After getting caught in a fight, Vahid needs to sell one of his kidneys to avoid a prison sentence of many years. While waiting for the liberating call from a buyer, a wish for a better life starts to grow within him.
Social & External
A feature length documentary that tells the story of nine young men and women constructing positive lives as they face the challenges of growing up poor in one of America's most famous African American communities.
As her adolescence gives way to the obligations of motherhood, troubled Gemma matures in Motherwell, her Scottish hometown, heavily dependent on the steel industry. Unfortunately for her, her hedonistic way of understanding the world does not fit in with the philosophy of the rest of the villagers, so trouble soon follows.
On August 9, 2016, a young Cree man named Colten Boushie died from a gunshot to the back of his head after entering Gerald Stanley's rural property with his friends. The jury's subsequent acquittal of Stanley captured international attention, raising questions about racism embedded within Canada's legal system and propelling Colten's family to national and international stages in their pursuit of justice. Sensitively directed by Tasha Hubbard, "nîpawistamâsowin: We Will Stand Up" weaves a profound narrative encompassing the filmmaker's own adoption, the stark history of colonialism on the Prairies, and a vision of a future where Indigenous children can live safely on their homelands.
Real Value is an award-winning economics documentary that delivers a refreshing meditation on how business can be used to create value beyond profit; connecting motivational stories from social entrepreneurs working in agriculture, apparel, insurance, and biofuel, with the captivating science behind our perception of value from world-renowned professor of psychology and behavioral economics, Dan Ariely. The film serves as inspiration for any business owner, entrepreneur, or customer who is looking to better understand what happens when a business puts people, planet, and profit on equal footing.
Under the Trump administration, USA is a deeply divided country. One side feeds populism and religious rectitude in a monochromatic landscape, painted white, lamenting for a past that never will return. The other side fuels diversity and multiculturalism, a biased vision of a progressive future, quite unlikely. Both sides are constantly confronted, without listening to each other. Only a few reasonable people gather to change this potentially dangerous situation.
DREAMING NICARAGUA is a film about HOPE. It's about love for the dignity and courage of the human spirit that, even immersed in uttermost tragic conditions, fights for a better life, and in this case, with a friendly SMILE. DREAMING is a sensitive and lyrical portrayal of four children living in extreme poverty in Nicaragua. The film takes us beyond their hardships and gives voice to the youngsters, who are surprisingly funny, hopeful, and optimistic. A traveling art teacher provides a safe arena for our four unlikely protagonists to express their innermost thoughts. When painting, the kids momentarily escape the stresses of their reality into a world of dreams and ideas, a stark contrast to their lives outside: a vicious cycle of hunger, child labor, and violence. Despite the extreme circumstances, the children and their families face their lives with an inspiring unity, strength and humor.
THE DEPARTMENT is a feature documentary which takes us inside the never-before-seen child protection system at work in NSW. Filmed in an observational style, it follows caseworkers across the state as they navigate the complexities of keeping children safe in families experiencing domestic violence, addiction, poverty, mental health issues and intergenerational trauma.
Protesters diary from Gezi Park - Taksim Square, Istanbul. Occupy Gezi movement started when the government decided to build shopping mall in place of the last green area that remained in the middle of Taksim Square.
There is a popular theory that it takes at least 10,000 hours of focused practice for a human to become expert in any field. In Japan, there are craftspeople who go far beyond this to reach a special kind of mastery. These people are called Takumi and they devote 60,000 hours to their craft. That's 8 hours a day, 240 days a year, for over 30 years. It's an almost superhuman level of dedication to a life of repetition and no shortcuts. This film asks the question: Will human craft disappear as artificial intelligence reaches beyond our limits?
Violeta and Vyollca Dukay live in the south of Kosovo, close to the border with Albania. Faced with a very high unemployment in their country since the end of the war, they became deminers. They’ve been going to the minefields every day for six years now. The unique and very strong relationship that exists between the two sisters helps them to overcome their fear and to keep hoping in spite of the precariousness of their situation and the risks they run each day to earn their living.
Through one woman's experience as an adopted person and also as a mother who relinquished her child in 1971, this documentary highlights the many complex issues associated with adoption.
36 year old welder Karin works at an agricultural factory in Mecklenburg, Germany.
Throughout the Islamic world, each year hundreds of women are shot, stabbed, strangled or burned to death by male relatives because they are thought to have “dishonoured” their families. They may have lost their virginity, refused an arranged marriage or left an abusive husband. Even if a woman is raped or merely the victim of gossip, she must pay the price. Crimes of Honour documents the terrible reality of femicide – the belief that a girl’s body is the property of the family, and any suggestion of sexual impropriety must be cleansed with her blood. We meet women in hiding from their families, a brother who describes his reasons for killing the sister he loved, and a handful of women who have committed themselves to the protection of young women in danger of losing their lives.
Juan Méndez Bernal leaves his house on the 9th of april of 1936 to fight in the imminent Spanish Civil War. 83 years later, his body is still one of the Grass Dwellers. The only thing that he leaves from those years on the front is a collection of 28 letters in his own writing.
In the panorama of Kurdish music, Koma Berxwedan (Group Resistance) is one of the most interesting, innovative, experimental groups. To a deep love for music research the group has always associated a strong political commitment. Some of its members have joined the PKK guerrillas in the mountains of Kurdistan. Three of them died in combat. Some have been forced to live in exile and others continued to challenge the Turkish authorities by carrying out their work in Kurdistan.
