Cinéma Vérité: Defining the Moment

A documentary about direct-cinema from its very beginnings (Nanook of the North) to the fake-direct-cinema of the Blair Witch Project. All the important direct-cinema filmmakers are portrayed and/or interviewed: Leacock, Wiseman, Maysles, Pennebaker, Reisz and others.

Cesar's Bark Canoe

"This documentary depicts a canoe being built in the traditional manner. Cesar Newashish, a 67-year-old Attikamek of the Manawan Reserve North of Montréal, uses only birchbark, cedar splints, spruce roots, and gum. With a sure hand he works methodically to fashion a craft unsurpassed in function or beauty of design. Building a canoe solely from the materials that the forest provides may become a lost art, even among the Native Peoples whose traditional craft it is. The film is free of spoken commentary but text appears on the screen in Cree, French, and English." - Anthology Film Archives

Little Burgundy

"This film is one of the first French Unit productions of the “Société Nouvelle/Challenge for Change” program. When an old area of Montréal is to be demolished to make way for a new low-income housing development, is there anything the residents can do to protect their own interests? The film documents such a situation in the Little Burgundy district of Montréal and shows how the residents organized themselves into a committee that successfully influenced the city’s housing policy." - Anthology Film Archives

The Things I Cannot Change

"This feature documentary is considered to be the forerunner of the NFB's Challenge for Change Program. The film offers in inside look at 3 weeks in the life of the Bailey family. Trouble with the police, begging for stale bread, and the birth of another child are just some of the issues they face. Through it all, the father tries to explain his family's predicament. Although filmed in Montreal, the film offers an anatomy of poverty as it occurs throughout North America." - NFB

Belle famille

A working class family leaves St-Henri quarter in Montréal to build a new home in the countryside.

Michel Brault, l'instinct de vue

Friday: About Cars

"Montréal under the snow and the cold winter. It is the period of the year when the garage owners strike it rich. The automobile at the service of man? This small opus would rather show the contrary. This is one in a series of eight films titled “Chronicle of Everyday Life,” a project that filmmaker Jacques Leduc took four years to realize, and whose goal was to revisit Direct Cinema at a moment when it was already heavily “contaminated” by mainstream TV." - Anthology Film Archives

Sacha: A Child of Chernobyl

The story of Olexandr Savchenko (“Sacha”) - one of 26,000 children treated in Cuba after the Chernobyl disaster.

On the Slopes of the Himalayas

Documentary about Cuban medical volunteers in Pakistan following the devastating earthquake of 2005.

The March on Rome

The fascinating story of the rise to power of dictator Benito Mussolini (1883-1945) in Italy in 1922 and how fascism marked the fate of the entire world in the dark years to come.

Desperate Souls, Dark City and the Legend of Midnight Cowboy

This is not a documentary about the making of Midnight Cowboy. It is about a humane and groundbreaking masterpiece and the flawed but gifted people who made it. It is about a troubled era of cultural ferment, social and political change, about broken dreams and strivers, then and now. It is about an era that made a movie and a movie that made an era.

Childhood

This documentary follows a group of children in a rural kindergarten for a year, portraying a genuine learning process in the midst of nature.

Hedda Hopper's Hollywood No. 2

Hedda Hopper plays hostess at a party for her (grown) son William (DeWolfe Jr.). Hopper, attends the dedication of the Motion Picture Relief Fund's country home and goes to the Mocambo. There is also a sequence dedicated to the Milwaukee, Wisconsin world premiere of the first short in this series attended by more that a few film stars.

Props BMX: Owned

The concept behind Owned is simple: A movie with a bunch of top notch, absolutely killer sections from some of today's best riders, produced by some of today's best videographers and editors. Owned was filmed over the course of 11 months at spots all over the world including Africa, Israel, Europe & North America. The riders and videographers for Owned dedicated themselves tirelessly to get one of the most amazing collections of eclectic riding styles together in one release.

Superconnected

An incomplete document of a music scene

Born in Light: Tesla

Nikola Tesla transformed the world with technology that was ahead of its time. Claiming to be in contact with aliens, he was ultimately prevented from pursuing his greatest inventions by a ruling elite concerned he would derail their systems of mass control.

Aliens In Egypt

The Pyramids are the most epic monuments the world has ever seen, but the mystery of the true origins of these gargantuan edifices remains an enigma. Who really built these ancient megalithic structures and why were pyramids built in strategic locations all around the globe, then at a later date mysteriously abandoned seemingly overnight? In this space age, with its remarkable technological engineering and scientific advances, it is unfathomable that the construction of the pyramids and other amazing works of the ancient world could not be duplicated. New evidence of highly advanced, precision machining on Egypt's Giza plateau gives credence to the Ancient Alien hypothesis. This is further supported by glyphs of futuristic vehicles, bizarre flywheels and other artifacts and monuments cut with laser precision.

Quilapayún, Beyond the Song

Quilapayún tells the story of the most important music group from Latin America: Quilapayún.

You Can't Fool a Camera

This short starts out as a documentary. In a dramatization, Eadward Muybridge's photographic experiments prove that when a horse gallops, there are times when all four of the animal's feet are off the ground. We are then brought to the present, where MGM directors and their cinematographers are shown working on current productions. The film closes with closeups of the studio's major stars and a tribute to the studio's actors who have joined the armed forces.

Forgotten Scares: An In-depth Look at Flemish Horror Cinema

The feature-length documentary "Forgotten Scares" goes back to the birth of Flemish horror in the '70s and shines a bright light on the future of horror in Belgium. The viewer gets a chance to discover long forgotten - and even unfinished - genre gems and learn in-depth info about underrated 'splatter and gore'-fests, post-apocalyptic movies, slasher-films, nazisploitation, women-in-prison and other fantastical Flemish genre benders through the eyes of the directors, producers, composers, principal actors and genre experts. "Forgotten Scares" is illustrated by rare behind the scene footage, classic film scenes, production stills, promotional art and even never before seen videos out of the vaults of the filmmakers.