APPROACHING THE ELEPHANT is a feature-length documentary about The Teddy McArdle Free School, where classes are optional and rules are made by democratic vote. Summerhill, founded 90 years ago by A. S. Neill, was the first free school - now there are more than 200 worldwide. Approaching the Elephant chronicles a free school in the making - spanning two years, from Teddy McArdle's first day when there were no rules or classes, through the changing of the school's director and the expulsion of a student by democratic vote, to the last day of the second year, APPROACHING THE ELEPHANT is an intimate portrait of a small group of people from a range of educational backgrounds, come together to forge a place where children are treated as equals, at liberty to spend their days however they please.
A night flight through hysteria and police surveillance in suburban America.
A shantytown built inside the antique necropolis of Alexandria. An archaeological visit leads us to meet a few people, taking the time to be really close to them. Each encounter reveals a new novel. And we discover how people survive daily, with an incredible strength for life and a crazy capacity for happiness, that enables them to grin and bear the harshness of the materials conditions.
Russian Poet Boris Ryzhy was handsome, talented and famous. So why did he end his own life at the age of 26? A quest to find the answer takes the filmmaker to the notorious neighbourhood in the cold industrial city of Yekaterinenburg where Boris grew up...
A document of the Riot Grrrl and Queercore scene in the 1990s, the film has been screened at film festivals around the world, written about in zines and academic books and has been included in the curriculum of a number of university courses.
In 1993, Bikini Kill toured the UK with grrrl associates Huggy Bear. Lucy Thane made a documentary about the trip, also featuring appearances from the Raincoats, Sister George, and Skinned Teen.
The compelling story of an extraordinary woman's journey from her birth in a paper thin shack in the cotton fields of Georgia to her recognition as a key writer of the twentieth Century.Walker made history as the first black woman to win a Pulitzer Prize for her groundbreaking novel, The Color Purple.
"Touches on elemental images; air, water, (and snow), earth and fire (and smoke) all come into it." - MT
A documentary revealing the under-appreciated, highly demanding world of Broadway Understudies and Standbys. Three undiscovered performers at various points in their careers get the chance of a lifetime. Their struggle is put into perspective through never-before-heard stories from celebrities who themselves were once Understudies or Standbys.
Tan Pin Pin employs a strictly external perspective for this portrait of her hometown, the tropical economic powerhouse of Singapore, interviewing political exiles in London, Thailand and Malaysia, who are to this day unable to return home.
Filmmakers Alan and Susan Raymond spent three months in 1976 riding along with patrol officers in the 44th Precinct of the South Bronx, which had the highest crime rate in New York City at that time.
After giving birth, Joyce attempts to regain her position as a filmmaker while also caring for her new baby. The changes to both her and her husband’s professional lives are remarkable and frustrating. The new parents love the baby but must recognize the limitations she puts on their careers.
Janie Geiser takes us along on her search for the original meaning of the word 'algebra' with the help of a remarkable series of found objects, medical illustrations and a rich variety of animation techniques.
Young members of 3 New Orleans school marching bands grow up in America's most musical city, and one of its most dangerous. Their band directors get them ready to perform in the Mardi Gras parades, and teach them to succeed and to survive.
A biography of the Portuguese-born Brazilian singer Carmen Miranda, whose most distinctive feature was her tutti-frutti hat. From her arrival in the US as the "Brazilian Bombshell" to her Broadway career and Hollywood stardom in the 1940s.
In 1971, inmates at Attica State Prison seized control of D-yard and took 35 hostages after peaceful efforts for reforms failed. Attica investigates the rebellion and its bloody suppression, revealing institutionalized injustices, sanctioned dishonesty, and abuses of power.
"My Own Breathing" is the final documentary of the trilogy, The Murmuring about comfort women during the World War II directed by BYUN Young-joo. This is the completion of her seven years work. BYUN's first and second documentaries spoke of grandmothers' everyday life through the origin of their torment, while My Own Breathing goes back to their past from their everyday life. Deleting any device of narration or music, the camera lets grandmothers talk about themselves. Finally, the film revives their deep voices trampled by harsh history.
At the sea shore, a goat, a child, and a naked man. This is a photograph taken in 1954 by Agnès Varda. The goat was dead, the child was named Ulysses, and the man was naked. Starting from this frozen image, the film explores the real and the imaginary.
There are places that we don’t want to know anything about, places that we would rather pretend don’t exist at all. One such place is a dumpsite. From the humans’ point of view, it is a ghastly place, a stinking desert of trash. But it’s a desert that is teaming with life.
The film is a commemoration of the lost livelihood of the earth, the lost lives of the War and to the work of two of the cinema’s greatest artists.