In America, everyone has a family story of immigration. Every family, at some point, has had somebody leave their native country behind to search for a better life. How did they hold onto their identity? How did they adapt to their new life? Every family has a special story. In my case, it’s my Chinese-American story. My father would always tell us his story about walking for 7 days and 6 nights, before swimming for 4 hours to Macau to escape communism in 1966. His story would fall on my deaf ears until I returned to China with him.

Liz Bonnin is setting out on a global mission to reveal the full scale of the world’s plastic problem – and explore ways in which this looming environmental disaster might be averted. As she chases plastic around the world, Liz is going to show us that this is a crisis far greater than we’d ever imagined…

This personal portrait of the British singer-songwriter, filmed by his cousin Murray Cummings, follows this modest performer’s creative process as he writes a new song from scratch that will entrance millions.

In this documentary, survivors recall the catastrophic 2018 Camp Fire, which razed the town of Paradise and became California’s deadliest wildfire.

Selections include Kelley’s Plasticon Pictures, the earliest extant 3-D demonstration film from 1922 with incredible footage of Washington and New York City; New Dimensions, the first domestic full color 3-D film originally shown at the World’s Fair in 1940; Thrills for You, a promotional film for the Pennsylvania Railroad; Stardust in Your Eyes, a hilarious standup routine by Slick Slavin; trailer for The Maze, with fantastic production design by William Cameron Menzies; Doom Town, a controversial anti-atomic testing film mysteriously pulled from release; puppet cartoon The Adventures of Sam Space, presented in widescreen; I’ll Sell My Shirt, a burlesque comedy unseen in 3-D for over 60 years; Boo Moon, an excellent example of color stereoscopic animation…and more!

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A diverse group of disabled people from across the U.S. take on leading roles in a magical rip-roaring costume drama Western, filmed on vintage Hollywood locations. This riveting film within a film immerses us in a dynamic, inclusive world of discipline and play, raising questions about why we so rarely see real disabled actors on the big screen?

Many objected to leather-jacket, spike-hair kids with tattoos. But, that did not dissuade a generation… No one realized that a little club in Costa Mesa, CA would end up spawning a multi-billion dollar youth culture that still endures today! It was the Cuckoos Nest of the late 70s and early 80s. With archival, unseen and new footage, the filmmakers compiled an intimate story about the beginning of a movement, a place of refuge for a youth culture, a fearful establishment and a police force that didnt understand what was happening.

When a legendary escape artist comes up for parole after 30 years behind bars, a chance for freedom must be weighed against his infamous past.

Tale of a Lake is a film about the thousands of lakes that Finland is known for. It takes the viewers on an unprecedented adventure, ranging from the crystal clear springs all the way to the basins of the big lakes. It opens a whole new world of underwater nature for the viewers, and tells about the many old tales and beliefs in the land of thousands of lakes. The story of the film is told through tales that are based around the myths, legends and old beliefs that are part of the Finnish mythology.

The documentary film depicts one aspect of the hacking scene and its evolution in the last 20 years. Who are hackers and what drives them? The film was produced for the 20-year anniversary of SI-CERT (Slovenian Computer Emergency Response Team) in cooperation with Sever & Sever Production and Slovenian National TV.

During the time of the Stolen Generations, thousands upon thousands of Aboriginal girls were taken from their families and pressed into domestic servitude by the Australian Government. They were supposedly employed as servants, but with total control over their movements, wages and living conditions, their lives all too frequently became an inescapable cycle of abuse, rape and enslavement, with consequences that echo powerfully to this day. Recounting the stories of five of these women – Rita, Violet and the three Wenberg sisters – Servant or Slave is a commanding piece of first-person testimony to a dark and unacknowledged corner of Australian history. Shot with admirable craft and humanity by documentarian Steven McGregor (Croker Island Exodus, MIFF 2012), Servant or Slave is a work of great sadness and urgency, bringing to forceful life the human tragedy of Australia’s Indigenous history in the unadorned words of those who lived it.