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At first glance, Matthew VanDyke—a shy Baltimore native with a sheltered upbringing and a tormenting OCD diagnosis—is the last person you’d imagine on the front lines of the 2011 Libyan revolution. But after finishing grad school and escaping the U.S. for “a crash course in manhood,” a winding path leads him just there. Motorcycling across North Africa and the Middle East and spending time as an embedded journalist in Iraq, Matthew lands in Libya, forming an unexpected kinship with a group of young men who transform his life. Matthew joins his friends in the rebel army against Gaddafi, taking up arms (and a camera). Along the way, he is captured and held in solitary confinement for six terrifying months. Academy Awa
In the year 2024, homosexuality has been outlawed by an extreme right-wing government. Only one extraordinary man can stop this wave of terror and repression, a superhero for our troubled times.
When 35 year old stand-up comedian Steve Mazan learned he was dying of cancer, he dedicated the rest of his life to making his dream come true: performing comedy on The Late Show with David Letterman. This documentary chronicles his five-year journey, as he races his own ticking clock to achieve a nearly impossible goal. Hilarious and heart-breaking, Steve brings a brand-new perspective to living with cancer. This is a story that proves it’s not how much time you have, it’s what you do with it. As Steve says, ‘If you stop chasing your dreams, you’re already dead.’
Monique Marvez stars in her first one hour Stand-up Comedy Special based on the writings from her critically acclaimed book “Not Skinny Not Blonde.” The former San Diego radio host is on a humorous mission to enlighten both men and women about what’s truly important between the sexes. Having been married 3 times herself she considers it sound advice from an expert. Monique has learned from her past and now dates a much younger man, conceding “life is just too dam short.” but don’t call her a cougar, she says, “call me what I am, sore!”
The film opens on a water-skiing accident – a girl (Délie) drives a speedboat and pulls a young man (Stan). They are both challenging their own limits when a crash occurs… Stan wakes up from a coma after this serious accident, to find out that genealogists are looking for an individual whose identity corresponds to his. Instead of asking himself questions about this testamentary filiation, he subscribes for Professor Starkov’s legacy, and embarks for the country of Las Estrellas… Purging odyssey where intuition and telepathy accelerates the journey in time. Dharma Guns revisits the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice fighting with the tyranny of Time-God…
Mike Birbiglia shares a lifetime of romantic blunders and misunderstandings. On this painfully honest but hilarious journey, Birbiglia struggles to find reason in an area where it may be impossible to find: love.
Set in Hawaii, All For Melissa is a touching, beautiful feature film that tells the story of a young man’s coming to grips with the reality of his everyday life. It shows that even though you may not get the girl of your dreams, the movie star fantasy; sometimes the girl next door, your best friend, is better than any dream girl ever could be. What sets All For Melissa apart from other films of this genre is the role the landscape, culture, and spirit of the Hawaii plays in the film. This is a love letter to Hawaii, a big aloha, and mahalo to the land and the people of this state.
Welcome to Egypt, land of the Pharaohs. A place steeped in history and legend; Gods and spiritual guides; untold wealth – and the bone-cracking, blood-spilling guardians of its riches. Jack Wells has arrived in Egypt in search of the famous diamond known as The Codex Stone. His journey leads him to the tomb of the cursed King Neferu, cursed not by name but by nature. With his centuries-old slumber disturbed by timeless human greed, the King rises from the dead with a blood-lust that cannot be quenched and a raging fury that will shred flesh from bone, bringing terrible and tormented death to all who dare witness the Day of the Mummy.
Once Pedro Chazarreta found murdered in the wonderful gated, El Tribuno newspaper hires retired detective novelist Nurit Iscar/Betibù that is installed in the area and a series of newspaper columns about the case. Along with the Chief of police of the newspaper, Mariano Saravia, and a veteran journalist, Jaime Breña, Betibù starts to investigate the murder. Using an old photo of the adolescence of Chazarreta, which shows him with fellow high school, the Group discovers an apparent connection between this murder and a succession of apparently trivial deaths of members of the photo. At the same time, Betibù must face its past emotional with the editor of the newspaper, Lorenzo Rinaldi, who seeks to restore the relationship.
