A short documentary from 1975 about two women serving 25 years in a Missouri penitentiary. Made with an all-female crew.
Social & External
The people behind it
The lives of three generations of women who suffered political persecution during the military dictatorship in Brazil.
All the cool kids were wearing it. This documentary explores A&F's pop culture reign in the late '90s and early 2000s and how it thrived on exclusion.
Niaqornat in North West Greenland has a population of 59. If the population falls below 50, the village will lose its Danish subsidies and risks being relocated to the nearest town. While the rest of the community pull together to try and re-open the fish-factory, Lars -- the only teenager in town -- plans his escape.
John Wayne, Henry Fonda and James Stewart discuss working with John Ford
Do humans have the right to judge and kill other humans? This program includes a history of capital punishment around the world through documentary footage and commentary. The electric chair, firing squad, hanging, poison gas, beating to death, slow execution, crotch-splitting, iron maiden, guillotine, execution by running, and beheading... It features a military execution in a South American country, obtained from a former prison officer. It also includes footage of the reality of life in Japanese prisons, death row inmates facing death, the parents of death row inmates, the families of their victims, and the gallows.
In 1988, Tilda Swinton toured round the Berlin Wall on a bicycle - starting and ending at the Brandenburg Gate - accompanied by filmmaker Cynthia Beatt. As Swinton travels through fields and historic neighborhoods, past lakes and massive concrete apartment buildings, the Wall is a constant presence.
A small group of girls in one of the most remote forests left on earth attend a radical high school where they learn to protect the threatened forest and forge a better future for themselves. Set in the untamed wilds of the Mbaracayu Reserve in rural Paraguay, this intimate verite documentary offers a rare glimpse of a disappearing world where timid girls grow into brave young women even as they are transformed by their unlikely friendships with one another.
As beautiful and sleek as it is deadly, 52 Blocks merits special conservation efforts as the United States' only existing native martial culture, as it is indeed, the jazz of the martial arts world. Across the African diaspora, there are manifestations of African-derived warrior-dances, capoeira in brazil, mani in Cuba, ladja in Martinique, pinge in Haiti- yet the US offshoot has remained esoteric, because it was suppressed throughout slavery, Reconstruction and Jim Crow and then obscured in the criminal justice system. The history, interviews and training of the martial arts style that created Breakdance and boxing greats like Mike Tyson.
This short documentary focuses on the very end of Washington Boulevard, where the city of Los Angeles meets the ocean and the Venice Pier begins. The rough and simplistic concrete pier braves pacific storms and provides stillness and stability. People come to walk, to fish and ease their minds. The film takes a closer look at the diverse people all around the pier. Among them the filmmakers find two citizens, both immigrants, who take us on their personal journey through history.
The story of what happens when "The Mighty Cheetahs," an undefeated all-girls soccer team, competes in the boys division. With humor and candor this documentary gets at the heart of the boy-girl issues and explores what "Kick Like A Girl" really means on and off the playing field. Kick Like A Girl reminds us all of the lessons learned in competitive athletics and how sports has been one of the most effective instruments of social change in our lifetime.
Legendary rumba musician Alberto Zayas serves as a guide for this vibrant journey through Cuban musical history and culture. The short features interviews, footage of impromptu street performances, and studio recordings.
This black-and-white film is a loving portrait of Santiago de Cuba and its people. It provides a view of Cuba as a picturesque country, the product of an earthy mix of black and criollo cultures. The film uses historical images which portray the end of the eighteenth century when Haitian slave owners fled with their slaves to Cuba after the Haitian Revolution.
The film focuses on the role played by the parental home and vocational school alongside the training center in the life of an apprentice.
The Devil Never Sleeps is a “whodunit” documentary about family secrets. Filmmaker Lourdes Portillo received a phone call informing her of the mysterious death of her wealthy Mexican uncle Oscar. Officially ruled a suicide, Portillo’s relatives claimed murder, offering several possible suspects including a business partner, a ranch hand, and Oscar’s young widow who stood to inherit everything. Traveling to Mexico, Portillo attempts to learn the truth about her powerful uncle. Using interviews, old snapshots and home movies, she finds a complicated web of family secrets, intrigue, rumor and betrayal that makes her enigmatic uncle’s murder seem ever more likely, yet ever more obscure. As the Mexican saying goes, “When evil is lurking, the devil never sleeps.”
Forty years before WikiLeaks and the NSA scandal, there was Media, Pennsylvania. In 1971, eight activists plotted an intricate break-in to the local FBI offices to leak stolen documents and expose the illegal surveillance of ordinary Americans in an era of anti-war activism. In this riveting heist story, the perpetrators reveal themselves for the first time, reflecting on their actions and raising broader questions surrounding security leaks in activism today.