Soon after New York state passed a 2015 law that health insurance should cover transgender-related care and services, director Tania Cypriano and producer Michelle Hayashi began bringing their cameras behind the scenes at New York’s Mount Sinai Hospital, where this remarkable documentary captures the emotional and physical journey of surgical transitioning. Lending equal narrative weight to the experiences of the center’s groundbreaking surgeon Dr. Jess Ting and those of his diverse group of patients, BORN TO BE perfectly balances compassionate personal storytelling and fly-on-the-wall vérité. It’s a film of astonishing access—most importantly into the lives, joys, and fears of the people at its center.
J and Jacky are good friends who attend the same school. J is from a single-parent family, and will be taken care by Jacky’s family whenever his mother has to return to Mainland to renew her visa; such kind of story is not an isolated case. These families have been uprooted for a “better future” in Hong Kong, but is this “future” that the children really long to have? A Chinese saying: “How does one understand the joy of fish, if one is not a fish?” Will the adults really understand what the children want?
French visual artist-director JR situates his latest social-art intervention in a Southern Californian supermax prison, where he has imagined an enormously ambitious collaboration with the facility’s inmates.
In this documentary, recovering addict and amputee John Wood finds himself in a stranger-than-fiction battle to reclaim his mummified leg from Southern entrepreneur Shannon Whisnant, who found it in a grill he bought at an auction and believes it therefore to be his rightful property.
Pablo Escobar was the richest, most powerful drug kingpin in the world, ruling the Medellin Cartel with an iron fist. Andres Escobar was the biggest soccer star in Colombia. The two were not related, but their fates were inextricably-and fatally-intertwined. Pablo's drug money had turned Andres' national team into South American champions, favored to win the 1994 World Cup in Los Angeles. It was there, in a game against the U.S., that Andres committed one of the most shocking mistakes in soccer history, scoring an "own goal" that eliminated his team from the competition and ultimately cost him his life. The Two Escobars is a riveting examination of the intersection of sports, crime, and politics.
Director James Toback takes an unflinching, uncompromising look at the life of Mike Tyson--almost solely from the perspective of the man himself. TYSON alternates between the controversial boxer addressing the camera and shots of the champion's fights to create an arresting picture of the man.
Filmmaker Christopher Quinn observes the ordeal of three Sudanese refugees -- Jon Bul Dau, Daniel Abul Pach and Panther Bior -- as they try to come to terms with the horrors they experienced in their homeland, while adjusting to their new lives in the United States.
For over 40 years Val Kilmer, one of Hollywood’s most mercurial and/or misunderstood actors has been documenting his own life and craft through film and video. He has amassed thousands of hours of footage, from 16mm home movies made with his brothers, to time spent in iconic roles for blockbuster movies like Top Gun, The Doors, Tombstone, and Batman Forever. This raw, wildly original and unflinching documentary reveals a life lived to extremes and a heart-filled, sometimes hilarious look at what it means to be an artist and a complex man.
With a magical new invention that promised to revolutionize blood testing, Elizabeth Holmes became the world’s youngest self-made billionaire, heralded as the next Steve Jobs. Then, overnight, her 10-billion-dollar company dissolved. The rise and fall of Theranos is a window into the psychology of fraud.
While investigating the furtive world of illegal doping in sports, director Bryan Fogel connects with renegade Russian scientist Dr. Grigory Rodchenkov—a pillar of his country’s “anti-doping” program. Over dozens of Skype calls, urine samples, and badly administered hormone injections, Fogel and Rodchenkov grow closer despite shocking allegations that place Rodchenkov at the center of Russia’s state-sponsored Olympic doping program.
A documentary about ten very different lives connected by having appeared onscreen wearing masks or helmets in Star Wars.
Martin Scorsese, Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci, and Al Pacino in conversation about The Irishman.
Nine filmmakers each profile a young girl from a different part of the world to weave a global tapestry of youth in the 21st century.
Amber Heard and Nicole Kidman discuss their characters Mera and Atlanna.
This documentary spotlights one of the most contentious deals in football history and the extraordinary player at the center of the storm: Luís Figo.
Artists in LA discover the work of forgotten Polish sculptor Stanislav Szukalski, a mad genius whose true story unfolds chapter by astounding chapter.
A short kid from a Canadian army base becomes the international pop culture darling of the 1980s—only to find the course of his life altered by a stunning diagnosis. What happens when an incurable optimist confronts an incurable disease?
American Movie documents the story of filmmaker Mark Borchardt, his mission, and his dream. Spanning over two years of intense struggle with his film, his family, financial decline, and spiritual crisis, American Movie is a portrayal of ambition, obsession, excess, and one man's quest for the American Dream.
From abject poverty to becoming a ten-time boxing world champion, congressman, and international icon, Manny Pacquiao is the true definition of a Cinderella story. In the Philippines, he first entered the ring as a sixteen-year-old weighing ninety-eight pounds with the goal of earning money to feed his family. Now, almost twenty years later, when he fights, the country of 100 million people comes to a complete standstill to watch. Regarded for his ability to bring people together, Pacquiao entered the political arena in 2010. As history’s first boxing congressman, Pacquiao now fights for his people both inside and outside of the ring. Now at the height of his career, he is faced with maneuvering an unscrupulous sport while maintaining his political duties. The question now is, what bridge is too far for Manny Pacquiao to cross?
A documentary shot by filmmakers all over the world that serves as a time capsule to show future generations what it was like to be alive on the 24th of July, 2010.
Girl next door, activist, so-called traitor, fitness tycoon, Oscar winner: Jane Fonda has lived a life of controversy, tragedy and transformation – and she’s done it all in the public eye. An intimate look at one woman’s singular journey.
Behind-the-scenes documentary about how Lionel Messi succeeded in lifting the World Cup – the only trophy to have eluded him in an incredible career.
A documentary examining the decade of the 1970s as a turning point in American cinema. Some of today's best filmmakers interview the influential directors of that time.