Lebanon's brief flirtation with space travel in the 1960s becomes a poignant metaphor for the Arab world's utopian dreams in this riveting documentary.
Social & External
"What if someone wrote your biography? Would there be horns and halos involved?"
In June 2013, Laura Poitras and reporter Glenn Greenwald flew to Hong Kong for the first of many meetings with Edward Snowden. She brought her camera with her.
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?
Shadowlands is an animated short film about darkness that won't let go. About the constant fear that something terrible might happen. It describes a journey into the inner world and psyche of a young person in distress, a world far from "normal".
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.
Portrait of the first laughing club in India, its founding by a doctor who believes that laughter is the best medicine, his outreach to schools, interviews with club members, scenes of outdoor sessions, and shots of billboards and street scenes in contemporary Mumbai. Club members gather, stretch, and start to laugh. Founder Dr. Madan Kararia talks of the club's history and the growth of laughing clubs across the country. Among those interviewed, there's a stockbroker, three bawdy women, a musician, a widow laughing to cope with grief, and two old men - friends since school days who meet daily to laugh. No form, no fuss: happiness equals health.
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.
A daring deconstruction of consumerist behavior featuring a robot and Miss Clio Darty, with a voiceover by Godard and Anne-Marie Miéville, this philosophical "report," like so many of Godard's commissions, was rejected by its funders.
Song is a story of the last Finnish rune singer and his pupil, and the comforting power of singing.
Female boxer Diana Prazak always want to fight the best in her league, therefore she accepts the invitation by the number one in the world Frida Wallberg to fight her for the WBC world title in Stockholm. Lucia Rijker, former 6x world champion, coaches Diana to prepare her physically and mentally for the toughest fight of her life and her biggest and most paralyzing fear: losing. In Stockholm they are confronted with the picture-perfect Frida and her glamorous and extended entourage. The brutal fight however, takes a dramatic turn. Diana is left to consider if she truly got what she wished for.
This documentary from Albert and David Maysles follows the bitter rivalry of four door-to-door salesmen working for the Mid-American Bible Company: Paul "The Badger" Brennan, Charles "The Gipper" McDevitt, James "The Rabbit" Baker and Raymond "The Bull" Martos. Times are tough for this hard-living quartet, who spend their days traveling through small-town America, trying their best to peddle gold-leaf Bibles to an apathetic crowd of lower-middle-class housewives and elderly couples.
Monsanto is the world leader in genetically modified organisms (GMOs), as well as one of the most controversial corporations in industrial history. This century-old empire has created some of the most toxic products ever sold, including polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and the herbicide Agent Orange. Based on a painstaking investigation, The World According to Monsanto puts together the pieces of the company’s history, calling on hitherto unpublished documents and numerous first-hand accounts.
The professional life of Roxanne Lowit, one of the greatest fashion photographers and a pioneer of backstage photography, covering her career from 1977 and the Studio 54 until now.
Recently retired from a company after some 40 years of service, Sunada Tomoaki, father of filmmaker Sunada Mami, is diagnosed with terminal cancer and only has a few months left to live. True to his pragmatic core, Sunada sets out to accomplish a list of tasks before his final departure: playing with his grandchildren, planning his own funeral, saying “I love you” to his wife, among others. In a voice over, using words taken from her father’s diary, filmmaker Sunada speaks tenderly in first person as the elder Sunada.
Documentary about the world of the Japanese geisha. Unattainable by all but the wealthy and powerful, geisha are the ultimate massagers of the male ego. Behind the delicate fan and enigmatic smile can also be found a darker side to the geisha story, including treachery and suicide.
Susana Barriga’s documentary, the illusion, begins with violence. A long shot reveals a man standing on a street corner, his features indiscernible in the night. He moves out of the camera’s line of vision, but the filmmaker, persistent, moves with him as the jostling of the camera marks her steps. As we learn moments later, the man in the distance is Susana’s father – and this is the clearest image of him we will have. Suddenly, an angry British man demands that Susana cease filming. Susana protests in heavily accented English, “He is my father!” Glimpses of a man’s torso are followed by blurred images as the camera spins rapidly over surfaces. The image cuts to black. A new male voice asks in carefully spaced out words if Susana would like him to call the police. When she doesn’t respond immediately, he speaks louder, as though volume would compensate for the language difference. She gives her name; she refuses the offer of an ambulance.
Pretty Bloody: The Women of Horror is a television documentary film that premiered on the Canadian cable network Space on February 25, 2009. The hour-long documentary examines the experiences, motivations and impact of the increasing number of women engaged in horror fiction, with producers Donna Davies and Kimberlee McTaggart of Canada's Sorcery Films interviewing actresses, film directors, writers, critics and academics. The documentary was filmed in Toronto, Canada; and in Los Angeles, California and New York City, New York in the US.
"Michael Moore doesn't like documentaries. That's why he doesn't make them." A documentary that looks to distinguish what's fact, fiction, legend, and otherwise as a camera crew trails Michael Moore as he tours with his film, Fahrenheit 9/11.
