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In 2046, many aspects of life are carried out on a virtual network. No matter how advanced the time becomes, however, bullying never disappears. Haruyuki is one of the bullied students. However, one day he is contacted by Kuroyukihime, the most famous person in the school. “Wouldn’t you like to ‘accelerate’ and go further ahead, boy?” Haruyuki is introduced to the “Accel World” and decides to fight as Kuroyukihime’s knight.
The life and work of Robert Frank—as a photographer and a filmmaker—are so intertwined that they’re one in the same, and the vast amount of territory he’s covered, from The Americans in 1958 up to the present, is intimately registered in his now-formidable body of artistic gestures. From the early ’90s on, Frank has been making his films and videos with the brilliant editor Laura Israel, who has helped him to keep things homemade and preserve the illuminating spark of first contact between camera and people/places. Don’t Blink is Israel’s like-minded portrait of her friend and collaborator, a lively rummage sale of images and sounds and recollected passages and unfathomable losses and friendships that leaves us a fast and fleeting imprint of the life of the Swiss-born man who reinvented himself the American way, and is still standing on ground of his own making at the age of 90.
Tom “Putuparri” Lawford is a man caught between two worlds: his past and present in modern society, where he battles with alcoholism and domestic violence; and his future as a leader of his people, reconnecting with his ancestral lands, learning about his traditional culture and shouldering his responsibility to pass this knowledge on to the next generation. Director Nicole Ma spent more than a decade documenting Putuparri’s journey, travelling with him and his family on numerous occasions to Kurtal, in the Kimberley’s Great Sandy Desert region – traditionally a site of great significance as a place where people ritually make rain – as they fight for their native title claim over the area. Set against the backdrop of this long fight for ownership of traditional lands, the MIFF Premiere Fund-supported Putuparri and the Rainmakers is an emotional, visually breathtaking story of love, hope and the survival of Aboriginal law and culture against all odds.
Anoosh and Arash are at the center of Tehran’s underground techno scene. Tired of hiding from the police and their stagnating career, they organize one last manic techno rave under dangerous circumstances in the desert. Back in Tehran they try their luck selling their illegally printed music album without permission. When Anoosh is arrested, there seems to be no hope left. But then they receive a phone call from the biggest techno festival in the world. Once landed in Switzerland, the haze of the instant euphoria evaporates quickly when the seriousness of the situation starts to dawn on them.
Jacques Arnault, head of Sud Secours NGO, is planning a high impact operation: he and his team are going to exfiltrate 300 orphan victims of the Chadian civil war and bring them to French adoption applicants. Françoise Dubois, a journalist, is invited to come along with them and handle the media coverage for this operation. Completely immersed in the brutal reality of a country at war, the NGO members start losing their convictions and are faced with the limits of humanitarian intervention.
Gertrude Bell, the most powerful woman in the British Empire in her day, shaped the destiny of Iraq after WWI in ways that still reverberate today.
The story of a woman who dreams to join an intervention group in the police department called RAID. Unfortunately, she is rather clumsy and both her family (and soon to be family-in-law) and a veteran of the RAID do not approve. However, Johanna is determined to prove them wrong.
Warriors called “Saints” are the champions of hope who have always appeared since the Age of Myth whenever evil threatens the world. In this present day story, many years since the long fought “Holy War” we find Saori Kido, a girl troubled by her mysterious powers. She is saved by a boy, Seiya “Bronze Saint” from a sudden attack by an assassin, through the accident Saori realizes her destiny and mission and decides to go to “Sanctuary” with Seiya and his company of Bronze Saints. In Sanctuary they confront “Pope” and wage a desperate battle against the greatest Saints, the “Gold Saints”.
A documentary exploring the birth, death and resurrection of illustrated movie poster art. Through interviews with a number of key art personalities from the 70s and 80s, as well as many modern, alternative poster artists, “Twenty-Four by Thirty-Six” aims to answer the question: What happened to the illustrated movie poster? Where did it disappear to, and why? In the mid 2000s, filling the void left behind by Hollywood’s abandonment of illustrated movie posters, independent artists and galleries began selling limited edition, screenprinted posters — a movement that has quickly exploded into a booming industry with prints selling out online in seconds, inspiring Hollywood studios to take notice of illustration in movie posters once more.
