Homay King on 'Shanghai Express'

Film scholar Homay King discusses director Josef von Sternberg's cinematic China and the role of star Anna May Wong in 'Shanghai Express'.

We Will Speak

The Cherokee language is deeply tied to Cherokee identity; yet generations of assimilation efforts by the U.S. government and anti-Indigenous stigmas have forced the Tri-Council of Cherokee tribes to declare a State of Emergency for the language in 2019. While there are 430,000 Cherokee citizens in the three federally recognized tribes, fewer than an estimated 2,000 fluent speakers remain—the majority of whom are elderly. The covid pandemic has unfortunately hastened the course. Language activists, artists, and the youth must now lead the charge of urgent radical revitalization efforts to help save the language from the brink of extinction.

The Burning Times

This documentary takes an in-depth look at the witch hunts that swept Europe just a few hundred years ago. False accusations and trials led to massive torture and burnings at the stake and ultimately to the destruction of an organic way of life. The film questions whether the widespread violence against women and the neglect of our environment today can be traced back to those times.

Leonora Carrington: The Lost Surrealist

British surrealist Leonora Carrington was a key part of the surrealist movement during its heyday in Paris and yet, until recently, remained a virtual unknown in the country of her birth. This film explores her dramatic evolution from British debutante to artist in exile, living out her days in Mexico City, and takes us on a journey into her darkly strange and cinematic world.

61 Suns

A filmmaker’s meditation on loss and grief. A digital eulogy and swan song to his creative partner and best friend. Mixed media woven into the fading daydream of their time together.

Die CO2-Lüge

Intended to offset companies' CO₂ emissions, is carbon offsetting just a fool's bargain? This investigation, conducted across the globe, delves into the unsavory behind-the-scenes reality of a vast greenwashing system.

Lords of Scam

This documentary traces the rise and crash of scammers who conned the EU carbon quota system and pocketed millions before turning on one another.

Neighborhood Tokyo

Miyamoto-cho is a community of Mom-and-Pop stores and family enterprises located near the center of Tokyo. Competition from supermarkets and shopping centers threatens the livelihoods of long-term residents. High land prices tempt owners to tear down old homes and replace them with apartment buildings; this in turn is changing the composition of the population. Against this backdrop, residents strive to maintain the close social ties, symbols of local identity, and community rituals that keep Miyamoto-cho from becoming just another mailing address. Theodore Bestor began his research here in 1979. His prize winning book of the same name is available through Stanford University Press. This documentary is one of a series depicting the variety of life in today's Japan in the context of human problems common to all industrial nations. A comprehensive study guide is available.

Say My Name

People from different ethnic backgrounds with "difficult" names by Western standards share their experience with moving through the world with an identity that challenges others to simply just say their name. A short social docu-film by Mariam Meliksetyan, “Say My Name” is a meditation on identity, otherness, assimilation, community, and ancestral roots.

Coaching While Black

When Don 'Tex' Phillips, an American basketball coach, takes the reins of a Canadian college team on the prairies, his squad becomes the subject of sabotage on their way to back-to-back titles, before his premature exit as head coach.

KANDYTOWN LIFE

The Story of French Fantasy Cinema

The story of the French fantasy cinema from Méliès to Raw.

In the Footsteps of Elephant

Follow filmmakers as they capture the epic journey of African elephants across the Kalahari desert. The team faces extreme weather, inaccessible terrain, crocodile-infested waters and close encounters with lions in order to shine a light on these remarkable creatures and their ancient migrations.

Attenborough and the Sea Dragon

Sir David Attenborough investigates the discovery of a 200 million year old Ichthyosaur on the Jurassic Coast in southern England. Using state of the art technology and CGI David brings the story of the fossilised ichthyosaur out of the rock and shows us what this creature was really like as it lived during the Jurassic time period.

Draconis. La Storia del Drago di Rimini

A Tour of the Louvre

The tumultuous history of the Louvre Museum, founded in 1793, and its fabulous art collections, an immortal testimony to the destiny of France and all of Europe.

Women & the Wind

Shot over the course of 30 days at sea, filmmaker Alizé Jireh documents the group’s voyage across the North Atlantic—from moments of stillness and calm to the chaos of storms and setbacks. With an observational approach and an eye for the emotional and physical rhythms of life at sea, Jireh captures not just the external landscape, but the internal shifts that come with navigating the vast unknown.

Growing Up with John Waters

Growing Up with John Waters, the self-proclaimed Pope of Trash and king of US Independent Cinema. John Waters discusses his traumatic childhood in Baltimore and the films which came out of these experiences.

The Real T Rex with Chris Packham

A documentary examining what the Tyrannosaurus Rex was really like - both appearance and behaviour - using the recent palaeontological and zoological research.

