This documentary short by Alanis Obomsawin tells the story of Kahentiiosta, a young Kahnawake Mohawk woman arrested after the Oka Crisis’ 78-day armed standoff in 1990. She was detained 4 days longer than the other women. Her crime? The prosecutor representing the Quebec government did not accept her indigenous name.
You May Also Like
Guardian chronicles the work of wildlife stewards amid sweeping legislative rollbacks of environmental protections in Canada. Part hermit, part biologist, Guardians live on boats, full-time, in one of the last pristine frontiers of the world to monitor salmon, the backbone of the ecosystem, economy, and culture along British Columbia’s coast. But, in an age of science censorship and soaring resource extraction in the form of fracking for oil and natural gas, Guardians and the wildlife they have dedicated their lives to protect are now disappearing.
Nearly 50 years ago, a mass murder was committed in the small Florida town of Arcadia. The victims were all children in the same family of African-American citrus pickers. Their father James Richardson was convicted of the crime and sentenced to death. More than 20 years and a series of unprecedented miracles followed in order to set him free. Now, in the present day, James Richardson travels back to Florida in the hopes of receiving a glimmer of justice from a State which took his life away. This is a story that has unfolded countless times in different ways in small towns across America.
In their day, Marian ‘Lady Tyger’ Trimiar, Cathy ‘Cat’ Davis and ‘Pretty’ Pat Pineda were famous, earning headlines as they battled against sexist 1970s society for the right to fight. But today, they live anonymously, and in many cases, in poverty – their groundbreaking contributions to sport ignored by the men who’ve written boxing history. This feature documentary uncovers the hidden origins of women’s boxing, and the remarkable story of the pioneering women who put their lives of the line to earn the right to fight each other in the ring. This is an inspirational story, but it is not a hagiography – the narrative takes dark and surprising twists and turns as the women’s stories unfold in unexpected ways.
MAJOR! follows the life and campaigns of Miss Major Griffin-Gracy, a 73-year-old Black transgender woman who has been fighting for the rights of trans women of color for over 40 years.
With help from park rangers and other experts, a wildlife photographer tracks, catalogues, and protects two Ugandan lion prides.
Stan and Ollie are musicians attempting to travel by train to Pottsville.
Ancient oceans teeming with life, Norwegian settlers, Native Americans and multinational oil corporations find intimacy in deep time. Following up his 2009 feature Crude Independence (SXSW), Deep Time is director Noah Hutton’s ethereal portrait of the landowners, state officials, and oil workers at the center of the most prolific oil boom on the planet for the past six years. With a new focus on the relationship of the indigenous peoples of North Dakota to their surging fossil wealth, Deep Time casts the ongoing boom in the context of paleo-cycles, climate change, and the dark ecology of the future.
Muckraking filmmaker Morgan Spurlock reignites his battle with the food industry — this time from behind the register — as he opens his own fast food restaurant.
Cleopatra, the last Egyptian queen and one of the most legendary women in history. A beautiful seductress who used her sex appeal in order to manipulate the most powerful men in the Roman Empire. This film reveals the truth behind the legend.
Although the free jazz movement of the 1960s and ’70s was much maligned in some jazz circles, its pioneers – brilliant talents like Ornette Coleman, Cecil Taylor, Sun Ra, Albert Ayler, and John Coltrane – are today acknowledged as central to the evolution of jazz as America’s most innovative art form. FIRE MUSIC showcases the architects of a movement whose radical brand of improvisation pushed harmonic and rhythmic boundaries, and produced landmark albums like Coleman’s Free Jazz: A Collective Inspiration and Coltrane’s Ascension. A rich trove of archival footage conjures the 1960s jazz scene along with incisive reflections by critic Gary Giddins and a number of the movement’s key players.
The life of internationally renowned artist and activist Nan Goldin is told through her slideshows, intimate interviews, ground-breaking photography, and rare footage of her personal fight to hold the Sackler family accountable for the overdose crisis.
This documentary tells the story of great love, bitter disappointments and self-doubts – but most of all of courage. The courage to take risks, try something new and be yourself – no matter what age. The film dives deeply into the exceptional and heart-warming stories of a group of transsexuals and drag queens in their sixties and seventies, who summon up their bravery to take to the stage one last time. For two years they have been touring in five continents, basking in the success of a spectacular show called “Gardenia”, directed by Alain Platel and Frank Van Laecke. Now, as the show comes to a close, the glamorous aging performers must leave the limelight and go home to the quiet lives they left behind.