This delicate and impressive collection of life experiences centers on a group of foreigners -- Chinese, Peruvian, North American, Senegalese, Australians, French -- who are trapped in Brazilian jails.
Social & External
The people behind it
An old, broken morin khurr (horse head fiddle) compels renowned Mongolian singer Urna Chahar Tugchi to take a road journey to Ulan Bator and the steppes of Mongolia.
In a courtroom in Queens, women facing prostitution charges may earn a chance at redemption thanks to an experimental program established by a team of rebel heroines working to change the system.
"This is a landscape study of an Orkney croft, with the figure of the crofter, Mary Graham Sinclair, very much in the picture. The croft is West Aith, on the edge of a small loch, which almost every passing visitor stops to photograph or draw or paint. I have been filming this beautiful place since 1977, observing many of the human activities which alter and define how it looks." Margaret Tait
A Perfect 14 explores the fascinating world of plus-size models fighting to reshape the fashion industry and the beauty standards of society.
This spellbinding documentary re-examines the issues raised by Oliver Stone's JFK, and explores the late Jim Garrison's contention that there was a "second conspiracy" to cover up the truth, including attempts to ruin his own reputation.
Frederico Fellini's unmade film ll Viaggio di G. Mastorna Detto Fernet became a graphic novel, just before Fellini's death in 1993. This is the story of how that came to be, as told by long time Fellini collaborator and illustrator for ll Viaggio di G. Mastorna, Milo Manera. Combining still photography and moving images, the piece which was produced in conjunction with Fabrica, premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2011. The short is anchored by an interview with Milo Minara shot entirely in stills. The interview discusses his personal take on the main existentialist themes of the book; this interview has been intercut with the actual graphic novel and what appears to be the lost footage (via recreation) of the story's first scene. This short doc is an exploration into dreams and fantasy, moving through different realities. Shot between Milan, Italy and Koln, Germany.
A documentary from within the Swedish Migration Board's locked repository where people are in custody awaiting forced deportation. Prisoner and guard are in close proximity around the clock. Converses during sleepless nights and playing football during hot summer days. We follow Sophie, 29, who loves her job at the repository, Sami, 20, the young rebel who is locked up but free inside, and Aina, 47, who were separated from her children and kept locked up while the police are stepping up efforts to enforce their expulsion order.
RADICAL GRACE follows three fearless nuns who risk their place in the Catholic Church to follow another higher calling: social justice. When the Vatican reprimands the sisters – citing their “radical feminism” – they become the spiritual and symbolic center of a battle for the heart of the Catholic Church. From their cross-country Nuns on the Bus tour, to serving those on the margins, to a continued struggle for women’s religious equality under Pope Francis, these sisters are transforming American politics — and the Church itself.
Three Norwegian teenaged girlfriends get caught smuggling cocaine out of Bolivia. Why does only one take the fall? Cue a tabloid media storm, professional kidnappers and a behind-bars pregnancy in this sensational exposé.
Ted "Black Lightning" Patrick's practice of "deprogramming," also known as "reverse brainwashing," started in the early 1970s and quickly snowballed into a vast underground movement composed of concerned parents, ex-cultists-turned-deprogrammers and some sympathetic law-enforcers whose mission was to physically and mentally remove individuals from cults.
EMPIRE OF THE MOON wryly deconstructs the experience of being a tourist. Paris, gorgeously photographed in black-and-white, is the setting for cultural explorations ranging from the mundane to the sublime, as visitors trek from icon to icon, snapping the same photos, climbing the same steps and at times experiencing the transformative wonder they came to find.
Following the journey of an Evangelical minister trying to find the courage to preach about the growing toll of gun violence in America. Reverend Rob Schenck, anti-abortion activist and fixture on the political far right, breaks with orthodoxy by questioning whether being pro-gun is consistent with being pro-life.
In 1998, 18 year old Latron Parker made documentary about difficulties growing up in Harlem. Eights years later he was shot dead on the street. Today his mother Jean fights youth gun violence and helps other parents to survive the pain through her organization, Harlem Mothers. Weaving footage from Latron’s own film with scenes from Jean’s new life today.
BEIJING TAXI is a timely, uncensored and richly cinematic portrait of China’s ancient capital as it undergoes a profound transformation. The film takes an intimate and compelling look at the lives of three cab drivers as they confront modern issues and changing values against the backdrop of the 2008 Summer Olympic Games. Through their daily struggles infused with humor and quiet determination, BEIJING TAXI reveals the complexity and contradictions of China’s shifting paradigm.
Follows the Fifth Nazi Party Rally (Nuremberg, 30 August–3 September 1933) and shows the then close relationship between Adolf Hitler and Ernest Rõhm.