From the team behind Man on Wire comes the story of Nim, the chimpanzee who in the 1970s became the focus of a landmark experiment which aimed to show that an ape could learn to communicate with language if raised and nurtured like a human child. Following Nim’s extraordinary journey through human society, and the enduring impact he makes on the people he meets along the way, the film is an unflinching and unsentimental biography of an animal we tried to make human. What we learn about his true nature – and indeed our own – is comic, revealing and profoundly unsettling.
Strawberry Shortcake and her favorite gal pals learn that it’s okay to ask for help sometimes, and also to say “no.” And the girls form a new band and may or may not go on tour.
A winter defined by feast or famine, shattered snowfall records and endless droughts, tidal waves, floods, and for many, a season that simply would not end. In a time where technology and the energy of our planet are accelerating off the charts and Mother Nature’s confusion can no longer be explained away by experts. The Kootenay, Purcell, Selkirk, Monashee, Pacific Coast, Cascade, Wasatch, Uinta, Cache, Gros Ventre, Strandafjellet and Kaçkar mountain ranges were on the winning end of the spectrum, and you might guess where the Absinthe crew spent their winter. Twelve riders having a blast, redefining the limits of what is possible. Absinthe brings you the next wintry shred classic: Twel2ve.
After running into a neighbourhood acquaintance at the local used record store who shared his list of 15 reasons to live, Alan Zweig felt a strong compulsion to make a film on the subject, despite his admission, “I didn’t make lists and I never thought about reasons to live.” From this inspiration begins a series of episodic chapters adapted to the themes of Ray Robertson’s collection of essays. The participants are as eclectic as the list, sharing personal anecdotes related to (among other themes) work, love, intoxication, humour, solitude, duty, home and death. Humorous and sometimes heartbreaking, Zweig’s compassion for his subjects and their stories, expressed through his conversational and candid interview style, ties these vignettes together in a visual essay that strikes deeper chords about finding meaning in our existence. Amongst his subjects’ reasons to live Zweig finds a couple of his own in his touching, honest and endearing way.
A train dispatcher encounters a mute stranger who appears out of nowhere, and finds himself mysteriously involved with a murder in Poland. The end of the eighties in the twentieth century. Alois Nebel works as a dispatcher at the small railway station in Bílý Potok, a remote village on the Czech–Polish border. He’s a loner, who prefers old timetables to people, and he finds the loneliness of the station tranquil – except when the fog rolls in. Then he hallucinates, sees trains from the last hundred years pass through the station. They bring ghosts and shadows from the dark past of Central Europe. Alois can’t get rid of these nightmares and eventually ends up in sanatorium. In the sanatorium, he gets to know The Mute, a man carrying an old photograph who was arrested by the police after crossing the border. No one knows why he came to Bílý Potok or who he’s looking for, but it is his past that propels Alois on his journey…
Landfill is a documentary that emerged from the perception of a paradox in relation to litter. While most people want to get rid of it, I met some ladies, pioneers of recycling, that they miss the trash from others in side of the house. From the time where I met up making the film, many things happened, both in the media, with all the newly fallacious discourse of sustainability, and in my personal relationship with the trash, when I became the ‘householder. ‘ This is a film of these seven women, who are truly experts.
Fallen Souls is a tale of a young man’s journey from revenge to self-discovery. It creates a new unique genre of the supernatural and draws on time-honored elements of a revenge thriller, then travels the difficult journey to understanding faith and unconditional love for god, family and self. Dominic, a diligent blue collar factory worker, husband to the perfect woman and father to a heavenly child, lives a humble little life. When he stumbles upon the slain and bloodied bodies of both wife and child in their home, Dominic’s dream life turns into a nightmare. Grief stricken, he takes matters into his own hands and begins a desperate search through Chicago’s worst slums to the crest of it’s upper society, hunting a killer known as the “Silent Slasher”
Karmageddon is an investigation of contemporary Western spirituality in the wake of the 1960s. It follows Bhagavan Das, an American whose spiritual journey to India in 1964 would shift American spirituality. He mentored Ram Dass, the Harvard psychology professor fired with Timothy Leary for their experiments into LSD. He inspired the book ‘Be Here Now,’ a key document of 20th century spiritual literature that brought Eastern practices to the West. Since the 1960s, Bhagavan Das has worked as a kirtan chanter and guru. He has also slept with over 500 women while at times dropping his spiritual calling to sell used cars and encyclopedias. The film follows one of his devotees as he attempts to navigate the gap between 1960s and contemporary spirituality.
