the law, Rubber Duck and his pals use their radios to coordinate a vast convoy and rule the road.
Suicide is one of the world's leading causes of death, with almost 800,000 people taking their own lives every year, not counting those who go unrecorded. What drives people to take their own lives, and how can they be prevented from doing so? This documentary attempts to provide some answers.
While protecting an Amish boy—the sole witness to a brutal murder—and his mother, a detective is forced to seek refuge within their community when his own life comes under threat.
Filmed over 23 years, Rise of the Warrior Apes tells the epic story of an extraordinary troop of chimpanzees in Ngogo, Uganda – featuring four mighty warriors who rule through moral ambiguity, questionable politics, strategic alliances and destroyed trust.
Twenty-five years after the verdict in the Rodney King trial sparked several days of protests, violence and looting in Los Angeles, LA 92 immerses viewers in that tumultuous period through stunning and rarely seen archival footage.
A chronicle of the rise and fall of O.J. Simpson, whose high-profile murder trial exposed the extent of American racial tensions, revealing a fractured and divided nation.
With a first-person look at the notorious Crips and Bloods, this film examines the conditions that have lead to decades of devastating gang violence among young African Americans growing up in South Los Angeles.
A documentary on the expletive's origin, why it offends some people so deeply, and what can be gained from its use.
An in-depth look at the prison system in the United States and how it reveals the nation's history of racial inequality.
Police bodycam footage reveals how a long-running neighborhood dispute turned fatal in this documentary about fear, prejudice and Stand Your Ground laws.
The documentary is an immersive chronicle of the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, when thousands of American citizens from across the country gathered in Washington D.C. to protest the results of the 2020 presidential election, many with the intent of disrupting the certification of Joe Biden's presidency.
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.
This documentary brings to life the stories of four people believed by their family and friends to be “DB Cooper,” a man who hijacked a 727 flying out of Seattle and jumped from the plane over the wilds of Washington State with a parachute and $200,000, never to be heard from again.
A visual montage portrait of our contemporary world dominated by globalized technology and violence.
A string of threatening emails escalates into a revenge plot involving a newly married US marshal and his ex-girlfriend.
Working from the text of James Baldwin’s unfinished final novel, director Raoul Peck creates a meditation on what it means to be Black in the United States.
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.
A documentary shot by filmmakers all over the world that serves as a time capsule to show future generations what it was like to be alive on the 24th of July, 2010.
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.
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.
In 1936, Victor H. Green (1892-1960) published The Negro Motorist Green Book, a book that was both a travel guide and a survival manual, to help African-Americans navigate safe those regions of the United States where segregation and Jim Crow laws were disgracefully applied.
A journalist and a photographer set out to memorialize the bedrooms left behind by children killed in school shootings.
Against the darkening backdrop of New Delhi's apocalyptic air and escalating violence, two brothers devote their lives to protecting one casualty of the turbulent times: the bird known as the black kite.