Raising Bertie is a longitudinal documentary feature following three young African American boys over the course of six years as they grow into adulthood in Bertie County, a rural African American-led community in Eastern North Carolina. Through the intimate portrayal of these boys, this powerful vérité film offers a rare in-depth look at the issues facing America’s rural youth and the complex relationships between generational poverty, educational equity, and race. The evocative result is an experience that encourages us to recognize the value and complexity in lives all too often ignored.
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A portrait of the disenchanted youth of the city of Tolyatti, once a symbol of Soviet progress and the automobile, now devastated by economic decline. Laura Sistero encounters an aimless young generation, who express their dreams of escape through crazy races in old patched-up Ladas. A cinematic object is propelled by spectacular skids to the rhythm of an electro-rock soundtrack.
Dick Proenneke retired at age 50 in 1967 and decided to build his own cabin in the wilderness at the base of the Aleutian Peninsula, in what is now Lake Clark National Park. Using color footage he shot himself, Proenneke traces how he came to this remote area, selected a homestead site and built his log cabin completely by himself. The documentary covers his first year in-country, showing his day-to-day activities and the passing of the seasons as he sought to scratch out a living alone in the wilderness.
With his signature circular glasses and mustache, Michael Chow is an exuberant force at the crossroads between eccentricity and sophistication. The famed restaurateur defined “The Moment” with the openings of Mr. Chow, the bustling upscale Chinese eateries that attracted the glitterati of Swingin’ London, 70s Hollywood, and post Studio 54 New York.
Emmy-winning comedian Trevor Noah talks learning German, speaking ill of the dead, judging people in horror movies and ordering Indian food in Scotland.
A look at the work and surprising success of a four-year-old girl whose paintings have been compared to the likes of Picasso and has raked in hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The film follows Michael Moskowitz’s work with a New York-based therapist named Kirkland Vaughns, one of the few African-American Freudian therapists in the United States, while the director reveals her own family’s devastating trauma.
Ai Weiwei is known for many things – great architecture, subversive in-your-face art, and political activism. He has also called for greater transparency on the part of the Chinese state. Director Alison Klayman chronicles the complexities of Ai’s life for three years, beginning with his rise to public prominence via blog and Twitter after he questioned the deaths of more than 5,000 students in the 2008 Sichuan earthquake. The record continues through his widely publicized arrest in Beijing in April of 2011. As Ai prepares various works of art for major international exhibitions, his activism heats up, and his run-ins with China’s authorities become more and more frequent.
On the night of Oct. 2, 2005, Hart and Dana Perry’s 15-year-old son Evan jumped to his death from his New York City bedroom window. This moving film is the story, told by his filmmaker parents and others who knew him, of Evan’s life and death, and his life-long struggle with bipolar disorder. It delves into the complexity of Evan’s disease, sharing his family’s journey through the maze of mental illness. In showing how one family deals with generations of loss and grief, the film defies the stigma related to mental illness and suicide and tells a human story that touches everyone.
Professor Richard Fortey delves into the fascinating and normally-hidden kingdom of fungi. From their spectacular birth, through their secretive underground life to their final explosive death, Richard reveals a remarkable world that few of us understand or even realise exists – yet all life on Earth depends on it.
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Through the first province-wide First Nations Spelling Bee in Saskatchewan, a group of students have an opportunity to compete against the nation’s best at the Toronto finals.
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