Dying to live

Mirror, Mirror

Portrait of the last year of the life of famous New York drag queen Consuela Cosmetic.

Papa

Filmmaker Jon Alpert turns the camera on his own family in this intimate portrait of his aging father. As illness and declining vitality reshape his life, the film captures a deeply personal struggle with dignity, humor, and the bonds that hold a family together.

Dignitas - Death on Prescription

Switzerland is the only country in the world that allows foreigners to come and die on its territory. Since its founding in 1998, more than a thousand people have traveled to Zurich to end their lives with the help of the organization Dignitas. "Dignitas - Death on Prescription" is a documentary about an organization that provides people with terminal and incurable illnesses, intense unrelenting pain, and depression with a peaceful death. The organization's founder, lawyer Ludwig Minelli, is often the target of insults, especially from politicians, despite the fact that most Swiss citizens support the option of medically assisted suicide.

De nachtwaker

Janneke has been working as a volunteer in palliative terminal care for over twenty years, both in the hospice and in people's homes. In The Night Watchman we see Janneke both in her daily life and while waking. Scenes in which surprising parallels and paradoxes show Janneke's position in her life and how they seem to embrace death at first sight.

Tender

A big hearted community celebrates life by fronting up to death. Set against the stunning backdrop of the industrial seaside town of Port Kembla, a feisty and resilient community group have determined to take back the responsibility that most of us leave to someone else — to care for their own dead. Scattered throughout are stories that cut to the core revealing why this small band have decided to take on a practice that for most is taboo. As their plans for community-based funerals gather momentum one of their own is diagnosed with a life-threatening illness. Tender is at once a heartbreakingly beautiful and beautifully funny glimpse of an extraordinary community taking on one of the most essential challenges of human life … its end.

Memory for Max, Claire, Ida and Company

At Baycrest, an old-age home in Toronto, we follow a social worker as she talks to residents, particularly Max, Claire, Ida, and Rachel. The film opens on Claire's birthday, she's 89; Max, a tiny cheerful man, is her close friend. Rachel is lonesome, missing her son, complaining he rarely visits. Ida relies on memory for her solace. Helen has no memory and doesn't recognize her daughter; her moods swing. Murray keeps his cap on and likes women. Staff members bring medication, provide care, and offer small talk. Memory is fleeting: Claire re-experiences the death of a close companion several times, each time without remembering her previous grieving. Lives are circumscribed

How We Die

Memento Mori is a morbidly beautiful journey into the world of alternative post mortem arrangements and an illuminating meditation on death, dying and our relationship with our bodies once they are no longer ours.

The Mirror and the Window

Filmmaker Diego Gutiérrez knows that he is soon to lose two loved ones: his mother Gina Coppe and his best friend Danniel Danniel. Both ask him to film them during this final phase of their lives—Gina in her apartment in Mexico City, Danniel in a Dutch restaurant where he feels at home. What stories do they want to leave behind?

Dertien Dagen

Echoes of the End

When touched by death, will you feel more alive?

There Be Dragons

Arising out of the horror of the Spanish Civil War, a candidate for canonization is investigated by a journalist who discovers his own estranged father had a deep, dark and devastating connection to the saint's life.While researching the life of Josemaria Escriva, the controversial founder of Opus Dei, the young journalist Robert uncovers hidden stories of his estranged father Manolo, and is taken on a journey through the dark, terrible secrets of his family’s past.

The Forgettable Life of Liam White

Liam White's career has peaked—to put it kindly. Uninspired and burnt-out, the titular character loses his will to finish his next novel and even shirks his public appearance commitments. To top it all off, Liam is told by his oncologist that his cancer has returned. Resigned to the fact that his life will soon come to an end, he begins a journey of reflection as he comes to grips with his life thus far and the people who shaped him, for better and worse.

Can You Hear Me?

Todd, an artistic, sensitive teenager, finds himself at odds with his controlling family as they struggle to care for his dying grandmother. Originally titled, "Severe Decline."

Dream

Dream (1988) is a somnambulist short about dreams taking over reality and rendering protagonists inactive.

The Face of Fear

A young Iowa schoolteacher, thinking she is dying of leukemia, goes to San Francisco, where she hires a mob killer to take her life. However, she soon changes her mind, and with the help of the local police, tries to find the killer before he fulfills his part of the bargain.