Johnny Cash: American Rebel is built around 12 essential Johnny Cash tracks spanning four decades that each deliver the passion, musicality and messages against war, injustice, racism and prejudice, including “Folsom Prison Blues,” “Jackson,” “San Quentin,” “Man in Black,” “Sunday Morning Coming Down,” “Ring of Fire” and “Hurt.” Each song illustrates a chapter in his life, as well the story of an ever-changing America from the 1950s to modern day, as told through interviews, archival concert footage, photographs and personal artifacts from the Cash family.
Stelios Dimitrakopoulos has 32 hours left before he loses everything. From the jazz bar he painstakingly keeps running for years, to his own family. The Romanian gangster who lent him money, now demands the debt to be paid. The middle-man and former friend, makes Stelios take care of illegal errands. His wife is seriously thinking of abandoning him, and a night club owner, not thinking about the consequences, finally starts to stand up for himself. Christmas is coming, the clock is ticking, and the tree in Stelios’ house must be decorated.
The American Dream Is the cultural motif that has inspired North America for the last century. Work hard, save, sacrifice and you will get ahead. America offers the freedom of upward mobility. But over the last decade the American Dream has been called into question. For many, it no longer seems to be working. The MILLENNIAL DREAM is a feature length documentary that explores the values that may replace the cultural motif known as The American Dream. As the Millennial generation becomes the most significant portion of the work force what will change about what we want from our jobs, what education will look like, what kinds of companies will succeed in the new economy and what kinds of living communities will be desired? And what can cities and regions do to attract the new economy? Interviews with experts such as Seth Godin and the personal reflections of young workers will stir debate and dialogue around what might emerge as the Millennial Dream.
A smart finger movie about adult rated romance between young men and women who have total control over SNS.
Yallah! Underground follows some of today’s most influential and progressive artists in Arab underground culture from 2009 to 2013 and documents their work, dreams and fears in a time of great change for Arab societies. In a region full of tension, young Arab artists in the Middle East have struggled for years to express themselves freely and to promote more liberal attitudes within their societies. During the Arab Spring, like many others of this new generation, local artists had high hopes for the future and took part in the protests. However, after years of turmoil and instability, young Arabs now have to challenge both old and new problems, being torn between feelings of disillusion and a vague hope for a better future.
Four exceptional astronomers celebrate 50 years of work and friendship on a return road trip in the southwestern United States, recapturing youthful adventures and recounting each other’s influences on the most exciting period in astronomy’s history. Roger the instrument-maker, Donald the theoretician, Nick the visionary, and Wal the observer. Together they represent the most productive period astronomy has ever had. They helped build the world’s biggest observatories and made revolutionary discoveries about the evolving universe, discoveries that have the power to change the way humanity sees itself. Alison Rose’s film is a funny, insightful, humbling and intimate portrait of friendship, as the men reflect on how their profound work on the universe has reflected back on the individual, affecting their sense of religious faith, how life may have purpose, and what is knowable and unknowable.
Daisy and Viola are siamese twin sisters on the verge of turning 18 living in the suburbs of Naples. They are blessed with beautiful voices and thanks to their performances at weddings, communions and baptisms, they get the livelihood for the whole family. Kept isolated from the rest of the world by their own father who just exploits them in order to make money, their life turns upside-down when one of them falls in love for the first time and they discover that they can be separated.
In a remote village in South India, three generations of sons react to the death of Century Gowda, their grandfather, a 101-year-old man. The three story lines intertwine before converging at Century Gowda’s “Thithi”, the final funeral celebration eleven days after a death.
They live in an old house on the fringe of Taipei City: Rat and his elder gay brother Shanghe. Two brothers look for jobs to survive while search for themselves and long for a foothold in life. The younger works at market where he meets a mute woman who gets up to all sorts of craziness. The elder is attracted to a nightclub dancer and finds himself drawn into shifty business.
The titular troublemakers are the New York–based Land (aka Earth) artists of the 1960s and 70s, who walked away from the reproducible and the commodifiable, migrated to the American Southwest, worked with earth and light and seemingly limitless space, and rethought the question of scale and the relationships between artist, landscape, and viewer. Director James Crump has meticulously constructed Troublemakers from interviews (with Germano Celant, Virginia Dwan, and others), photos and footage of Walter De Maria, Michael Heizer, Robert Smithson, Nancy Holt, and Charles Ross among others at work on their astonishing creations.
When Maria (Lisa Carlehed) meets Niels for the first time, he comes across as an angry and unsympathetic young man. His chronic illness has been concentrated into a single wish – to go to a Swiss nursing home for euthanasia. But in order to get there, he needs a volunteer escort.
