We Were the Scenery

The Philippines is visited by an average of 20~28 strong typhoons and storms every year. It is the most storm-battered country in the world. Last year, Typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan), considered the strongest storm in history, struck the Philipines, leaving in its path apocalyptic devastation.

A mysterious natural phenomenon sets an end to the party night of a group of young adults. The morning after begins with far more than just a hangover.

A collection of death scenes, ranging from TV-material to home-made super-8 movies. The common factor is death by some means.

Filmmakers and paranormal investigators spend two weeks in the world-famous home that inspired the horror movie "The Conjuring."

A fame-hungry businessman stages a fake movie to propose to his girlfriend but the plan goes awry when she becomes convinced the movie will be a multi-million dollar success.

"From Mexico to Vietnam: A Chicano Story" is an inspiring documentary that chronicles the life of Jesus S. Duran, a Mexican immigrant who became a decorated U.S. Army soldier during the Vietnam War. Born in Juarez, Mexico, Duran moved to the United States as a child and enlisted in the Army in 1968. On April 10, 1969, while serving as an M-60 machine gunner with Company E, 2nd Battalion, 5th Cavalry, 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile), he displayed extraordinary bravery by rescuing several wounded comrades during an intense enemy ambush in Tay Ninh, Vietnam. His valorous actions led to a posthumous Medal of Honor by President Barack Obama. Directed by Andrés Gallegos, the film delves into Duran's personal journey, his family's migration from Mexico, and the broader impact of the Vietnam War on the Chicano and Latino communities.

A retrospective documentary about the groundbreaking horror series, Friday the 13th, featuring interviews with cast and crew from the twelve films spanning 3 decades.

In April 1975 -- despite a ceasefire agreement -- the North Vietnamese communists took Saigon and the world by surprise, mounting an offensive that ousted the South Vietnamese government. This enlightening documentary recounts the last two years of America's military engagement in the country and the U.S. role in Saigon's fall. Interviews with former National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger and North Vietnamese officers provide context.

In this spoof of "March of the Penguins," nature footage of penguins near the South Pole gets a soundtrack of human voices. Carl and Jimmy, best friends, walk 70 miles to the mating grounds where the female penguins wait. The huddled masses of females - especially Melissa and Vicki - talk about males, mating, and what might happen this year. Carl, Jimmy, and the other males make the long trek talking about food, fornication and flatulence. Until this year, Carl's sex life has been dismal, but he falls hard for Melissa. She seems to like him. A crisis develops when Jimmy comes upon something soft in the dark. Can friends forgive? Does parenthood await Carl and Melissa?

Using archival footage, cabinet conversation recordings, and an interview of the 85-year-old Robert McNamara, The Fog of War depicts his life, from working as a WWII whiz-kid military officer, to being the Ford Motor Company's president, to managing the Vietnam War as defense secretary for presidents Kennedy and Johnson.

Director Peter Judson's semifictitious tale opens a revealing window into the indie filmmaking process, capturing the trivialities, aggravations and enthusiasm that go into completing a picture. Using footage from an indie movie set, e-mails constructing a plotline about distributor difficulties and interviews with indie mainstays such as Steve Buscemi and Sam Rockwell, the film provides a riveting look at one producer's rejections and rewards.

"CIVIL WAR SURVEILLANCE POEMS (Part 1)" is the first installment in a five-part project of experimental and hybrid-form short films contemplating a second American civil war via lyrical nonfiction, mixing call-in radio, twenty years of verité footage from the filmmaker's archive, and robots. Conceptually speculating from sixteen years in the future (and a protracted civil war), the project is partly nostalgic political travelogue, partly a quest to mine the archive for what went wrong, and part prewar surveillance records, the project deconstructs and builds to a clashing ideology, culminating in an installation of sound sculpture, four-walled video and artifacts.

Over the period of 25 years the director met General Võ Nguyên Giáp, a legendary hero of Vietnam’s independence wars, a number of times. She was the first American who entered the home of the “Red Napoleon”. The fruit of this friendship is a film, personal and politically involved at the same time. Travelling across the country and talking to important figures as well as ordinary people, the director finds out more about her roots and offers the audience a unique perspective on Vietnam’s present and past.

An undocumented immigrant explores his and his family's immigration trauma while grasping hope through a voicemail.

Produced by the Army Pictorial Service, Signal Corps, with the cooperation of the Army Air Forces and the United States Navy, and released by Warner Bros. for the War Activities Committee shortly after the surrender of Japan. Follow General Douglas MacArthur and his men from their exile from the Philippines in early 1942, through the signing of the instrument of surrender on the USS Missouri on September 1, 1945. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2013.

Migrant families experience violence, but they also keep beautiful memories when they arrive in new lands. Fantastic and intimate stories, recalled from childhood, travel across time and space, magically intermingling with the help of the four elements and breaking the boundaries of cinema.

Shot by a reported “1,001 Syrians” according to the filmmakers, SILVERED WATER, SYRIA SELF-PORTRAIT impressionistically documents the destruction and atrocities of the civil war through a combination of eye-witness accounts shot on mobile phones and posted to the internet, and footage shot by Bedirxan during the siege of Homs. Bedirxan, an elementary school teacher in Homs, had contacted Mohammed online to ask him what he would film, if he was there. Mohammed, working in forced exile in Paris, is tormented by feelings of cowardice as he witnesses the horrors from afar, and the self-reflexive film also chronicles how he is haunted in his dreams by a Syrian boy once shot to death for snatching his camera on the street.

For five years, Stephen McCoy documented street life in Boston. This is what he captured.

Blood Road follows the journey of ultra-endurance mountain bike athlete Rebecca Rusch and her Vietnamese riding partner, Huyen Nguyen, as they pedal 1,200 miles along the infamous Ho Chi Minh Trail through the dense jungles of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. Their goal: to reach the site where Rebecca’s father, a U.S. Air Force pilot, was shot down in Laos more than 40 years earlier.

Drawing on VHS tapes of a programme hosted by her mother on Bulgaria’s national television, the filmmaker gives a pop-style and in-depth chronicle of the gentle – even “over-gentle” – 1989 revolution.