This documentary tells two stories simultaneously: it's a profile of Bernard Tapie, a wealthy man who rises and falls spectacularly in French society and may be on the rise again; and, it's a look at Marina Zenovich's fascination with Tapie, behaving oddly in spite of her awareness that she's being irrational. Politicians, athletes, friends, companions, and journalists comment on Bernard's charm, his rise to prominence in sports and politics, and his subsequent trouble with the law. Zenovich becomes fixated on her need to interview Tapie, becoming virtually a stalker in her quest.
This haunting film comprises of footage shot during WWI from opposite sides of the conflict: Czarist Russia and the Austro-Hungarian empire. The filmmakers tinted the material with sensual colors from sepia to red, blue, and purple and slowed the footage to analyze the material. The total absence of commentary renders the material eloquent and disturbing. - MoMA
In 1926 the remains of two ships built by the Emperor Caligula were found at the bottom of Lake Nemi, near Rome. Mussolini had the lake drained and established a museum as a celebration of the imperial origins of Fascism, but the museum and ships were destroyed by fleeing Nazis in 1944. The film commemorates these events. - MoMA
Right alongside Jerusalem, in a Russian Orthodox Convent in the Mount of Olives, in the middle of the Arab quarter, lives the 82-year-old Estonian nun Mother Ksenya.
An in-depth look at the prison system in the United States and how it reveals the nation's history of racial inequality.
The documentary tells the hitherto unknown story behind an extraordinary and desperate fight to bring the truth to light. Told and made by those who lived it, the filmmakers' unprecedented access to the inner workings of the defense allows the film to show the investigation, research, and appeals process in a way that has never been seen before; revealing shocking and disturbing new information about a case that still haunts the American South.
Fox Rich, indomitable matriarch and modern-day abolitionist, strives to keep her family together while fighting for the release of her incarcerated husband. An intimate, epic, and unconventional love story, filmed over two decades.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg now 84, and still inspired by the lawyers who defended free speech during the Red Scare, Ginsburg refuses to relinquish her passionate duty, steadily fighting for equal rights for all citizens under the law. Through intimate interviews and unprecedented access to Ginsburg’s life outside the court, RBG tells the electric story of Ginsburg’s consuming love affairs with both the Constitution and her beloved husband Marty—and of a life’s work that led her to become an icon of justice in the highest court in the land.
A string of threatening emails escalates into a revenge plot involving a newly married US marshal and his ex-girlfriend.
Unravel the case of Utah therapist Jodi Hildebrandt, whose child abuse arrest with parenting YouTuber Ruby Franke exposed a twisted tale of manipulation.
Incarcerated men defy the odds to expose a cover-up in one of America’s deadliest prison systems.
An engaging and thought-provoking look at Lucy Letby, the former nurse serving life in prison after being convicted of the murders of seven infants and the attempted murders of seven others.
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.
An IMAX 3D camera chronicles the effort of 7 astronauts aboard the Space Shuttle Atlantis to repair the Hubble Space Telescope.
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.
This documentary follows three women — a fire chief, a judge, and a street missionary — as they battle West Virginia's devastating opioid epidemic.
Hidden in the heart of Russia, there is a Soviet-era city where thousands of people live and work behind barbed-wire fences monitored by armed guards. It is Ozyorsk (Ozersk), located in the Chelyabinsk Oblast, one of the most polluted places on the planet and home to the largest stockpiles of nuclear material. Its code name: City 40.
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.
We do not know when and how we will die. Death Row inmates do. Werner Herzog embarks on a dialogue with Death Row inmates, asks questions about life and death and looks deep into these individuals, their stories, their crimes.
A documentary on kids who attend a summer camp hoping to become the next Billy Graham.
A documentary about the making of season five of the acclaimed AMC series Breaking Bad.
In this documentary, filmmaker Nick Broomfield follows the saga of Aileen Wuornos, a prostitute who has been accused of committing a brutal series of murders. Broomfield conducts interviews with Wuornos herself, and his crew films her trial as well as her interactions with religious fanatic Arlene Pralle, who gives Wuornos dubious advice and legally adopts her. The cameras also roll as the accused's attorney ignores the case at hand to negotiate a deal to sell his client's story.
Over 35 years after Bob Lazar's revelations, this documentary exposes secrets of a facility the government still denies. Featuring Lazar's testimony, recreations, and new evidence, it reopens a case that continues to spark global curiosity
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.