Social & External
Chronicles the rise and fall of 1970s New York City nightclub Plato's Retreat.
In 1972, a seemingly typical shoestring budget pornographic film was made in a Florida hotel: "Deep Throat," starring Linda Lovelace. This film would surpass the wildest expectation of everyone involved to become one of the most successful independent films of all time. It caught the public imagination which met the spirit of the times, even as the self-appointed guardians of public morality struggled to suppress it, and created, for a brief moment, a possible future where sexuality in film had a bold artistic potential. This film covers the story of the making of this controversial film, its stunning success, its hysterical opposition along with its dark side of mob influence and allegations of the on set mistreatment of the film's star.
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.
The Female Orgasm Explained and The Male Orgasm Explained The Female Orgasm: The sexual revolution of the ’70s has allowed women to claim their right to pleasure and to better know their body. However, 30 years later, the female orgasm remains mysterious to a lot of people – both men and women. And still today many women admit they have never experienced an orgasm. In this documentary, women speak openly of their experience, and their testimonies are accompanied by analyses from psychoanalysts and sex therapists. The Male Orgasm Explained: 90% of men orgasm each time they have sex. Men are told they are easily satisfied which means that male sexuality is rarely discussed. This film focuses on the testimonies of men, love or indiscriminate, and through their testimonies we discover the complexity of male orgasm.
Contraception is explained as part of biology lessons in year 10. The lesson begins with the teacher explaining the hormonal mode of action of oestrogen and progestogen, whose explanations are supplemented by intermittent images of the schematic diagram on the blackboard. Prompted by questions from the pupils, the teacher then goes into the production of the corpus luteum and explains its function. She then discusses the effect of the 'pill' as an ovulation inhibitor on the female organism. She explains that the preparations absorb the hormone progestin, which prevents further follicle maturation. Further questions are asked about other contraceptive methods. The teacher first explains the Knaus-Ogino method and then talks about the mechanical contraceptive concepts of condoms and pessaries. Finally, the chemical methods and 'coitus interruptus' are discussed as further options for preventing pregnancy.
Ivory Coast, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Senegal – when it comes to love and sex, these African countries are caught between tradition and modernity.
25 years ago, Viagra kickstarted the second sexual revolution and a controversy unlike any drug before it. Following trials in 1992 for a compound believed to alleviate symptoms for angina, Pfizer’s first in-patient trial for the drug, then known as UK92480, begin in Merthyr Tydfil, south Wales. It isn’t long before volunteer patients report having unexpected erections - fast forward ten years and word of the adverse side effect has travelled from Wales to New York resulting in Viagra’s first release in 1998 with orders soon exceeding predictions. What follows is the big story of the little blue pill.
French documentary campaigning for the liberalization of abortion and contraception, directed by Charles Belmont and Marielle Issartel in 1973.
A documentary that brings together interviews with 20 activists who address the issue of intersectional feminism and patriarchy in Portugal.
Daughters of the Sexual Revolution is the never-before-told story of Suzanne Mitchell, the fiercely-loyal den mother of the original Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders.
A US Pornstar talks about her sexual life story and sexual revolution in 1960 U.S.A.
This documentary shows how “The Kinsey Reports” have been used to change the laws concerning sex crimes in America, resulting in the minimal sentences so often given to rapists and pedophiles. Further explained is how the Kinsey data laid the foundation for sex education — training teachers, psychologists and even Catholic priests in human sexuality. What has been the consequence? And what was Kinsey’s research really based upon?
The underworld (imaginary and real) of Paris, depicted through several sketches. Kaleidoscope of the immoral and nauseating aspects of the capital.
Bestselling author Jessica Valenti places recent debates about Planned Parenthood, contraception, and the meaning of rape within the context of a larger political effort to roll back women's rights.
Documentary about East Coast college students' candid views on drug use, sex, politics, parents, faculty, curriculum, and peer group relationships.
A documentary portrait chronicling the incredible life of Dr. Ruth Westheimer, a Holocaust survivor who became the United States' most famous sex therapist. As her 90th birthday approaches, Dr. Ruth revisits her painful past and her career at the forefront of the sexual revolution.