Four guys, one camera, and their experience chronicling the exhilarating and terrifying rite of passage: losing your virginity. As these guys help their buddy get laid, they’ll have to survive friends with benefits, Internet hookups, even porn stars during an adventure that proves why you will always remember your first time.
A starry-eyed young girl journeys from the mountains of Appalachia to the stage at Dollywood, where she discovers the impact of African-Americans on the world of country music – while at the same time competing in a country music competition for kids, hosted by Dolly Parton herself.
Cuba is not a country for young gays. Teen rent boy Reinier falls in love with a mate in the slum soccer field at their neighbourhood in Havana. Although obsessed with moneymaking to hold up his baby, teen wife and wife’s granma, gambler Reinier always fails in getting the stoke of luck he looks for. At the same time he cannot help being infatuated by Yosvani. Handsome Yosvani will give up his wealthy -and elder- girlfriend whom he hooked to pay him a lavish life in the big city, and the works he makes for her father, a loan thug, so much in love he is with Reinier. But the boys would fight hard to keep this love in the reckless Havana streets.
Siberia. Late autumn. In taiga, in the deserted village there lives an old man Ivan & his seven-year-old grandson Leshia. A pack of feral dogs devours everything alive in the neighborhood. One of these dogs is Leshia’s best friend. Sometimes their relative uncle Yuri brings food to them. Once on his way back from Ivan’s village uncle Yuri is attacked by dogs & perishes. Ivan & Leshia stay without supply. Once Leshia witnesses Ivan shooting at ‘his’ dog & runs away. The old Man finds him in a dry well, but he fails to get him out on his own. Ivan sets out through taiga in search of help. Now the dogs are hunting him… And the boy is waiting for his father…
Gay twins Gary and Larry have always loved Dolly Parton. They left their small town home ten years ago to make it in Hollywood and are finally ready to get their script to Dolly. In a RV named Jolene, the boys embark on the adventure of a lifetime. This road trip is also a journey of self-discovery and an attempt to resolve mommy issues that have divided them since childhood.
Directed by acclaimed filmmaker Martin Scorsese and his longtime documentary collaborator David Tedeschi, A 50 Year Argument rides the waves of literary, political, and cultural history as charted by the The New York Review of Books, America’s leading journal of ideas for over 50 years. Provocative, idiosyncratic and incendiary, the film weaves rarely seen archival material, contributor interviews, excerpts from writings by such icons as James Baldwin, Gore Vidal, and Joan Didion along with original verité footage filmed in the Review’s West Village offices. Confrontation and original argument are in the Review’s DNA – the magazine seems as vital now as when it was run by its indefatigable founding editors, Robert Silvers and the late Barbara Epstein. Co-produced with the BBC’s award-winning Arena and shaped by Scorcese’s vivid filmmaking style, The Fifty Year Argument captures the power of ideas in influencing history.
Meet John G Morris, 95, a legend of photojournalism, whose unerring eye for the best shot has moved and changed the world. Morris, former Picture Editor of Life Magazine & New York Times was instrumental in the early years of Magnum with his friends and peers Robert Capa & Henri Cartier Bresson. This film covers serious subjects; the coverage of conflict through photojournalism, a sensitive view of humanity and a search for peace in the world.
Paul Liebrandt is one of the most talented and controversial chefs in the food world and the youngest chef to have received 3 stars from the New York Times. He was 24. NY Times food critic, William Grimes, likened Paul to ‘a pianist who seems to have found a couple of dozen extra keys.’ Through Paul, the film reveals the creative process, the extreme hard work, long hours, and dedication it takes to be a culinary artist and have success in the cutthroat world of haute cuisine. Exploring the complicated relationships between food critics, chefs, and owners the film delves into the life of a dedicated young chef ahead of his time.
More money flows through the family courts, and into the hands of courthouse insiders, than in all other court systems in America combined – over $50 billion a year and growing. Through extensive research and interviews with the nation’s top divorce lawyers, mediators, judges, politicians, litigants and journalists, DIVORCE CORP. uncovers how children are torn from their homes, unlicensed custody evaluators extort money, and abusive judges play god with people’s lives while enriching their friends. This explosive documentary reveals the family courts as unregulated, extra-constitutional fiefdoms. Rather than assist victims of domestic crimes, these courts often precipitate them. And rather than help parents and children move on, as they are mandated to do, these courts – and their associates – drag out cases for years, sometimes decades, ultimately resulting in a rash of social ills, including home foreclosure, bankruptcy, suicide and violence.
