Sound and Chaos: The Story of BC Studio

For over 30 years, Martin Bisi has been recording music from his studio in Gowanus, Brooklyn. He has worked with many influential musicians, including Sonic Youth, Swans, Herbie Hancock, Brian Eno and the Dresden Dolls. Now though, he finds himself squeezed in by the approaching gentrification of his neighborhood.

Art's Home is my Kassel

Every five years hundreds of thousands of international visitors come to Kassel, Germany, to be part of the documenta, one of the world's most important exhibitions in modern and contemporary art. For the duration of 100 days, the small town changes its face and becomes the centre of international art. The documentary team of Katrin and Susanne Heinz tries to capture the atmosphere - letting artists, visitors and of course the artworks speak for themselves.

The Execution of Wanda Jean

The Execution of Wanda Jean chronicles the life-and-death battle of Wanda Jean Allen, the first black woman to be put to death in the United States in the modern era.

Naked Spaces: Living Is Round

Shot with stunning elegance and clarity, NAKED SPACES explores the rhythm and ritual of life in the rural environments of six West African countries (Mauritania, Mali, Burkino Faso, Togo, Benin and Senegal). The nonlinear structure of NAKED SPACES challenges the traditions of ethnographic filmmaking, while sensuous sights and sounds lead the viewer on a poetic journey to the most inaccessible parts of the African continent: the private interaction of people in their living spaces.

Promised Lands

Susan Sontag scrutinizes the ongoing Arab-Zionist conflict and the growing divisions within Jewish thought over the question of Palestinian sovereignty. Shot in ̶I̶s̶r̶a̶e̶l̶ Occupied Palestinian Territory during the final days of the Yom Kippur War. Promised Lands is less straight documentary than visual collage. There are images of combat zones and soldiers, but also everyday street life, desert landscapes, funerals, supermarkets, the Wailing Wall. The soundtrack is snatches of radio, bursts of church bells and gunfire, and an extended voiceover from two politically opposed thinkers from ̶I̶s̶r̶a̶e̶l̶ Occupied Palestinian Territory.

After the Revolution

A wry look at the effects of sexual repression on lesbian and gays in former Czechoslovakia. After the Revolution explores the impact of the new gay movement, combining personal accounts and rarely seen propaganda film. After 40 years of totalitarian silence about sexuality, lesbian, gay and transsexual contributors reveal how they reacted to exclusion from communist norms of heterosexuality and parenthood, including in the case of some women, by changing sex.

If Mama Ain't Happy, Nobody's Happy

In a family of four generations of independent women the daughter-mother bonding is very strong.

Des poules et des grosses voitures

Nowhere Place

Where do you find the essence of your existence? On the peaks of the highest mountains in the world? Even higher, on an uninhabited planet from which you can never escape? Or is it in the deepest sorrow, by leaving a trail of destruction that will never be forgotten? This documentary essay follows various people on their quest and inevitably leads to the question: how far do you want to go?

An Intent to Enrich the Bare Mechanistic World

Prof. Petr Vopěnka is a worldwide famous Czech mathematician, author of many books concerning history of Maths, geometry above all. He is an original thinker, connecting mathematics with philosophy. He has become recognized by public because of invention of the biggest number (the so-called Vopěnka's cardinal) and thanks to being active in politics for two years - he was the first Minister of Education after 1989 revolution in Czechoslovakia. His portrait works mostly with non-synchron images trying to find the abstract qualities in the pieces of prof. Vopěnka's everyday reality, that should inspire the spectator for concentrated interpretation of the words that are mapping personality of Vopěnka - mathematician.

From Scotland with Love

Made entirely of Scottish film archive, a journey into our collective past, the film explores universal themes of love, loss, resistance, migration, work and play. Ordinary people, some long since dead, their names and identities largely forgotten, appear shimmering from the depth of the vaults to take a starring role. Brilliantly edited together, these silent individuals become composite characters, who emerge to tell us their stories, given voice by King Creosote's poetic music and lyrics

Mutationen

Cornelia Hesse-Honegger has been drawing and painting mutated insects since Chernobyl. Her large-format pictures make the invisible visible. For a long time, she was ridiculed for this. When photos of deformed butterflies from Fukushima went around the world, she felt vindicated. In the laboratory of Japanese biologist Joji Otaki on the island of Okinawa, it became obvious: radiation causes mutations.

Fumando Espero

Train On The Brain

Alison Murray travels as a hobo on freight trains across Canada and the US. She gets to know the community of train riders, especially the many girls riding the rails.

