Documentary
The director’s mother, Mirka Mora, avoided Auschwitz by one day. On his father’s side many perished in the Holocaust. These facts triggered three visits to Auschwitz by Mora from 2010 to 2014 in an effort to understand and remember.
Belfast, it’s a city that is changing, changing because the people are leaving? But one came back, a 10,000 year old woman who claims that she is the city itself.
Above and Below is a rough and rhythmic roller coaster ride seating five survivors in their daily hustle through an apocalyptic world. A journey of challenges and beauty in uncomfortable places: Rick & Cindy, Godfather Lalo in the flood channels deep down under the shiny strip of Sin City. Dave in the dry and lonesome Californian desert and April in simulation for a Mars mission in the Utah desert. Through the hustle, the pain and the laughs, we are whisked away to an unfamiliar world, yet quickly discover the souls we encounter are perhaps not that different from our own.
North Korea. The last communist country in the world. Unknown, hermetic and fascinating. Formerly known as “The Hermit Kingdom” for its attempts to remain isolated, North Korea is one of the largest source of instability as regards world peace. It also has the most militarized border in the world, and the flow of impartial information, both going in and out, is practically non-existent. As the recent Sony-leaks has shown, it is the perfect setting for a propaganda war.
In 1984, American heavy metal band Twisted Sister became a global sensation. For 30 years, they been synonymous with hairspray, women’s clothing and tasteless album covers. Until now. Ten years ago, director Andrew Horn was granted access to the archives of Twisted Sister founder Jay French and in We are Twisted fucking Sister he explores the decade that preceded their breakthrough.
On June 7, 2014, forty-five cyclists from around the world set out on the inaugural Trans Am Bike Race, following the famed TransAmerica Trail. Their mission is to cover 4,233 miles in one enormous stage race, traversing through ten states in a transcontinental adventure of epic proportions. Inspired To Ride follows closely the journey of a handful of these cyclists as they prepare, compete and experience what riding 300 miles a day feels like with only a few hours sleep. They will rely solely on their fitness, meticulously chosen gear and mental fortitude to get them to the finish. And to make it even more interesting, they’ll be self-supported – no crew, no follow vehicles and no prize money waiting at the end.
Capturing life on the Italian island of Lampedusa, a frontline in the European migrant crisis.
A dramatization of the events at Gallipoli using the letters of the soldiers who were there.
A comedic, brutally honest documentary following self-destructive TV writer Dan Harmon (NBC’s Community) as he takes his live podcast on a national tour.
I Am JFK Jr. – A Tribute to a Good Man is an homage to America’s fallen prince and the Kennedy legacy. It is the story of a young man destined for greatness, but determined to be good in a world filled with high expectations.
50 years after launching our dreams into space, we’re left with a troubling legacy: a growing ring of orbiting debris that threatens the safety of earth’s orbits. SPACE JUNK is a visually explosive journey of discovery that weighs the solutions aimed at restoring our planet’s orbits. Experience mind-boggling collisions, both natural and man-made. Soar for the stunning depths of Meteor Crater to an unprecedented view of our increasingly crowded orbits – 22,000 miles above earth. Join us as foremost expert Don Kessler, the “Father of Space Junk,” guides us through the challenges we face in protecting them, forging a new age of space discovery.
THE FIRST MONDAY IN MAY follows the creation of The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s most attended fashion exhibition in history, “China: Through The Looking Glass,” an exploration of Chinese-inspired Western fashions by Costume Institute curator Andrew Bolton. With unprecedented access, filmmaker Andrew Rossi captures the collision of high fashion and celebrity at the Met Gala, one of the biggest global fashion events chaired every year by Vogue editor in chief Anna Wintour. Featuring a cast of renowned artists in many fields (including filmmaker Wong Kar Wai and fashion designers Karl Lagerfeld, Jean Paul Gaultier and John Galliano) as well as a host of contemporary pop icons like Rihanna, the movie dives into the debate about whether fashion should be viewed as art.
Furthest from the Wild is a journey through the world of Animal Sanctuaries all over the world. We share the Triumphs and struggles of the people who have dedicated their lives in rescuing neglected and abused animals. The fight and pain in keeping them healthy and giving them shelter for their remaining lives.
One winter, a pastor finds an abandoned infant on his church steps, and builds ‘a drop box’ to rescue any future foundlings.
What does it actually mean to be Canadian? This humorous documentary, featuring interviews with a who’s-who of famous Canadians, hopes to find the answer.
THE BANDIT is a film about 70s superstar Burt Reynolds, his best friend, roommate and stunt-double Hal Needham, and the making of their unlikely smash-hit SMOKEY & THE BANDIT. The film tells the action-packed story of the making of SMOKEY, while tracing the vivid personal journeys of Reynolds and Needham from obscurity to stardom and highlighting one of the most extraordinary relationships in Hollywood history. Featuring new interviews with Reynolds, rare archive material, including footage from Reynolds’ personal archive, as well as candid interviews with the late Hal Needham, the documentary tells an exhilarating and moving story about loyalty, friendship and creative risk.
