There are 100,000 US citizens in solitary confinement across the country, a staggering number prompting comment from both President Obama and the Pope. Situated in rural Virginia, 300 miles from any urban center, Red Onion State Prison is one of over 40 supermax prisons across the US built to hold prisoners in eight-by-ten-foot cells for 23 hours a day. Filmed over the course of one year, this eye-opening film braids stark prison imagery, stories from correction officers, and intimate reflections from the men who are locked up in isolation. The inmates share the paths that led them to prison and their daily struggles to maintain their sanity.
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The first career-spanning film chronicling the life of Picabo Street, the alpine skiing icon of the 1990s and co-director Lindsey Vonn’s childhood hero. From her unorthodox childhood in Idaho to her Olympic successes, dramatic recoveries from ill-timed injuries and her arrest in 2015 due to false abuse allegations, this documentary provides an intimate look at Street’s fascinating life through an emotional interview with Vonn and behind-the-scenes footage of Street’s life.
Go behind the headlines to explore the strangest mass kidnapping in history, with exclusive interviews from those who lived through it.
Filmmaker Kevin Rafferty takes viewers to 1968 to witness a legendary college football game and meet the people involved, interweaving actual gridiron footage with the players’ own reflections. The names may be familiar (Tommy Lee Jones and friends of Al Gore and George W. Bush are among the interviewees), but their views on the game’s place in the turbulent history of the 1960s college scene add an unexpected dimension.
Going deeper than fine fabrics and silk linings, Suited takes a modern, evolved look at gender through the conduit of clothing and elucidates the private and emotional experience surrounding it. With heart and optimism, the film documents a cultural shift that is creating a new demand—and response—for each person’s right to go out into the world with confidence.
An exploration of the making of b-movie sci-fi cult classic “The Creeping Terror” and its con-man director Art “A.J.” Nelson/Vic Savage.
Banksy, the world’s most infamous street artist, whose political art, criminal stunts and daring invasions have outraged the establishment for over two decades. Featuring rare interviews with Banksy, this is the story of how an outlaw artist led a revolutionary new movement and built a multi-million dollar empire, while his identity remained shrouded in mystery.
In the early 2000s, two brothers found tremendous success when their company began selling a device that has been called ‘the biggest revolution in law enforcement since the radio.’ But as their company grew, they made decisions that would have lasting impact on both the public and their increasingly skeptical customer base.
The inside story of the 1998 HIV outbreak that tore through the San Fernando Valley adult film industry told by the people who experienced it. Using archival footage and exclusive, original interviews with such recognizable adult performers as Ron Jeremy, Ginger Lynn, Marc Wallice and Tricia Devereaux among other, the film goes behind the scenes of the porn industry as it confronted a deadly disease which was a threat to it’s very existence.
Explores the remarkable life and career of Donyale Luna, one of the first Black supermodels who graced the covers of both Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar in Europe.
An investigation into how the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), the government agency charged with protecting the health of American citizens, destroyed data on their 2004 study that showed a link between the MMR vaccine and autism.
A film by Frederick Wiseman following the ins and outs of 7 ballets by the Paris Opera Ballet.
The ostensibly simple story of a sympathetic veteran teacher giving Italian lessons to a weekly class of diverse immigrants is given infinitely more depth and complexity by the manner in which director Daniele Gaglianone renders his story. Blurring the lines between fact and fiction, truth and artifice, and between documentary and drama, Gaglianone has created a film within a film. You see the apparent artifice of Gaglianone’s crew using professionals, including the noted film actor Valerio Mastandrea as the teacher, interlinked with ‘real’ immigrant protagonists, studying the language to improve their chances of employment and of gaining a permanent residence permit. Thus in the course of the lessons there is simultaneously the painful and upsetting relation of the students’ personal stories but also humour, as they interact and share their humanity, bridging cultural differences, united in their striving to make a better life for themselves. (Source: LFF programme)