Call Me Kuchu

Filmmaker Stephanie Wang-Breal sets out to cross the generational divide, confronting long-simmering tensions with her Chinese immigrant mother by literally becoming her. Dressing in her mom’s iconic St John Knit power suits and re-creating her 1980s local TV cooking show, Stephanie becomes Beta-Florence, a radical reinterpretation of Asian-American identity.

The story of Manhattan Plaza, the renowned experiment in subsidized housing catering to people in the arts. Numerous celebrities pay homage to the impact the building had on their lives and careers.

A documentary that proposes a conversation about the way children are praised. While girls are often praised solely for their appearance, boys can receive compliments by highlighting their skills. "Rethink the Praise" reflects on the power of words and culture that has brought an imbalance in the way we commend our boys and girls.

Behind the closed doors of the Copenhagen-based women's shelter, the women and children are slowly recovering after having escaped domestic violence. Day by day the women are processing their traumas, building confidence and slowly understanding what it takes to break the cycle of violence.

With one million immigrants making their home in the U.S. annually, immigrant students are entering American public schools in record numbers. Welcome to South Portland, Maine explores a demographic shift through the lives of young women attending high school in what is considered the whitest state in America - Maine. The film's 14 teen protagonists-from Somalia, the Congo, Vietnam, Jamaica, and southern Maine-are enrolled in a hip hop, health and culture program during the most anti-immigrant period in recent U.S. history. The 2016 presidential race and recent terrorist attacks have fueled an atmosphere of mistrust, fear, and violence against recent immigrants. Viewers will watch as the girls relate to one another's hopes and fears, and manage to build trust as the charged events unfold around them.

Sven Nykvist, best known as Ingmar Bergman cinematographer, made this film as a tribute to his father who was a missionary in Kongo in the early 20th century. The story of his father Gustav Natanael Nykvist is told through his own photos, letters, and films. Director & cinematographer: Sven Nykvist. Narrators in the English dubbed version: Liv Ullmann & Sean Connery. Produced by Ingmar Bergman (Cinematograph AB). Digitally restored in 2022.

A Chippewa prophecy foretells a time called the 7th Fire when lost traditions will be recovered. Native American filmmaker Sandra Sunrising Osawa examines how the Chippewa Indians of Northern Wisconsin have struggled to restore the centuries-old tradition of spearfishing — and the heated opposition they have encountered.

An intimate portrait of a real Modern Family: Meet Erik and Sandro, a gay couple with daughters birthed by their friend Rachel who's married with three teenagers of her own.

My daughter’s name is Maya. I’ve been told that the word maya means illusion in Hindu philosophy. As I watch her growing up, spinning like a top around me, I realize that her childhood is not something I can grasp but rather (like the wind) something I feel tenderly brushing across my cheek. - Lynne Sachs

In exploring the lives of two wandering Nepali musicians, an uncle and nephew who share the same name and are featured in filmmaker Stephanie Spray's and Pacho Velez's acclaimed documentary Manakamana, Kāle and Kāle (pronounced kah-lay) exposes the rootless occupation of the Gaine caste and communicates both its joys and pitfalls - domestic, economic and spiritual - in their daily lives. Rejecting didacticism as a means of ethnographical observation, the film consists of distinct episodes that value the quality of the genuine moment. Spray couples both meaningful and disconcerting human interactions with the sights and sounds of natural familiarities such as grass, smoke, insects, animals, and traditional Nepalese folk music, opening up an evocative new world that the viewer is invited to slowly and deliberately experience.

Discharged from Bosnian war, Johnny carries the weight of this war on his shoulders. He left the war with a dark and frightening secret, the murder of a young boy that haunts him. But Johnny carries many demons. The death of his father, running from his destiny as Chief of the Band and abandoning the love of his life. Nevertheless, Johnny must return home, the wolf spirit has called. Upon his return, he finds a new war. His estranged brother is leading his people in a revolt to save their sacred land. Johnny faces a dilemma; does he fight to save his people, or does he save himself? His journey will guide him to realizing that they are the same. In a blink, his world changes and in death, his brother guides him on a spirit walk to meet his destiny as leader of his people.

The American craft beer industry is booming like never before. One-and-a-half craft breweries open each day—but far fewer make it to year two. Follow along with in-depth profiles of passionate founders and brewmasters as they struggle to navigate and maintain their place in the industry and in the communities that surround them.

A revealing one-shot portrait of two Nepali newlyweds in a moment of rest and playful interaction, Stephanie Spray's Untitled challenges our perception of two themes at the very core of ethnographic filmmaking: human relationships and the ways in which they can be experienced by the viewer. Only fourteen minutes long, Untitled is uncut, rejecting the implications of edited sequences and also purposefully excluding subtitles over the couple's conversation. The style of the film confronts the history of ethnography as a controversial study of the "other" by refusing us any clear messages or meanings behind what is being presented, challenging the viewer to come up with their own answers to any questions that may arise.

Model, film star, muse, socialite, icon. Edie Sedgwick was the very first "it" girl of the Andy Warhol Factory scene. The arc of her life traced the rise and fall of the 1960s recklessness. After being the toasted by the whole of New York City, Edie died alone of a drug overdose in California at the age of 28. She was both the harbinger of celebrity culture and someone who stood entirely outside of it, an artist who painted life, bravely and spontaneously, with her own hand.

The connection between these three short films is initially indicated by their sound and music: In all three films, Lee Anne Schmitt does without direct sound and dialogue, letting the music of Jeff Parker accompany the images. In the first miniature, Schmitt films graves from the American Indian Wars as silent witnesses of a past that have left their traces on the collective American consciousness. Subsequently, we see blackandwhite street scenes in Hollywood, which are followed by almost familiar images – a garden bench, a bouquet of flowers. Thus history, the public and the private form a new, abstract and yet tangible unity.

Calypso Rose: The Lioness of the Jungle

Short, anthropomorphically-inclined documentary showing the life-cycle of the common newt.

September 1994, Beirut : the systematic reconstruction of the city is beginning. The civil war, which began in 1975, has been over for two years. Randa Chahal Sabbag, a Lebanese film-maker whose family was politically and military involved in the conflict, gives a very personal view of these seventeen years of war. She uses archives, family videos and 16 mm films made between 1975 and 1994. The film features interviews with her mother in Tripoli, her sister in Paris and her brother in Beirut. She pays tribute to the memory of her father, who died during the war, and returns to the ruins of a city, the reconstruction of which marks the disappearance of a part of her life.

A timely exploration into the complex links between the U.S. and China. Interspersed with remarks from journalists and experts, All Eyes and Ears interweaves the stories of U.S. Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman, his adopted Chinese daughter, Gracie Mei, and blind legal advocate Chen Guangcheng as they find purpose, identity and resolve amid the two nations’ evolving relationship.

Three teenagers battle their way through the world of competitive ping pong with their hearts set on the Olympics.