When Oceans Threaten Cities

Devastating hurricanes, torrential rains, the inexorably rising waters: coastal megacities are now up against the wall. The filmmakers have chosen three emblematic cities: New York, Singapore and Rotterdam. Cities that each face unique problems and must revisit their relationship with water in order to survive on the long run. In 50 years, all surge barriers in the world will be out of order. What solutions will then remain for coastal cities?

The Elephant Whisperers

Bomman and Bellie, a couple in south India, devote their lives to caring for an orphaned baby elephant named Raghu, forging a family like no other.

Capital in the Twenty-First Century

Film adaptation of French economist Thomas Piketty's ground-breaking global bestseller of the same name: an eye-opening journey through wealth and power.

Heart of a Dog

Lyrical and powerfully personal essay film that reflects on the deaths of her husband Lou Reed, her mother, her beloved dog, and such diverse subjects as family memories, surveillance, and Buddhist teachings.

The Mole: Undercover in North Korea

A real-life undercover thriller about two ordinary men who embark on an outrageously dangerous ten-year mission to penetrate the world's most secretive and brutal dictatorship: North Korea.

Gunda

A glimpse into the raw and simple power of nature through encounters with farm animals: the eponymous Gunda, a mother pig; two cows, and a one-legged chicken.

Kiss the Ground

Sheds light on an alternative approach to farming called “regenerative agriculture” that could balance our climate, replenish our vast water supplies, and feed the world.

The Biggest Little Farm

The successes and failures of a couple determined to live in harmony with nature on a farm outside of Los Angeles are lovingly chronicled by filmmaking farmer John Chester, in this inspiring documentary.

Human

A collection of stories about and images of our world, offering an immersion to the core of what it means to be human. Through these stories full of love and happiness, as well as hatred and violence, it brings us face to face with the Other, making us reflect on our lives. From stories of everyday experiences to accounts of the most unbelievable lives, these poignant encounters share a rare sincerity and underline who we are – our darker side, but also what is most noble in us, and what is universal. Our Earth is shown at its most sublime through never-before-seen aerial images accompanied by soaring music, resulting in an ode to the beauty of the world, providing a moment to draw breath and for introspection. This film is a politically engaged work which allows us to embrace the human condition and to reflect on the meaning of our existence.

OLIVIA RODRIGO: driving home 2 u (a SOUR film)

Grammy® winner singer-songwriter Olivia Rodrigo takes a familiar road trip from Salt Lake City, where she began writing her debut album “SOUR,” to Los Angeles. Along the way, Rodrigo recounts the memories of writing and creating her record-breaking debut album and shares her feelings as a young woman navigating a specific time in her life. Through new live arrangements of her songs, intimate interviews and never-before-seen footage from the making of the album, audiences will follow Olivia along on a cinematic journey exploring the story of “SOUR.”

Honeyland

When nomadic beekeepers break Honeyland’s basic rule (take half of the honey, but leave half to the bees), the last female beehunter in Europe must save the bees and restore natural balance.

David Byrne's American Utopia

A filmed version of David Byrne's Broadway show, a unifying musical celebration that inspires audiences to connect to each other and to the global community.

A Plastic Ocean

A documentary focused on plastic pollution in the world's oceans.

My Life Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn

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.

(Dis)Honesty: The Truth About Lies

Documentary exploring the human tendency to be dishonest. Inspired by the work of social scientist, Dan Ariely, the film interweaves personal stories, expert opinions, behavioral experiments, and archival footage to reveal how and why people lie.

Voyage of Time: The IMAX Experience

A celebration of the universe, displaying the whole of time, from its start to its final collapse. This film examines all that occurred to prepare the world that stands before us now: science and spirit, birth and death, the grand cosmos and the minute life systems of our planet.

Seasons

Jacques Perrin and Jacques Cluzaud travel throughout Europe to film brown bears, wild horses, wolves and other animals in their natural habitat.

Mountain

An epic cinematic and musical collaboration between SHERPA filmmaker Jennifer Peedom and the Australian Chamber Orchestra, that explores humankind's fascination with high places.

Life in a Day

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.

Happy

Happy is a 2011 feature documentary film directed, written, and co-produced by Roko Belic. It explores human happiness through interviews with people from all walks of life in 14 different countries, weaving in the newest findings of positive psychology. Director Roko Belic was originally inspired to create the film after producer/director Tom Shadyac (Liar, Liar, Patch Adams, Bruce Almighty) showed him an article in the New York Times entitled "A New Measure of Well Being From a Happy Little Kingdom". The article ranks the United States as the 23rd happiest country in the world. Shadyac then suggested that Belic make a documentary about happiness. Belic spent several years interviewing over 20 people, ranging from leading happiness researchers to a rickshaw driver in Kolkatta, a family living in a "co-housing community" in Denmark, a woman who was run over by a truck, a Cajun fisherman, and more.

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.