Told in the cinematic tradition of classic westerns, “COWBOYS - A Documentary Portrait” is a feature-length film that gives viewers the opportunity to ride alongside modern working cowboys on some of America's largest and most remote cattle ranches. The movie documents the lives of the men and women working on these "big outfit" ranches - some of which are over one million acres - and still require full crews of horseback mounted workers to tend large herds of cattle. Narrated through first-hand accounts from the cowboys themselves, the story is steeped in authenticity and explores the rewards and hardships of a celebrated but misunderstood way of life, including the challenges that lie ahead for the cowboys critical to providing the world's supply of beef. “COWBOYS” was filmed on eight of the nation’s largest cattle ranches across ten states in the American West.
Three generations of the Phadke family live and work together in South Bombay. As they prepare for a family wedding, director Archana Atul Phadke, who is not in any hurry to marry, observes the shifting, often very funny household dynamics, as both her mother and grandmother wonder how they have tolerated their husbands for so long.
Out of love for Huskies, nature and cold winters Dave and Kristen Olesen moved from Minnesota to the North West Territories in Canada 25 years ago to create their own little universe on the magnificent East arm of Great Slave Lake. With their two daughters Annika 15 and Liv 12 and their 37 dogs, the Olesens enjoy a unique lifestyle in the wide open wilderness far away from civilization. One winter they all leave their self-built homestead with ten dogs on a two and a half thousand mile family expedition allowing Annika to run the Junior Iditarod in Alaska. As unexpected obstacles all along the trip culminate in three heavily injured dogs the whole endeavor is at risk. Optimism, love and loyalty prevail on this exciting epic family voyage.
The enigma of the personality cult is revealed in the grand spectacle of Stalin’s funeral. The film is based on unique archive footage, shot in the USSR on March 5 - 9, 1953, when the country mourned and buried Joseph Stalin.
An intimate look at the human faces of America's current opioid epidemic. Seen through the eyes of a mother and the lens of a small town.
Thomas Haemmerli is about to celebrate his fortieth birthday when he learns of his mother's death. A further shock follows when he and his brother Erik discover her apartment, which is filthy and full to bursting with junk. It takes the brothers an entire month to clean out the place. Among the chaos, they find films going back to the 1930s, photos and other memorabilia.
In a series of letters to her young son, a mother, soldier and filmmaker documents her thoughts from the Ukrainian frontline.
When a Mongolian nomadic family's newest camel colt is rejected by its mother, a musician is needed for a ritual to change her mind.
Jason Momoa's story of fatherhood, craftsmanship, and the legacy he'll leave behind.
For ten years, Raymond Depardon has followed the lives of farmer living in the mountain ranges. He allows us to enter their farms with astounding naturalness. This moving film speaks, with great serenity, of our roots and of the future of the people who work on the land. This the last part of Depardon's triptych "Profils paysans" about what it is like to be a farmer today in an isolated highland area in France. "La vie moderne" examines what has become of the persons he has followed for ten years, while featuring younger people who try to farm or raise cattle or poultry, come hell or high water.
What would your family reminiscences about dad sound like if he had been an early supporter of Hitler’s, a leader of the notorious SA and the Third Reich’s minister in charge of Slovakia, including its Final Solution? Executed as a war criminal in 1947, Hanns Ludin left behind a grieving widow and six young children, the youngest of whom became a filmmaker. It's a fascinating, maddening, sometimes even humorous look at what the director calls "a typical German story." (Film Forum)
In the vast expanse of desert East of Atlas Mountains in Morocco, seasonal rain and snow once supported livestock, but now the drought seems to never end. Hardly a blade of grass can be seen, and families travel miles on foot to get water from a muddy hole in the ground. Yet the children willingly ride donkeys and bicycles or walk for miles across rocks to a "school of hope" built of clay. Following both the students and the teachers in the Oulad Boukais Tribe's community school for over three years, SCHOOL OF HOPE shows students Mohamed, Miloud, Fatima, and their classmates, responding with childish glee to the school's altruistic young teacher, Mohamed. Each child faces individual obstacles - supporting their aging parents; avoiding restrictions from relatives based on traditional gender roles - while their young teacher makes do in a house with no electricity or water.
An Oscar nominated documentary about a middle-class American family who is torn apart when the father Arnold and son Jesse are accused of sexually abusing numerous children. Director Jarecki interviews people from different sides of this tragic story and raises the question of whether they were rightfully tried when they claim they were innocent and there was never any evidence against them.
In rural Kosovo, identical houses are built for family members working abroad, in the hope that they will one day return to settle in their old homeland.
Traces the lives of the Hartings, a blind Montreal family of three who make their living singing in the city's subway stations. The Hartings lost their only sighted child Hassan in a tragic drowning accident, and have since turned to the teachings of Russian mystic Grigori Grabovoi, hoping to resurrect their son. Resurrecting Hassan is an exploration of this family's legacy of grief, tragedy and abuse; the film will follow them on their path to redemption.
In July 1860, the schooner Clotilda slipped quietly into the dark waters of Mobile, Ala., holding 110 Africans stolen from their homes and families, smuggled across the sea, and illegally imported to be sold into slavery. Surviving Clotilda is the extraordinary story of the last slave ship ever to reach America's shores: the brash captain who built and sailed her, the wealthy white businessman whose bet set the cruel plan in motion, and the 110 men, women, and children whose resilience turned horror into hope.
The documentary's title translates as "to be and to have", the two auxiliary verbs in the French language. It is about a primary school in the commune of Saint-Étienne-sur-Usson, Puy-de-Dôme, France, the population of which is just over 200. The school has one small class of mixed ages (from four to twelve years), with a dedicated teacher, Georges Lopez, who shows patience and respect for the children as we follow their story through a single school year.
Arctic Tale is a 2007 documentary film from the National Geographic Society about the life cycle of a walrus and her calf, and a polar bear and her cubs, in a similar vein to the 2005 hit production March of the Penguins, also from National Geographic.
Evan, a filmmaker from Mississippi, catches feelings for a gal he meets at a found footage film festival in San Francisco. They decide to make a movie together, exploring the haunted landscapes of Evan’s family history in the swamplands of Florida. Old wounds are reopened and generational trauma reveals itself to be perhaps the scariest part of this attempted mockumentary that ends up being a little too real.
This short documentary illustrates rural French Canadian life in the early 1940s. The film follows Alexis Tremblay and his family through the busy autumn days as they bring in the harvest and help with bread baking and soap making. Winter sees the children revelling in outdoor sports while the women are busy with their weaving, and, with the coming of spring young and old alike repair to the fields once more to plough the earth in preparation for another season of varied crops. One of the first NFB films to be produced, directed, written and shot by women.