After a zombie apocalypse spreads from a London prison, the UK is brought to its knees. The spread of the virus is temporarily contained but, without a cure, it’s only a matter of time before it breaks its boundaries and the biggest problem of all… any zombies with combat skills are now enhanced. With the South East of England quarantined from the rest of the world using fortified borders, intelligence finds that the scientist responsible for the outbreak is alive and well in London. With his recovery being the only hope of a cure, a squad of eight Special Forces soldiers is sent on a suicide mission to the city, now ruled by the undead, with a single task: get him out alive within 72 hours by any means necessary. What emerges is an unlikely pairing on a course to save humanity against ever-rising odds.
Whitney, a spoiled pre-teen from Philadelphia, is forced to move to the country when her parents feel the squeeze of economic hard times. A fish out of water, far from her comfort zone, she befriends an amazing horse, and undertakes a misguided journey back to her old life, only to discover that her family is her home.
As the three out-of-towners toast the end of their journey, someone at the bar is watching them and setting a deadly trap. Now, as closing time draws near, a night of unspeakable horrors is about to begin. Jesse Archer (Violet Tendencies, Going Down in LA-LA Land) and Ronnie Kroell (Eating Out: Drama Camp, Bravo’s Make Me a Super Model) headline in this bold, uncompromising thriller that plunges into the depths of human depravity. With its unpredictable plotline and raw performances, Into the Lion’s Den is a twisted nightmare that viewers won’t soon forget.
P-A-X-497/341, aka “Pax” , a curious young man from the well-ordered but loveless future, travels to present day New Orleans in search of romance novelist Elizabeth Barrett – whose book he has come upon during an archeological dig in the year 3127. Hoping Elizabeth can explain the concept of love to him, which is now nonexistent in his time, Pax embarks on an adventure filled with new discoveries. Elizabeth introduces Pax to life in the year 2011, filled with love, music and of course, destiny. When Pax doesn’t return to the future by the given deadline, Bob, his fellow scientist, travels back in time to find him. Meanwhile, as Elizabeth helps Pax learn about love, she ends up confiding in her colleague, played by Valerie Harper, about her own upcoming “surprise” engagement.
For fixed-gear cyclists, Los Angeles is a city that has it all. From the neon glow of Hollywood to the sun-drenched boardwalk of Venice Beach, fixed-gear has evolved into a vibrant street culture that is uniquely L.A. From director David Rowe (Fast Friday) comes a new documentary feature that explores a side of L.A. few outsiders have seen. From races through rush-hour traffic to midnight loft parties, To Live & Ride in L.A. is a fast paced-trip through the busy streets and back-alleys of one of the world’s largest cities. To Live & Ride in L.A. features talented local riders tearing up the streets with first-time visitor Keo Curry (Fast Friday, Macaframa) – one of the living legends of the sport. Bike to hidden spots off the map, race a midnight alley-cat, keep pace with the riders from Wolfpack, and hang with the local crews, graffiti artists and other L.A. personalities burning up the fixed-gear scene.
