We Are Not Princesses is a documentary film about the incredible strength and spirit of four Syrian women living as refugees in Beirut as they come together to tell their stories of love, loss, pain and hope through the ancient Greek play, Antigone.
A BAFTA award nominated documentary following the achievements of a young girl at the Toronto Opera School.
Icons of '60s counterculture, Harvard psychologists Timothy Leary and Ram Dass became estranged until an illness inspired their fascinating reunion.
2021 marks the 50th anniversary of "Coal Miner’s Daughter," the Loretta Lynn song that became a book, a feature film, and an indelible part of popular culture. Like so many other songs written by Lynn, the lyrics told the story of her life and spoke to women who struggled to make ends meet. Lynn’s simple, straightforward song stories gave legitimacy to the joys, heartaches, struggles and triumphs.
Joe Leahy is the half-caste son of one of the first explorers of the Papua New Guinean interior. The documentary explores his relationship with the tribes that work his coffee plantation and explores what happens when the coffee market situation becomes more difficult.
Short film about an orphanage.
Yingying Zhang, a 26-year-old Chinese student, comes to the U.S. to study. In her detailed and beautiful diaries, the aspiring young scientist and teacher is full of optimism, hoping to also be married and a mother someday. Within weeks of her arrival, Yingying disappears from the campus. Through exclusive access to Yingying’s family and boyfriend, Finding Yingying closely follows their journey as they search to unravel the mystery of her disappearance and seek justice for their daughter while navigating a strange, foreign country. But most of all, Finding Yingying is the story of who Yingying was: a talented young woman loved by her family and friends.
The last two surviving members of the Piripkura people, a nomadic tribe in the Mato Grosso region of Brazil, struggle to maintain their indigenous way of life amidst the region's massive deforestation. Living deep in the rainforest, Pakyî and Tamandua live off the land relying on a machete, an ax, and a torch lit in 1998.
Four girls living in the lonely vastness of the USA share one passion: The wild world of rodeo. Although they move about in the powerful imagery of the American prairie and the myths of the Wild West, they give it new resonance and break free of it. In a world which used to belong to their fathers and brothers, they prove that "you ride like a girl" is not an insult but a compliment.
Street Life documents the lives of Chinese migrants in Shanghai, one of the world’s largest and most vibrant cities, now symbolic of China’s economic might. The film centers on Nanjing Road, one of China’s oldest commercial streets and today a popular destination for tourists and moneyed Chinese. The street has also become a Mecca for uprooted and homeless Chinese, who make ends by collecting garbage and recyclables. These characters and their stories are the focus of the film. The central character in Street Life is a migrant known as “Black Skin.” Black Skin faces numerous pressures in the course of the film, including police violence. In the end, these pressures are too much for him to bear and he goes mad. Black Skin’s story intersects with those of fellow bottle collectors, enterprising thieves and even a young boy who has been abandoned.
What can be harder than "conquering the world" for an Italian woman of the XX century? Creating the perfect family.
A thoughtful portrait of a renowned artist, this documentary shines the spotlight on New York City painter Jean-Michel Basquiat. Featuring extensive interviews conducted by Basquiat's friend, filmmaker Tamra Davis, the production reveals how he dealt with being a black artist in a predominantly white field. The film also explores Basquiat's rise in the art world, which led to a close relationship with Andy Warhol, and looks at how the young painter coped with acclaim, scrutiny and fame.
Children Underground follows the story of five street children, aged eight to sixteen who live in a subway station in Bucharest, Romania. The street kids are encountered daily by commuting adults, who pass them by in the station as they starve, swindle, and steal, all while searching desperately for a fresh can of paint to get high with.
The Idle Ones is a profile of contemporary affairs - somewhere on the edge of Europe - in a place where unemployment for some young people is fast becoming a way of life. Covering a period of 18 months, the film follows the activities of a group of young men in their 20s who have finished their schooling and stayed in their home village - they loaf about unemployed since they can´t find any work in the remote district. The main characters are more or less idle young fellows whose stories link together and make up the film. Tinged with humour, The Idle Ones is a story about frustrated but vital young people in a period of transition, waiting for something to happen. For some, the waiting is becoming their life.
Leslie Iwerks' documentary takes audiences behind the scenes at ILM with in depth interviews with some of the company's top talent and showcases never before seen footage highlighting many of their pioneering milestones. From creating the first ever computer generated character in a feature film to the latest advancements in visual effects for film franchises like Transformers and Iron Man, ILM has created some of the most memorable movie moments in recent history.
Contre l'Oubli (Against Oblivion) is a compilation of 30 French filmmakers, Alain Resnais and Jean Luc Godard among them, who use film to make a plea on behalf of a political prisoner. Jean Luc Godard and Anne Marie Mieville's film concerns the plight of Thomas Wanggai, West Papuan activist who has since died in prison. The short films were commissioned by Amnesty International.
The story of the actor, writer and broadcasting pioneer, Gertrude Berg.
An unsentimental elegy to the American West, Sweetgrass follows the last modern-day cowboys to lead their flocks of sheep up into Montana's breathtaking and often dangerous Absaroka-Beartooth mountains for summer pasture, revealing a world in which nature and culture, animals and humans, vulnerability and violence are all intimately meshed.
Orson Welles' archives of unfinished/never released movies and the last years of his life from the perspective of Oja Kodar (life and artistic partner of Orson Welles in his last years).
In the picture-postcard community of North Vancouver, filmmaker Murray Siple follows men who have turned bottle-picking, their primary source of income, into the extreme sport of shopping cart racing. Enduring hardships from everyday life on the streets of Vancouver, this sub-culture depicts street life as much more than stereotypes portrayed in mainstream media. The films takes a deep look into the lives of the men who race carts, the adversity they face, and the appeal of cart racing despite the risk.