Documentary featuring a jaw-dropping, behind-the-scenes look at the attempted comeback of Anthony Weiner in 2013 as he mounts a campaign for New York City mayor in the wake of his sexting scandal. Featuring unfettered access to the candidate and his campaign.
Director James Toback takes an unflinching, uncompromising look at the life of Mike Tyson–almost solely from the perspective of the man himself. TYSON alternates between the controversial boxer addressing the camera and shots of the champion’s fights to create an arresting picture of the man.
Intimate, personalized portrait of women of the 1960s through the eyes of one colorful class that graduated in 1969 – same year as Hillary Clinton – and recently turned 65, starting to explore the New Old Age. At a time when these Boomers’ parents were asking less of themselves, many of these distinguished citizens are asking more, feeling a Third Wind. Where will it take them? Some are determined to keep making waves. The trigger for these revelations/reminiscences is the class’s yearbook. Each photo was a collaboration with a sexy Turkish artist, is full of the 60s spirit of risk, rebelliousness, creativity. Indeed, this yearbook wasn’t a book at all. The portraits came to each alumna loose leaf, in a box. Hence our metaphoric title: Unboxed! Written by Anonymous
Legendary documentary filmmaker Frederick Wiseman (At Berkeley, National Gallery) explores the culture, politics and daily life of the Queens, NYC district of Jackson Heights, which lays claim to being the most diverse neighbourhood in the world.
Werner Herzog gains exclusive access to film inside the Chauvet caves of Southern France, capturing the oldest known pictorial creations of humankind in their astonishing natural setting.
The modern limits of humor in an increasingly outraged society are examined.
In an invisible territory at the margins of society, at the border between anarchy and illegality, lives a wounded community that is trying to respond to a threat: of being forgotten by political institutions and having their rights as citizens trampled. Disarmed veterans, taciturn adolescents, drug addicts trying to escape addiction through love, ex-special forces soldiers still at war with the world, floundering young women and future mothers, and old people who have not lost their desire to live. Through this hidden pocket of humanity, the door opens to the abyss of today’s America.
María Nieves Rego (80) and Juan Carlos Copes (83) met when they were 14 and 17, and they danced together for nearly fifty years. In all those years they loved and hated each other and went through several painful separations. Now, at the end of their lives, the two dancers are willing to open up about their love, their hatred, and their passion. In “Our Last Tango” Juan and María tell their story to a group of young tango dancers and choreographers from Buenos Aires, who transform the most beautiful, moving and dramatic moments of the lives into incredible tango-choreographies. These beautifully-shot performances compliment the soul-searching interviews and documentary moments of the film to make this an unforgettable journey into the heart of the tango.
In this concert film, ‘Hannah Montana’ star Miley Cyrus performs a slew of hit songs, including ‘Just Like You’ and ‘Life’s What You Make It.’
The film chronicles Nina Simone’s journey from child piano prodigy to iconic musician and passionate activist, told in her own words.
Demetri Martin brings his off-kilter take on acoustic guitar, hairless cats, color schemes, and the word “nope” to Washington in his original special.
Paul F. Tompkins tells tales of haunting one’s own house, disastrous attempts at pretend fatherhood, carrying a learner’s permit to kill, and marrying a woman who used a fine-print loophole to breach a castle.
Since the early days, Jerry Lewis – in the line of Chaplin, Keaton and Laurel – had the masses laughing with his visual gags, pantomime sketches and signature slapstick humor. Yet Lewis was far more than just a clown. He was also a groundbreaking filmmaker whose unquenchable curiosity led him to write, produce, stage and direct many of the films he appeared in, resulting in such adored classics as The Bellboy, The Ladies Man, The Errand Boy, and The Nutty Professor.
Terry Jones presents Boom Bust Boom. The result of a meeting between writer, director, historian and Python Terry Jones and economics professor and entrepreneur Theo Kocken. Co-written by Jones and Kocken and featuring John Cusack, Nobel Prize winners Daniel Kahneman, Robert J Shiller and Paul Krugman, the film is part of a global movement to change the economic system through education to protect the world from boom and bust. A unique look at why economic crashes happen, Boom Bust Boom is a multimedia documentary combining live action with animation and puppetry to explain economics to everyone.
Why is it we never actually see a ghost in the dozens of documentaries out there, yet people claim they see them daily. A non believer, and his film friends seek out to find the truth.
The history and humor of the fart
A purely observational non-fiction film that takes viewers into the ethically murky world of end-of-life decision making in a public hospital.
Director and Writer Eric Dow (“Honor in the Valley of Tears”) brings us his second documentary as he goes behind the scenes of the fan fiction short film, “Batman: Dead End.” In the winter of 2003 commercial director Sandy Collora and some of his friends set out to make a low-budget short film for his demo reel. What they wound up actually doing was making one of the most elaborate, most watched, most talked about and most controversial short films ever made: Batman Dead End. Considering the amount of press and admiration Batman: Dead End garnered,