It's My Party and I'll Die If I Want To

Some 70 years after Jacob Burkitt snapped and killed his entire family, thrill-seeking teens crash the allegedly haunted Burkitt Manor to give their friend Sara (Adrienne Fischer) a spooky surprise for her 18th birthday. But as the night drags on -- and her friends start dying off, one by one -- Sara begins to realize that an unspeakable evil is throwing her a killer party. Alicia Kenney and Oliver Lucach co-star.

Last Call

A drama about Gavin, a recovering alcoholic, who ends up in a strangely familiar bar.

The Gifts of Grief

A documentary that explores how seven remarkable people embrace their pain, learn to live with their loss, and now engage in life with more compassion, courage, and awareness. The personal and moving stories include those of author Isabel Allende, Reverend Cecil Williams, writer Alana Laraine, Zen Monk/Vietnam Veteran Claude AnShin Thomas, youth motivator Vinny Ferrero, and filmmaker Lee Mun Wah. With courage, these people invite the viewer to open up to the pain of grief and discover for themselves the extraordinary opportunities their own losses may reveal.

Periphery

A dying woman wishes to see her family through the good times and the bad times she will miss.

Anna Nicole Smith: You Don't Know Me

From the heights of her modeling fame to her tragic death, this documentary reveals Anna Nicole Smith through the eyes of the people closest to her.

Heart of a Dog

Lyrical and powerfully personal essay film that reflects on the deaths of her husband Lou Reed, her mother, her beloved dog, and such diverse subjects as family memories, surveillance, and Buddhist teachings.

Downloaded

A documentary that explores the downloading revolution; the kids that created it, the bands and the businesses that were affected by it, and its impact on the world at large.

No Half Measures: Creating the Final Season of Breaking Bad

A documentary about the making of season five of the acclaimed AMC series Breaking Bad.

Love, Marilyn

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.

My Mom Jayne

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.

Listen to Me Marlon

With exclusive access to his extraordinary unseen and unheard personal archive including hundreds of hours of audio recorded over the course of his life, this is the definitive Marlon Brando cinema documentary. Charting his exceptional career as an actor and his extraordinary life away from the stage and screen with Brando himself as your guide, the film will fully explore the complexities of the man by telling the story uniquely from Marlon's perspective, entirely in his own voice. No talking heads, no interviewees, just Brando on Brando and life.

More Brains! A Return to the Living Dead

Retrospective documentary about the making of the horror cult classic "The Return of the Living Dead."

I Am Heath Ledger

The life and career of an actor, artist, and icon. His own journey through his own camera.

Gilbert

The life and career of one of comedy's most inimitable modern voices, Mr. Gilbert Gottfried.

For the Love of Spock

The life of Mr. Spock, as well as that of Leonard Nimoy, the actor who played him for almost fifty years, written and directed by his son: Adam.

Harmontown

A comedic, brutally honest documentary following self-destructive TV writer Dan Harmon as he takes his live podcast on a national tour.

Hitchcock/Truffaut

Filmmakers discuss the legacy of Alfred Hitchcock and the book “Hitchcock/Truffaut” (“Le cinéma selon Hitchcock”), written by François Truffaut and published in 1966.

Naqoyqatsi

A visual montage portrait of our contemporary world dominated by globalized technology and violence.

Fuck

A documentary on the expletive's origin, why it offends some people so deeply, and what can be gained from its use.

The Class of ‘92

A detailing of the rise to prominence and global sporting superstardom of six supremely talented young Manchester United football players (David Beckham, Nicky Butt, Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes, Phil and Gary Neville). The film covers the period 1992-1999, culminating in Manchester United's European Cup triumph.

McQueen

Alexander McQueen's rags-to-riches story is a modern-day fairy tale, laced with the gothic. Mirroring the savage beauty, boldness and vivacity of his design, this documentary is an intimate revelation of McQueen's own world, both tortured and inspired, which celebrates a radical and mesmerizing genius of profound influence.

A Plastic Ocean

A documentary focused on plastic pollution in the world's oceans.

Dick Johnson Is Dead

With this inventive portrait, director Kirsten Johnson seeks a way to keep her 86-year-old father alive forever. Utilizing moviemaking magic and her family’s dark humor, she celebrates Dr. Dick Johnson’s last years by staging fantasies of death and beyond. Together, dad and daughter confront the great inevitability awaiting us all.

Halloween: 25 Years of Terror

Follow the evolution of the 'Halloween' movies over the past twenty-five years. It examines why the films are so popular and revisits many of the original locations used in the films - seeing the effects on the local community. For the first time, cast, crew, critics and fans join together in the ultimate 'Halloween' retrospective.