Fabulous! The Story of Queer Cinema

A chronological look at films by, for, or about gays and lesbians in the United States, from 1947 to 2005, Kenneth Anger's "Fireworks" to "Brokeback Mountain". Talking heads, anchored by critic and scholar B. Ruby Rich, are interspersed with an advancing timeline and with clips from two dozen films. The narrative groups the pictures around various firsts, movements, and triumphs: experimental films, indie films, sex on screen, outlaw culture and bad guys, lesbian lovers, films about AIDS and dying, emergence of romantic comedy, transgender films, films about diversity and various cultures, documentaries and then mainstream Hollywood drama. What might come next?

The Wrong Light

A charismatic activist leads a globally-regarded NGO that provides shelter and education for girls rescued from brothels in Northern Thailand. But as the filmmakers meet the girls and their families, discrepancies begin to emerge and the story takes an unexpected turn.

The Empty Center

Steyerl’s film traces the impact of an influx of transnational companies on the city dwellers of Berlin in post-reunification Germany. The effect of the changing economy and politics on the city and its inhabitants is echoed through their physical relocation to its outer edges. In 1990, squatters proclaim a socialist republic on the death strip. Eight years later, the new headquarters of Mercedes Benz are built in the same location. The film makes use of slow super-impositions to uncover a journey across changing architectural and cultural boundaries. "The Empty Centre" tries to give a voice and a history to those who continue to be marginalised by the simultaneous dismantling and reconstruction of the borders which they are trying to cross.

Dealing Dogs

An undercover investigation of Martin Creek Kennel is carried out by the animal rights group Last Chance for Animals. The film documents the efforts of a young animal rights activist named "Pete" to both get hired by the Martin Creek Kennel and secure enough evidence to shut down owner C.C. Baird's violation-filled kennel.

Esculturas Rupestres

"Esculturas Rupestres" (Rupestrian Sculptures) was made in Jaruco Park outside of Havana. The low relief sculptures that resembled petroglyphs, were influenced by Ana Mendieta’s interest in the indigenous Taíno people of Cuba.

The War Room

A behind-the-scenes documentary about the Clinton for President campaign, focusing on the adventures of spin doctors James Carville and George Stephanopoulos.

Feminists: What Were They Thinking?

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.

Love, Marilyn

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.

Harry Dean Stanton: Partly Fiction

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.

To Be Takei

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.

She's Beautiful When She's Angry

A documentary that resurrects the buried history of the outrageous, often brilliant women who founded the modern women's movement from 1966 to 1971.

In the Realms of the Unreal

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.

Beyoncé: Life Is But a Dream

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.

Heart of a Dog

Musician and performance artist Laurie Anderson reflects on the deaths of her husband Lou Reed, her mother and her beloved dog.

My Mom Jayne

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.

Come See Me in the Good Light

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 Decline of Western Civilization Part III

A musical study of Los Angeles in the late 90s, where homeless teens roam the streets and profess to live a punk lifestyle of music, drugs, and flouting authority.

Katy Perry: Part of Me

Giving fans unprecedented access to the real life of the music sensation, Katy Perry: Part of Me exposes the hard work, dedication and phenomenal talent of a girl who remained true to herself and her vision in order to achieve her dreams. Featuring rare behind-the-scenes interviews, personal moments between Katy and her friends, and all-access footage of rehearsals, choreography, Katy’s signature style and more, Katy Perry: Part of Me reveals the singer’s unwavering belief that if you can be yourself, then you can be anything.

The Cutting Edge: The Magic of Movie Editing

Documentary about the art of film editing. Clips are shown from many groundbreaking films with innovative editing styles.

I Am Ali

Unprecedented access to Muhammad Ali's personal archive of "audio journals" as well as interviews and testimonials from his inner circle of family and friends are used to tell the legend's life story.

Nothing Like a Dame

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.

Halftime

Global superstar Jennifer Lopez reflects on her multifaceted career and the pressure of life in the spotlight in this intimate documentary.

Cameraperson

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.

ReMastered: Tricky Dick & The Man in Black

This documentary chronicles Johnny Cash's 1970 visit to the White House, where Cash's emerging liberal ideals clashed with Richard Nixon's policies.

42 Up

Director Michael Apted revisits the same group of British-born adults after a 7 year wait. The subjects are interviewed as to the changes that have occurred in their lives during the last seven years.

Jane Fonda in Five Acts

Girl next door, activist, so-called traitor, fitness tycoon, Oscar winner: Jane Fonda has lived a life of controversy, tragedy and transformation – and she’s done it all in the public eye. An intimate look at one woman’s singular journey.