The Thread is a groundbreaking documentary that exposes the undeniable impact amateur internet writers are having on journalism today. Following the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, amateur internet sleuths took to Twitter and Reddit, intent on identifying the individuals responsible. The ensuing investigation led to an innocent young man being charged with the crime, thus changing the face of journalism forever. Directed by Greg Barker (Manhunt) and executive produced by Emmy Award-winning producer Jonathan Chinn (American High) and Academy Award-winning producer Simon Chinn (Man on Wire).
In 1974, 24 year-old Francis Wetherbee, a bank teller who is the subject of small-town envy and gossip, disappears from her hometown of Smithville, Texas two weeks after her fiance’s bank is robbed. Her car is dredged from the bottom of a local river but it yields no clues. After a vigorous but futile search for the missing woman, the authorities give up, and Francis recedes into legend–until the case is revisited nearly 40 years later when key figures in her life come forward with theories and clues surrounding her disappearance. The film then morphs from documentary style to narrative as the odyssey of Francis’ life unfolds for the audience and the truth is revealed.
In a small village of the South of France, life is made difficult by a sweltering heat wave and its corollary, a worrisome lack of water. Everyone is under great pressure, especially the farmers whose fields are not irrigated. Which is the reason why the residents are less and less well-disposed toward one of them, Joseph, a mentally retarded young man whose never-ending antics are becoming, in such fraught context, something of an intolerable inconvenience. The mayor tries desperately to calm things down but nothing helps…
A documentary about the Jewish people in Romania and their several migrations towards Israel, across history and changing political frames – everything presented in a self-proclaimed dadaist style.
The film follows a group of friends and their highs and lows in pursuit of romantic redemption. It takes place over three years and is divided into eight parties : New Year’s Eve, one housewarming, Midsummer, a wedding, a surprise party, a name of celebration, anniversary and birthday parties. The friends are all late thirties or early forties. They fought all with their own idea of what the perfect love really is, and must re-evaluate their perception in the course of history.
High school teacher Stephanie breaks the cardinal rule of not getting romantically involved with one of her students. To make things worse, her handsome teenage lover James starts to demonstrate psychotic, obsessive behavior. When James starts stalking Stephanie and her family, Stephanie is forced to teach James the ultimate dangerous lesson.
Despite the advent of science, literature, technology, philosophy, religion, and so on — none of these has assuaged humankind from killing one another, the animals, and nature. UNITY is a film about why we can’t seem to get along, even after thousands and thousands of years.
Sending a burning arrow into the stunting effects that the compartmentalization of culture has on how creativity manifests, visual artist Doug Aitken embarked on an experiment exploring a less materialistic and more nomadic direction of art creation, exhibition, and participation. Station to Station involved a train that crossed North America housing a constantly changing creative community including artists, musicians, and curators, who collaborated in the creation of recordings, artworks, films, and 10 unique happenings, across the country.
For the members of the comedy troupe Asperger’s Are Us, it’s easier to associate with a faceless audience than with their own families. No matter who the crowd, best friends Noah, New Michael, Jack and Ethan have one simple mantra: “We would much rather the audience appreciate us as comedians than people who have overcome adversity.” In this coming-of-age heartfelt documentary, this band of brothers finds themselves at a crossroad. With real life pulling them apart, they decide to plan one ambitious farewell show before they all go their separate ways. People with Asperger’s don’t deal well with uncertainty, and this is the most uncertain time in their lives.
Rocket science meets the auto industry as “APEX” follows a thread that starts in the design studios and R&D labs where these “fighter jets of the street” are created, and leads to a perilous racetrack in Germany where drivers can reach new heights of speed and performance — if they dare. Equal parts human drama and speed, “APEX” follows Swedish entrepreneur Christian von Koenigsegg, a lifelong sports car enthusiast on a personal quest to build a “mega” car whose golden ratio defies all expectations for a hypercar’s velocity and power, while competing against the biggest names in motorsports for space on the world stage. With insights from top engineers and designers, “APEX” pulls back the curtain on the top-secret development facilities at Porsche, Ferrari, McLaren and Pagani, where awe-inspiring hypercars are imagined and built, and puts you inches from the action, as top drivers shake down the latest hypercars, flat-out on some of the world’s greatest racetracks.
In China 1644 a young man is castrated/dismembered against his will. However, he gains a somewhat defect super power. Much later he’s chosen to escort two concubines on a long, adventurous journey to Beijing.
