Social & External
The people behind it
A documentary on Al Gore's campaign to make the issue of global warming a recognized problem worldwide.
Carmela lives with her husband and eight children near the Ecuadorian-Colombian border. This 56-year-old Afro-Ecuadorian woman opened her home to provide free and temporary shelter for thousands who leave Venezuela on foot, hoping to find better days in other South American countries.
Sunlight is the inspirational story of Donald Gray’s quest to save children trapped in the darkness of economic and social despair. His team works daily to “save one child at a time,” from a cycle of poverty, drugs, violence, and family disintegration.
The story of a brilliant ecologist with a plan to save the world by restoring the planet's forests. His original work was hijacked by corporations and politicians with disastrous effect. Now he's using science to fight back.
Gdańsk, Poland, September 1980. Lech Wałęsa and other Lenin shipyard workers found Solidarność (Solidarity), the first independent trade union behind the Iron Curtain. The long and hard battle to bring down communist dictatorship has begun.
The film unfolds an atmospheric symphony of violence over Beirut, revealing the haunting fusion of incessant Israeli military flights and the hum of generators during blackouts. This 45-minute video essay plunges viewers into a chilling chronicle of daily life transformed by the weaponization of the air, where the terror of repeated incursions becomes a disconcertingly banal backdrop.
Throughout the Islamic world, each year hundreds of women are shot, stabbed, strangled or burned to death by male relatives because they are thought to have “dishonoured” their families. They may have lost their virginity, refused an arranged marriage or left an abusive husband. Even if a woman is raped or merely the victim of gossip, she must pay the price. Crimes of Honour documents the terrible reality of femicide – the belief that a girl’s body is the property of the family, and any suggestion of sexual impropriety must be cleansed with her blood. We meet women in hiding from their families, a brother who describes his reasons for killing the sister he loved, and a handful of women who have committed themselves to the protection of young women in danger of losing their lives.
A 3-year-old girl and her family's long journey from a Greek refugee centre to Uppsala.
Documentary about the Lyon sex workers who occupied the church of St. Nizier on June 3, 1975.
“…It is a film that tells in hurried film sequences and a resonant musical score juxtaposing the sublime, funereal despair of Bartok agains tthe gut-bare tones of folk music. Gates has through his filming technique and meticulously selected mining sites, captured all the outrage and sorrow and indignity to the land and its people that strip mining represents. The film is one that all Americans should see, for it shows extremely well the price we have to pay for strip mined coal.” - Dale A. Burk, The Montana “Missoulian”
The bleached palette and home-movie aesthetics of Super 8 footage provide the image track for this testimonial about an illegal abortion in Mexico City in the 1960s, delivered in voiceover by the filmmaker’s mother. In its account of this intimate and disorienting memory, Lesser Choices summons a time of profound uncertainty—a moment from an era without rights—and offers a warning to the present.
An exodus of migrants settled in Tijuana and they hope to cross each day regardless of the consequences, the children tell us what they see, want and what they are willing to pay.
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.
Egypt, nicknamed "the mother of the world" by its people, is unrecognizable. Gigantic construction sites have sprung up in the desert at an exponential rate, including roads, bridges, and megaprojects on the Mediterranean coast. This new Egypt is an illusion: in 10 years, the population has sunk into unprecedented poverty. The regime shows no mercy to the poor. Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, the new pharaoh, and his army have set up a pyramid-shaped financial system, built on subsidies from major international institutions—including the European Union—and foreign investment. The most populous nation in the Arab world finds itself on the brink of collapse.
How does a machine learn to read the world? Testimonies and screen recordings introduce the experience of online micro-workers from the Global South: their job is to teach the AI of self-driving cars to navigate the streets of the Global North.
Immigrant workers build a shopping mall for the upcoming 1972 Olympic Games in Munich. In 2016, nine people with migrant backgrounds are killed in a racist attack at the same mall.
An urgent and powerful documentary, shot in a detention centre where asylum seekers trying to reach Australian shores are indefinitely detained. Secretly shot on a mobile phone by Iranian journalist Behrouz Boochani while detained on Manus, in Papua New Guinea, the film is a collaboration with Dutch-Iranian filmmaker Arash Kamali Sarvestani. Boochani recounts, via the testimonies of fellow inmates, the abuse and violence inflicted and the precarious state of limbo they find themselves in. Chauka, the name of the dreaded solitary confinement unit within the detention centre, was originally the name of a beautiful bird and symbol of the Manus Island. By interweaving dialogue with two Manusian men and shots of daily life on the island, the film gives a much-needed voice to Manus inhabitants, understandably distressed by the current situation. With marked restraint, the film exposes lives broken by shocking immigration policies.
220 years after its "birth", 40 years after its theft, 22 years after its reappearance and 18 years after its second disappearance, two filmmakers follow the trail of the "unspeakable" Unspunnenstein.
A string of threatening emails escalates into a revenge plot involving a newly married US marshal and his ex-girlfriend.
The film is based on interviews with 2,000 women from 50 countries, and covers the status of women all over the world. The topics covered include forced marriages, sexual assault, female genital mutilation, acid attacks, motherhood, sexuality, menstruation, education and the professional success of women.
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.
A 1993 documentary film about Bruce Lee. The film includes interviews from some of his fellow students and opponents who worked alongside him in his movies.
A non-narrated documentary following the lovesome lives of four infants from birth to their first birthday. The babies featured are two from rural areas: Ponijao from Opuwo, Namibia, and Bayar from Bayanchandmani, Mongolia, as well as two from urban areas: Mari from Tokyo, Japan, and Hattie from San Francisco, USA.
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.
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.
A visual montage portrait of our contemporary world dominated by globalized technology and violence.
A documentary about the life and films of director John Ford.
Amber Heard and Nicole Kidman discuss their characters Mera and Atlanna.
An inside look at one of the most anticipated movie sequels ever with James Cameron and cast.
Climate is changing. Instead of showing all the worst that can happen, this documentary focuses on the people suggesting solutions and their actions.
Retrospective documentary about the making of the horror cult classic "The Return of the Living Dead."
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 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.
A documentary on the expletive's origin, why it offends some people so deeply, and what can be gained from its use.
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 about the making of season five of the acclaimed AMC series Breaking Bad.
Musician and performance artist Laurie Anderson reflects on the deaths of her husband Lou Reed, her mother and her beloved dog.
This documentary follows superstar Bret Hart during his last year in the WWF. The film documents the tensions that resulted in The Montreal Screwjob, one of the most controversial events in the history of professional wrestling, in which Vince McMahon, Shawn Micheals, and others, legitimately conspired behind the scenes to go against the script and remove Bret Hart as champion.