NYC, Central Park, 2010. Five young teenagers are violently assaulted. But they’re not your average teenagers… they’re prodigies. The trauma of the assault incites them to lash out against the world in a cold and calculating way. The five chillingly brilliant minds come together to concoct a perfect revenge. The only person aware of the pending doom is Jimbo Farrar, a sixth prodigy, who has gathered them. As long as he fights against his five counterparts with all his might, there’s hope for the world. But should he turn over to their side, it’s only a matter of time before a disaster of apocalyptic proportions ensues…
After losing his parents in a car accident, Mukesh stays at his Aunt’s house in Delhi. Enrolled in a good for nothing course in college he finds peace by playing chess at the local cemetery, the rest of the times he worries over ways to make a living and taking care of his sisters. ‘B.A.Pass’ is a story looking at the fatal promise of a new life. When Mukesh meets Sarika ‘auntie’ at a kitty party, little does he know of the city and it’s ways and means to survive. Sarika seduces Mukesh, shy and inexperienced he falls for her. What follows is a twist of destiny, a kind of story that appears in the tabloids as ‘heinous acts of crime’
The lives of four twenty-somethings collide one fateful New Year’s Eve in this twisty, blackly comic crime thriller set amidst the ancient walls of Derry, Northern Ireland, in a night of fast talk, accidents and intrigue. Johnny, a small-time crook, and Marie, a dissatisfied shop assistant, are both looking for a fresh start. Greta is on the verge of taking her own life and Pearse has a bounty on his head for asking difficult questions about his missing brother Eddie Kelly. As the clock ticks down to midnight and the night’s events expertly fall into place, Jump weaves an existential portrait of the characters’ lives as their hopes, fears and secrets are revealed
Samantha, a freelance photographer, is returning to Cape Cod for the first time since the death of her mother years earlier. She’s going to celebrate her father’s Christmas Eve wedding but is anxious to revisit past memories. On a deadline for a big Christmas spread that could ignite her career, she enlists the help of her childhood friend, Mike, to show her around. In the time she spends in Cape Cod, she realizes that Christmas is wherever your family is.
Why do things fall to the ground without magic? The young magician’s apprentice LIMBRADUR is far more interested in the universe and its secrets than boring magic spells. He is fascinated by the stars, the universe and the laws of nature. So, one night he sneaks into the Albert Einstein Museum, where he meets ALBYX3, a small, clever but rather quirky robot who knows all about Albert Einstein and his theories. ALBY takes LIMBRADUR on a magical journey of discovery through time and space, during which they not only uncover the secrets of gravity but also learn much about friendship and imagination. For LIMBRADUR and ALBY both have secrets of their own.
Inspired by events that took place in Massachusetts, Delphine and Muriel Coulin’s provocative debut focuses on a group of bored teenage girls who all make an irrevocable pact. When Camille (Louise Grinberg) accidentally becomes pregnant, she encourages her friends and fellow high school classmates to follow suit. It’s only a matter of time, before 17 girls in the high school are pregnant and the town is thrown into a world of chaos. Set in the writer/directors’ small, seaside hometown of Lorient in Brittany, 17 Girls is a reflection on adolescence, body image, friendship and the perplexing realities of growing up.
Eoghan is a sound-recordist who is returning to Ireland from Berlin for the first time in 15 years. His reason for returning is a job offer: to find and record places free from man-made sound. His quest takes him away from towns and villages into remote terrain. Throughout his journey, he is drawn into a series of encounters and conversations which gradually divert his attention towards a more intangible silence, one that is bound up with the sounds of the life he had left behind. Influenced by elements of folklore and archive, “Silence” unfolds with a quiet intensity, where poetic images reveal an absorbing meditation on themes relating to sound and silence, history, memory and exile.
WINTER is a dangerous, sexy, poignant and at times darkly funny story about two people who desperately want intimacy but have fashioned lives of reclusivity and emotional fracture which ultimately spells the doom of their great love. WINTER begins with Michael, in his mid forties, suicidal about his writing career, which once flourished and now is on a downturn. He leaves his home in New York and goes to Paris in hopes of igniting his passion for writing and life. He also has a penchant for S and M. Soon after is arrival he meets Sophie, a sexy, smart, soulful, nurse who helps dying people transition to the after world. She and Michael instantly have chemistry albeit combative. Sophie has a secret. Her other job is being a dominatrix. Throughout the film, Sophie is nursing a little girl, Anais, who is dying of leukemia. Written by Anonymous (IMDB.com).
2016: Obama’s America takes audiences on a gripping visual journey into the heart of the worlds most powerful office to reveal the struggle of whether one man’s past will redefine America over the next four years. The film examines the question, “If Obama wins a second term, where will we be in 2016?” Across the globe and in America, people in 2008 hungered for a leader who would unite and lift us from economic turmoil and war. True to Americas ideals, they invested their hope in a new kind of president, Barack Obama. What they didn’t know is that Obama is a man with a past, and in powerful ways that past defines him–who he is, how he thinks, and where he intends to take America and the world. Immersed in exotic locales across four continents, best selling author Dinesh DSouza races against time to find answers to Obama’s past and reveal where America will be in 2016.