A star-studded lineup of music, film and television stars will join the celebration of Mickey Mouse on Mickey’s 90th Spectacular. The two-hour television event honoring 90 years of the internationally beloved character will feature appearances by actress, activist and mom Kristen Bell (Disney’s Frozen), actress and Hollywood Records/Republic Records recording artist Sofia Carson (Disney’s Descendants, Freeform’s upcoming Pretty Little Liars: The Perfectionists), two-time Emmy® Award-winning actor Tony Hale (Veep, Arrested Development), and actress Sarah Hyland (ABC’s Modern Family), as well as special musical performances by Josh Groban, NCT 127, Leslie Odom Jr., Meghan Trainor and Zac Brown Band. Mr. Iger will make a special appearance during the evening’s festivities.
On July 1st, 1916, the Newfoundland Regiment took part in a massive First World War offensive on the Somme, led by the British, to liberate France and Belgium from the claws of the Germans. To commemorate its 100th anniversary, Brian McKenna’s latest feature documentary film Newfoundland at Armageddon tells the story of this epic tragedy. Using a technique that brings new meaning to reenactment, McKenna recruits descendants of soldiers who fought this battle, offering a unique opportunity to relive the experience of their ancestors in trenches built specifically for this moving and enlightening film.
The year 2015 CE. The last era in which magecraft still thrived. The Chaldea Security Organization was founded to focus on preserving the continuation of human history. They observe a world which magecraft couldn’t observe and science couldn’t measure all to prevent the certain extinction of humanity. But one day, the future that Chaldea continued to observe disappears and humanity’s extinction in 2017 becomes clear. Rather, it had already happened. The cause seems to be related to Fuyuki, a provincial town in Japan, in the year 2004 CE. There, an “unobservable region” that had not existed before appears. Based on the assumption that Fuyuki is the reason for humanity’s extinction, Chaldea issues an order to explore, investigate, and possibly destroy this singularity – a quest for the Holy Grail, the Grand Order.
A girl named Olga is pursued by both the World Government and a man named Mad Treasure, as she is the only one who knows the location of the Pure Gold, a substance that can buy the entire world. Olga ends up sailing with the Straw Hat Pirates, and they journey to find the Pure Gold on the lost island of Alchemi, which is located inside the stomach of a large angler fish named Bonbori.
Auschwitz-Birkenau was designed to kill. Four gas chambers murdered thousands at a time, belching out smoke and human ashes. Starvation, thirst, disease, and hard labor reduced the average lifespan to less than three months. More than 1-million people perished in the largest German Nazi concentration and extermination camp. Seventy years after her liberation, Kitty Hart-Moxon makes a final return to Auschwitz-Birkenau to walk among the crumbling memorial with students Natalia and Lydia, who, at 16, are the same age now as she was then. As Kitty tells them her story of daily existence, themes begin to emerge: the ever-present threat of death, resilience, friendship, human strength, resisting the Nazis’ constant lethal intent, and living like an animal while still remaining human. Natalia and Lydia ask questions; Kitty provides answers, passing her legacy to the next generation.
Locked away from society in an apartment on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, the Angulo brothers learn about the outside world through the films that they watch. Nicknamed ‘The Wolfpack’, the brothers spend their childhood reenacting their favorite films using elaborate home-made props and costumes. Their world is shaken up when one of the brothers escapes and everything changes.
Thorsten Schütte’s film is a sharply edited and energetic celebration of Zappa through his public persona, allowing us to witness his shifting relationship with audiences. Utilizing potent TV interviews and many forgotten performances from his 30-year career, we are immersed into the musician’s world while experiencing two distinct facets of his complex character. At once Zappa was both a charismatic composer who reveled in the joy of performing and, in the next moment, a fiercely intelligent and brutally honest interviewee whose convictions only got stronger as his career ascended.
Dubbed “The Cannibal Cop,” former NYPD officer Gilberto Valle was convicted of conspiring to kidnap and eat women in March 2013. Valle had argued it was all a fantasy, but the prosecution’s narrative convinced jurors otherwise. His story made headlines not only for its chilling details, but also because of its landmark decision regarding a man many consider “patient zero” in a growing thought-police trend across the nation. Featuring unprecedented, intimate interviews with Valle and his family, as well as insights from lawyers, journalists, psychological professionals and criminal experts, THOUGHT CRIMES: THE CASE OF THE CANNIBAL COP explores this complicated case, asking if someone can be found guilty for his or her most dangerous thoughts.
