Age of Learning

The Truth About Reading looks at the illiteracy problem in America, highlighting people who learned to read as adults, and sharing proposed solutions for working towards a future where every child learns to read proficiently.

The documentary portrays the desires and ftures of four young people from the third year of secundary education in Chile. Two of them attend the industrial high school in the San Joaquín commune, where they have already begun their training as a textile technician. They both have dreams, they want to study, work, start a family and improve themselves. On the other hand, at the exclusive Saint George school, two students study in privileged conditions. They want to be professionals and develop through the arts. This is the portrait of two worlds located less than 20 kilometers apart and that can only be together in the audiovisual montage. It is the manifestation of the coincidences and contradictions that exist between the realities and the discourses of four young Chilean students in a fundamental stage for their future.

Departing from peripheral details of some paintings of the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum, a female narrator unravels several stories related to the economic, social and psychological conditions of past and current artists.

Dance for All

It follows two teenage rappers in Bangkok who use their musical talent to navigate their difficult circumstances.

Six California kids test their brains and talents against students in Odyssey of the Mind, a problem-solving competition requiring mechanical, creative and intellectual skills. With little money and zero adult participation, the teens build a robot to tell a story about bullying, exclusion and mental health. But how does their solution measure up?

Every year, over a thousand climbers try to reach the summit of Mount Everest, with the annual record for successful attempts currently standing at 633. But of that number, nearly half were Sherpas - the mountain's unsung heroes. Yet the Sherpa community has remained secretive about their nation, culture and experiences living in the shadow of the world's highest mountain. Now, for the first time, they open the door into their world. Without the expertise of the Sherpas, only the hardiest and most skilful climbers would succeed. Every day they risk their lives for the safety of others, yet they seek neither glory nor reward, preferring to stay in the background. Following the stories of four such Sherpas - Phurba, Ngima, Ngima Tenji and Gelu - this film reveals the reality of their daily lives, not just up the mountain, but with their families after they return home.

María Domínguez. La palabra libre

Disenfranchised high school seniors become academic warriors and community leaders in Tucson, Arizona's embattled Ethnic Studies classes while state lawmakers attempt to eliminate the program.

From an archived interview originally recorded in 1982, this 1990 production reveals the findings of chief congressional investigator, Director of Research, Norman Dodd, and exposes the scope and purpose of various organizations in the findings of the 1953 Reece Special Committee on Tax Exempt Foundations.

The documentary's title translates as "to be and to have", the two auxiliary verbs in the French language. It is about a primary school in the commune of Saint-Étienne-sur-Usson, Puy-de-Dôme, France, the population of which is just over 200. The school has one small class of mixed ages (from four to twelve years), with a dedicated teacher, Georges Lopez, who shows patience and respect for the children as we follow their story through a single school year.

The documentary chronicles women's experiences of discovering, dreaming, acting and rebelling together, namely the early years of the formation of a feminist movement in Turkey.

A City Decides chronicles the events that led to the integration of the St. Louis public schools in 1954. An Oscar-nominated short documentary from 1956.

A Hazara film director follows a gravestone maker, a water girl and a man who buried his limb, as their daily lives unfold in a graveyard.

For the first time in history, mental illness and suicide have become one of the greatest threats to school-aged children. Many parents still view dangers as primarily physical and external, but they’re missing the real danger: kids spending more time online and less time engaging in real life, free play, and autonomy. What are the effects on the next generation's mental, physical, and spiritual health? Childhood was more or less unchanged for millennia, but this is Childhood 2.0.

"Sticky" is everything your mother was too embarrassed to tell you about masturbation, in one stimulating documentary. Full of candid interviews from celebrated figures to everyday people, health care professionals, sex therapists, zoologists, anthropologists, and religious figures, this feature length doc answers age-old questions like: What is masturbation? Will it make me go blind? Is it "normal"? Is it wrong? And why are we so afraid to be caught in the act? In a world where confusion about sexuality remains at the root of so many societal problems - rape, sexual abuse, and the threat of sexually transmitted diseases - "Sticky" will help shatter misconceptions and myths surrounding this intimate aspect of human sexuality.

Elvis Sabin’s assured debut follows Albert and André, two Central African Aka Pygmies, as they attempt to establish a new education system in their forest community. The last in their village still attending school, they are determined to pass their knowledge on, holding classes for other Aka children every afternoon. But their project requires funding and they are counting on the year’s caterpillar (known as “Makongo”) harvest to provide much needed income. Evocatively capturing the visual and sonic textures of the forest, Makongo is a layered ethnographic study of two men working to build a sustainable future for their community.

This short documentary examines an innovative educational program developed by John and Gerti Murdoch to teach Cree children their language via Cree folklore, photographs, artifacts, and books that were written and printed in the community. Made as part of the NFB’s groundbreaking Challenge for Change series, Cree Way shows that local control of the education curriculum has a place in Indigenous communities.

Reden wir von Leben und Tod

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