This new and revealing programme provides an incredibly detailed account of how Jimi Hendrix, a legendary guitarist touched by genius, lived his life in the high powered world of 60's Rock 'n' Roll.
War Generation - Beirut explores the lives, dreams and fears of three generations of young people living in the heart of the civil war in Lebanon. This seminal work from Jean Chamoun and Mai Masri remains one of the most powerful anti-war documents of the period.
The filmmaker confronts the popular narrative in Nepal that alcoholism is the leading cause of the indigenous Rai community's perceived backwardness by detailing the personal stories of Rai women of Sikteltar, Bhojpur who use alcohol to forget their sorrows and deal with routine hardships.
In 2015, Dagny Carlsson quickly garnered the attention of millions of Swedes when she started blogging for the first time at age 102. Now at age 106, wanting to experience as much as she can, she accepts an invitation from a Finnish film director who wants her to star in a short film. So, off to Åland she goes!
The Same Difference is a documentary about lesbians who discriminate against other lesbians! The Same Difference, through a series of lesbian women stories, discusses the hypocrisy in terms of gender roles and the per formative expectations.
Fox Rich, indomitable matriarch and modern-day abolitionist, strives to keep her family together while fighting for the release of her incarcerated husband. An intimate, epic, and unconventional love story, filmed over two decades.
An in-depth look at the prison system in the United States and how it reveals the nation's history of racial inequality.
An impressionistic portrait of the iconic actor Harry Dean Stanton comprised of intimate moments, film clips from some of his 250 films and his renditions of American folk songs.
This important film is a stark and graphic portrayal of the conditions that existed at the State Prison for the Criminally Insane at Bridgewater, Massachusetts. It documents the various ways the inmates are treated by the guards, social workers, and psychiatrists.
Using the book 'Fragments', which collects Marilyn Monroe's poems, notes and letters, and with participation from the Arthur Miller and Truman Capote estates who have contributed more material, each of the actresses will embody the legend at various stages in her life.
Unravel the case of Utah therapist Jodi Hildebrandt, whose child abuse arrest with parenting YouTuber Ruby Franke exposed a twisted tale of manipulation.
A compilation of over 30 years of private home movie footage shot by Lithuanian-American avant-garde director Jonas Mekas, assembled by Mekas "purely by chance", without concern for chronological order.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg now 84, and still inspired by the lawyers who defended free speech during the Red Scare, Ginsburg refuses to relinquish her passionate duty, steadily fighting for equal rights for all citizens under the law. Through intimate interviews and unprecedented access to Ginsburg’s life outside the court, RBG tells the electric story of Ginsburg’s consuming love affairs with both the Constitution and her beloved husband Marty—and of a life’s work that led her to become an icon of justice in the highest court in the land.
An intimate portrait of Hollywood royalty featuring Debbie Reynolds, Todd Fisher, and Carrie Fisher.
Police pull over a woman who claims she just gave birth. But the baby — and the blood — aren't hers. Twisted lies unravel in this true-crime documentary.
A visual montage portrait of our contemporary world dominated by globalized technology and violence.
An interview with film director Roman Polanski conducted during his period of house arrest, discussing his life and work.
Life Is But a Dream is a HBO documentary about the life of US singer Beyoncé Knowles during the years 2011 and 2012 and on the recording of her fifth album. The film was directed by Beyoncé herself. The film shows Beyoncé from intimate moments of her pregnancy to behind the scenes and rehearsals of the main concerts of that time.
Ranjit, a farmer in India, takes on the fight of his life when he demands justice for his 13-year-old daughter, the victim of a brutal gang rape. His decision to support his daughter is virtually unheard of, and his journey unprecedented.
As a visually radical memoir, CAMERAPERSON draws on the remarkable footage that filmmaker Kirsten Johnson has shot and reframes it in ways that illuminate moments and situations that have personally affected her. What emerges is an elegant meditation on the relationship between truth and the camera frame, as Johnson transforms scenes that have been presented on Festival screens as one kind of truth into another kind of story—one about personal journey, craft, and direct human connection.
Through deeply personal interviews with her siblings and an examination of the photographs, letters, and belongings left behind, Mariska assembles a new portrait of her mother Jayne Mansfield, an extraordinary and complex woman.
Musician and performance artist Laurie Anderson reflects on the deaths of her husband Lou Reed, her mother and her beloved dog.
Global superstar Jennifer Lopez reflects on her multifaceted career and the pressure of life in the spotlight in this intimate documentary.
In 1977, a book of photographs captured an awakening - women shedding the cultural restrictions of their childhoods and embracing their full humanity. This documentary revisits those photos, those women and those times and takes aim at our culture today that alarmingly shows the need for continued change.
Serving life in prison for murdering their parents, Lyle and Erik Menendez speak out in this documentary explaining the shocking crime and ensuing trials.