In the years before Ronald Reagan took office, Manhattan was in ruins. But true art has never come from comfort, and it was precisely those dire circumstances that inspired artists like Jim Jarmusch, Lizzy Borden, and Amos Poe to produce some of their best works. Taking their cues from punk rock and new wave music, these young maverick filmmakers confronted viewers with a stark reality that stood in powerful contrast to the escapist product being churned out by Hollywood.
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Viktor Bout was a war profiteer, an entrepreneur, an aviation tycoon, an arms dealer, and—strangest of all—a documentary filmmaker. The Notorious Mr. Bout is the ultimate rags-to-riches-to-prison memoir, documented by the last man you’d expect to be holding the camera.
An American athlete is fed up with silver medals, a pro baseball career foiled by injury, and narrowly missing out on the Olympic rowing team. Restless and looking for a win, he discovers a 3,000- mile rowing race. Jason aims to win the race and smash the record for the fastest crossing. Ten days in, two of the four men jump ship mid-Atlantic. Jason limps to the finish line, battered and humbled. One year later, he’s back with a new team. When seasickness and weather threaten his dream again, Jason faces an impossible task: 400 miles in just 5 days to beat the record.
In the world of off-road motorcycle racing, Destry Abbott is one of the most iconic riders. His story is about life, triumph, a battle with leukemia, and how love for the sport and family can reignite the desire to fulfill one’s dreams.
Filmed in Karasjok, Norway – 200 miles north of the Arctic Circle, BBC Four rigs a traditional reindeer sleigh with a fixed camera for a magical journey across the frozen wilderness of the Arctic. Following the path of an ancient postal route, the ride captures the traditional world of the Sami people who are indigenous to northern Scandinavia and for whom reindeer herding remains a way of life. Deliberately unhurried, the rhythmic pace of the reindeer guides us along an epic two-hour trip that takes us over undulating snowy hills, through birch forests, across a frozen lake and past traditional Sami settlements.
Music, art and chaos in the wild West-Berlin of the 1980s. The walled-in city became the creative melting pot for sub- and pop-culture. Before the iron curtain fell, everything and anything seemed possible. B-Movie is a fast-paced collage of mostly unreleased film and TV footage from a frenzied but creative decade, starting with punk and ending with the Love Parade, in a city where the days are short and the nights are endless. Where it was not about long-term success, but about living for the moment – the here and now.
It’s 50 years since ABBA won the Eurovision Song Contest with Waterloo. To celebrate one of music’s ‘big bang’ moments, the story of Swedish pop – from ABBA to Max Martin, Roxette Europe and Robyn.
It’s a music documentary that tells the story of Roy Gurvitz, who created Lost Vagueness, at Glastonbury and who, as legendary founder, Michael Eavis says, reinvigorated the festival. With the decadence of 1920’s Berlin, but all in a muddy field. A film of the dark, self-destructive side of creativity and the personal trauma behind it.
Newly declassified hard drives taken from the compound where Osama bin Laden was killed reveal a groundbreaking look at his personal life.
The extraordinary story of a man who risks everything to preserve freedom of speech in Russia. In December 2021 Dmitry Muratov is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. He is the editor-in-chief of Russia’s only independent newspaper, Novaya Gazeta. Six of his journalists have been murdered, after their reports displeased the state. In February 2022 Russia invades Ukraine. In early March, using the cover of a documentary film festival, Muratov secretly negotiates free passage for forty journalists with the Latvian government. Then he returns to Moscow to look after his paper and its remaining staff. To this day, he refuses to leave Moscow, whatever the pressure on him and his team. “Putin stands for death. I stand for life.”
Days after 9/11, letters containing fatal anthrax spores spark panic and tragedy in the US. This documentary follows the subsequent FBI investigation.
Johnny Knoxville and his crazy friends appear on the big screen for the very first time in Jackass: The Movie. They wander around Japan in panda outfits, wreak havoc on a once civilized golf course, they even do stunts involving LIVE alligators, and so on. While Johnny Knoxvile and his pals put their life at risk, they are entertaining people at the same time. Get ready for Jackass: The Movie!!
We have all heard incredible UFO and Alien Abduction stories that edge toward the unreal but none with more impact than the Betty and Barney Hill encounter that became a world wide story in 1961 with the book andquot;The Interrupted Jour…