Summer 1991. The last days of the Soviet Empire. Dark clouds gathered over Moscow as the Soviet government prepared to turn back the clock of history. While the world focused on the crashing Soviet Empire, this film focuses on the people who would've been among the first to suffer repression - the women and men who have broken sexual taboos in a consummate act of liberation against a rigid, crippled world. This is a view from their vantage point, unveiling the shadow-side of Soviet culture in the wake of the revolution, where the real provocative nudity is the nakedness of the soul.
The film describes the effect of contraceptives for nulliparous women.
This searing investigative work shadows a group of activists risking unimaginable peril to confront the ongoing anti-LGBTQ program raging in the repressive and closed Russian republic. Unfettered access and a remarkable approach to protecting anonymity exposes this under-reported atrocity–and an extraordinary group of people confronting evil.
The world's greatest pin-up model and cult icon, Bettie Page, recounts the true story of how her free expression overcame government witch-hunts to help launch America's sexual revolution. When she saw the film The Notorious Bettie Page, produced by HBO in 2006, the main person concerned reacted unequivocally: “Lies! Lies!” In a long interview recorded shortly before her death, the woman who entered the collective unconscious as the ultimate pin-up gave her version of events to director Mark Mori. In a gravelly voice, Bettie Page tells her own story and lifts the veil on areas often hidden by images that have made so many men and women fantasize since the 1950s: her abused childhood, an eclipse that lasted forty years, her mental illness. Through testimonies and unpublished archives, this documentary brings back to life a body and a face endlessly declined before our eyes, just as Bettie wanted: “I would like people to remember me as I was in the photos.”
A documentary about the life and films of director John Ford.
The film is a panorama shot-scene lasting just under a minute. The panorama film, as coined by Lumière, is a moving-camera shot--usually accomplished by placing the camera on a moving transport, such as a boat or train.
Vulgar, taunting texts blow up the phones of a teen and her boyfriend. Who's sending them — and why? This twisty documentary reveals the shocking answer.
In the early-morning hours of July 23, 2007, in Cheshire, Conn., ex-convicts Steven Hayes and Joshua Komisarjevsky broke into the family home of William Petit, his wife, Jennifer, and their daughters, Michaela, 11, and Hayley, 17. Dr. Petit was beaten and tied to a pole in the basement. The three women were bound in their bedrooms while the men ransacked the house. The brutal ordeal continued throughout the morning, ending with rape, arson and a horrific triple homicide.
A purely observational non-fiction film that takes viewers into the ethically murky world of end-of-life decision making in a public hospital.
A look at the origins, history and conspiracies behind the "Majestic 12", a clandestine group of military and corporate figureheads charged with reverse-engineering extraterrestrial technology.
A subjective documentary that explores various theories about hidden meanings in Stanley Kubrick's classic film The Shining. Five very different points of view are illuminated through voice over, film clips, animation and dramatic reenactments.
Those who knew iconic funnyman John Candy best share his story, in their own words, through never-before-seen archival footage, imagery, and interviews.
Martin Scorsese’s portrait of writer and social commentator Fran Lebowitz, celebrated for her sharp wit and observations on modern life. Filmed at New York’s Waverly Inn and intercut with archival footage and interviews, the documentary captures Lebowitz’s distinctive worldview through her spontaneous monologues and public appearances.
A documentary focused on plastic pollution in the world's oceans.
A deliciously scandalous portrait of unsung Hollywood legend Scotty Bowers, whose bestselling memoir chronicled his decades spent as sexual procurer to the stars.
A documentary that resurrects the buried history of the outrageous, often brilliant women who founded the modern women's movement from 1966 to 1971.
Bruce Conner’s most celebrated film for a reason: it takes historical moments that were replayed over and over on television—chilling repetition of Kennedy assassination coverage—and repurposes them into a meditation on how the media tries to exert authority and apply a sense of order to the anarchic. And though it may sound perverse to say so, the film is also—not incidentally—a thrill to watch. -- The A.V. Club
A night of drunken chaos rocks a quiet Dutch town in this shocking documentary about a teen's birthday invite that accidentally went viral on Facebook.
An intimate portrait of the small shops and shopkeepers of the Rue Daguerre in Paris, a picturesque street that has been the filmmaker’s home for more than 50 years.
What does being a woman really mean? How do women live the status society reserves for them? A group of women, beautiful or not, young or not, gifted with motherly instinct or not, answer before Agnès Varda's camera.
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.
