A documentary that examines whether a charity organized by Pat Robertson to aid Rwandan genocide refugees was a front for diamond mining.
Alanis Obomsawin tells the story of Shannen’s Dream, a national campaign to provide equitable access to education for First Nations children, in safe and suitable schools. She brings together the voices of those who have successfully brought the Dream all the way to the United Nations in Geneva.
In 1972, John Wojtowicz attempted to rob a Brooklyn bank to pay for his lover’s sex-change operation. The story was the basis for the film Dog Day Afternoon. The Dog captures John, who shares his story for the first time in his own unique, offensive, hilarious and heartbreaking way. We gain a historic perspective on New York's gay liberation movement, in which Wojtowicz played an active role. In later footage, he remains a subversive force, backed by the unconditional love of his mother Terry, whose wit and charm infuse the film. How and why the bank robbery took place is recounted in gripping detail by Wojtowicz and various eyewitnesses.
The First part of Olympia, a documentary about the 1936 Olympic games in Berlin by German Director Leni Riefenstahl. The film played in theaters in 1938 and again in 1952 after the fall of the Nazi Regime.
The Second part of Olympia, a documentary about the 1936 Olympic games in Berlin by German Director Leni Riefenstahl. The film played in theaters in 1938 and again in 1952 after the fall of the Nazi Regime.
From dreamy aerial opening shots, we are sent on an expedition through the storied land of our fifth most populous state, Illinois, often called a miniature version of America. Deborah Stratman’s experimental documentary explores how physical landscapes and human politics can each re-interpret historical events. Eleven parables relay histories of settlement, removal, technological breakthrough, violence, messianism, and resistance. Who gets to write history—physical monuments, official news accounts, or personal spoken-word memories?
A story about greed, politics and the land grab of the century, ZIPPER chronicles the battle over an American cultural icon. Small-time ride operator, Eddie Miranda, proudly operates a carnival contraption called the Zipper in the heart of Coney Island's gritty amusement district. When his rented lot is snatched up by a real estate mogul, Eddie and his ride become casualties of a power struggle between the developer and the City of New York over the future of the world-famous destination. Be it an affront to history or simply the path of progress, the spirit of Coney Island is at stake. In an increasingly corporate landscape, where authenticity is often sacrificed for economic growth, the Zipper may be just the beginning of what is lost.
“Finding Hillywood” is an inspirational film about the making of the Rwandan film industry and the power of film to change and heal individuals and communities. It tells the story of how a nation, still healing from the 1994 genocide, creates a film industry as both an outlet for the pain and a way to bring entertainment and a new industry to the population. Hillywood, which is named for Rwanda’s hilly terrain, is a traveling film festival that screens films made by, about, and for Rwandans. The festival goes from town to town, setting up public, outdoor screenings, on inflatable screens, to showcase Rwandan films.
Madame Ondine performs a serpentine dance surrounded by big cats.
The unfinished documentary about the making of Dennis Hopper's mostly unseen feature film The Last Movie (1971).
A teenager finds her identity through the intimacy of the photo booth.
Recorded every day for a year at exactly the same place and same time, this experimental film-poem documents the desire to clutch and hold each moment.
Rainbow's Gravity is a cinematic study on the Agfacolor-Neu colour film stock made in Nazi Germany. Along its three layers of emulsion, the film digs deep into the escapist colourised landscape of this time and asks for the material requirements, retentions and ideological continuities of the Agfacolor palette. The film sequences, projected in the former production line, dismantle not only themselves, but also our view accustomed to historicise. The film tries to realise, not only how it had been - in the darkrooms of the Agfa film factory - but also how it can be possible at all to face this reality today within film, in images and movements without a final or even conciliatory view of the past.
Documentary exploring the deep-seated biases and attitudes about skin color---particularly dark-skinned women, outside of and within the Black American culture.
A woman and her daughter struggle to make their way through the aftermath of the Balkan war.
Filmmaker Penny Woolcock spent eight months in a parallel world, the world of the homeless, befriending people and finding out where they eat, sleep and socialise. While making her film, Woolcock realised that the very real problems of homeless people have very little to do with the lack of a roof over their heads or a bed to sleep in. Their problems come from their past lives - and are less easy to remedy. Despite the efforts of different charities to move people into homes, the streets are often where they feel safe and what they know best. In this moving documentary, Woolcock gives the seen-but-unheard residents of London's streets a voice.
When estranged father, dreamer, and visionary architect Glen Howard Small bequeaths his daughter the task of writing his biography, she answers instead with a provocative film about his precarious career and thorny private life. At 31, Glen Small, founder and faculty member of the internationally acclaimed Southern California Institute of Architecture, was a rising star. At 61, he can barely pay his bills. In the tradition of My Architect and The Royal Tenenbaums, filmmaker Lucia Small digs deep to explore the delicate tension between her father's obligations to family and his life-long passion to "save the world through architecture."
In the Republic of Belarus, Europe’s last remaining unreconstructed Communist dictatorship, the Belarus Free Theatre risks censorship, imprisonment and worse to stage their provocative and subversive plays in secret performances at home and to critical acclaim abroad. Director Madeleine Sackler goes behind the scenes with this group of gutsy performers as they brave a renewed government crackdown on dissenters in 2010.
A 3D feature film about Sir Edmund Hillary's monumental and historical ascent of Mt. Everest in 1953 - an event that stunned the world and defined a nation.
In this short documentary, five black women talk about their lives in rural and urban Canada between the 1920s and 1950s. What emerges is a unique history of Canada’s black people and the legacy of their community elders. Produced by the NFB’s iconic Studio D.