An investigation into accusations of teenagers being sexually abused within the film industry.
Sundance-and-Emmy-Award-winning filmmaker Judy Irving (with her first film since the widely acclaimed and loved “The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill”) follows a wayward California brown pelican from her “arrest” on the Golden Gate Bridge into care at a wildlife rehabilitation facility, and from there explores pelicans’ nesting grounds, Pacific coast migration, and survival challenges of these ancient birds, sometimes referred to as the flying dinosaurs. The film is about wildness, and asks the following questions: how close can we get to a wild animal without taming or harming it? Why do we need wildness in our lives, and how can we protect it? PELICAN DREAMS, stars “Gigi” (for Golden Gate) and Morro (a backyard pelican with an injured wing).
2023 marked the thirtieth anniversary of Maroun Baghdadi’s sudden and tragic death. Maroun was a Lebanese filmmaker who wrote and directed films during the Lebanese civil war and contributed to documentary and fiction filmmaking from 1973 up until his death in 1993. In this film, Feyrouz Serhal embarks on a day trip in Beirut and navigates the city that profoundly shaped Maroun’s journey in life and cinema. Here she encounters individuals who were close to him and who shared his experiences. And as she traverses Maroun’s life and career, the social and political backdrop moves to the foreground. The film reflects on the last fifty years of the history of the country from a present standpoint. Through Maroun’s story, we perceive how cinema can, beautifully and dramatically, portray our stories and discourse our life events..
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.
Daniel Craig candidly reflects on his 15 year adventure as James Bond. Including never-before-seen archival footage from Casino Royale to the upcoming 25th film No Time To Die, Craig shares his personal memories in conversation with 007 producers, Michael G Wilson and Barbara Broccoli.
A cautionary tale for these times of democracy in crisis—the personal and political fuse to explore one of the most dramatic periods in Brazilian history. With unprecedented access to Presidents Dilma Rousseff and Lula da Silva, we witness their rise and fall and the tragically polarized nation that remains.
An unpredictable documentary from a fascinating storyteller, Agnès Varda’s last film sheds light on her experience as a director, bringing a personal insight to what she calls "cine-writing," traveling from Rue Daguerre in Paris to Los Angeles and Beijing.
In a hypercompetitive world, drugs like Adderall offer students, athletes, coders and others a way to do more -- faster and better. But at what cost?
Dua Lipa's kaleidoscopic rocket fuelled journey through time, space, mirrorballs, roller discos, bucket hats, belting beats, throbbing basslines and an absolute slam dunk of the best of times in global club culture throughout the decades.
A love letter from a young mother to her daughter, the film tells the story of Waad al-Kateab’s life through five years of the uprising in Aleppo, Syria as she falls in love, gets married and gives birth to Sama, all while cataclysmic conflict rises around her. Her camera captures incredible stories of loss, laughter and survival as Waad wrestles with an impossible choice– whether or not to flee the city to protect her daughter’s life, when leaving means abandoning the struggle for freedom for which she has already sacrificed so much.
The strange story of John McAfee, who went from millionaire software mogul to yogi, Kurtz-like jungle recluse to potential murderer, and most recently a prospective presidential candidate for the American Libertarian Party.
Film adaptation of French economist Thomas Piketty's ground-breaking global bestseller of the same name: an eye-opening journey through wealth and power.
Filmed and edited in intimate vérité style, this movie follows visionary medical practitioners who are working on the cutting edge of life and death and are dedicated to changing our thinking about both.
An intimate portrait of Hollywood royalty featuring Debbie Reynolds, Todd Fisher, and Carrie Fisher.
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.
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.
The Crash Reel tells the story of a sport and the risks that athletes face in reaching the pinnacle of their profession. This is Kevin Pearce’s story, a celebrated snowboarder who sustained a brain injury in a trick gone wrong and who now aims, against all the odds, to get back on the snow.
If you ever find yourself traveling down Interstate 49 through Missouri, try not to blink—you may miss Rich Hill, population 1,396. Rich Hill is easy to overlook, but its inhabitants are as woven into the fabric of America as those living in any small town in the country. This movie intimately chronicles the turbulent lives of three boys living in said Midwestern town and the fragile family bonds that sustain them.
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.
A profoundly personal voyage into the complexity, fragility and wonder of the human brain, after Lotje Sodderland miraculously survives a hemorrhagic stroke and finds herself starting again in an alien world, bereft of language and logic. This feature documentary takes us on a genre-twisting tale that is by turns excruciating and exquisite - from the devastating consequences of a first-time neurological experiment, through to the extraordinary revelations of her altered sensory perception.
The world is talking about 'Leaving Neverland. In our ProSieben special, we ask questions that the documentary doesn't, and look at the most important moments in the life of the superstar. In addition, we explore the question of how the new allegations change the view of Michael Jackson's overall work. This helps to classify the special documentary 'Leaving Neverland'.
