Tevye's Daughters

The private Joan Crawford fought as hard to create a normal family life as she did to establish her career. She forged her own path and to that end became a single parent, eventually adopting and raising four children. Like many parents, she picked up a 16mm camera and began filming both the special and the ordinary events of her family’s life. These home movies (ca. 1940–42) present that which one rarely gets to see: a larger-than-life personality at home, unadorned, just being herself—and often in color, at a time when her feature films were black and white. Crawford filmed most of the home movies herself; when she is on camera, it is unclear who is behind it.

Going into my interview with Laurel Greenfield, I thought the majority of our conversation would be about her inspiration for painting food and why she chose to pursue painting as a career. We spoke about that but ended up having a much bigger conversation about pursuing a creative career. We talked a lot about finding the balance between having a business plan and taking a leap of faith into the unknown, something anyone pursuing a creative field on their own can relate to.

Parents talk about their gay and lesbian children, and how they came to accept their lifestyle.

Sing! is a 2001 American short documentary film about the Los Angeles Children's Chorus, directed by Freida Lee Mock. How do squeaky-voiced 8 year olds become amazing singers? Sing! tells the story of how a community group, amid severe cutbacks in the arts, is able to develop a children's chorus that is one of the best in the country. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Short.

A first-person account of a kid named Sidney in a town that helped him become who he is today: Cole Harbour, Nova Scotia.

A short film to accompany the reissue of Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds album The Boatman's Call (originally released in 1997). The result is a determinedly human portrait of the unique body of work produced by the band over the last 25 years, told through those who have lived and loved the music, including close collaborators.

People from different ethnic backgrounds with "difficult" names by Western standards share their experience with moving through the world with an identity that challenges others to simply just say their name. A short social docu-film by Mariam Meliksetyan, “Say My Name” is a meditation on identity, otherness, assimilation, community, and ancestral roots.

A satire on celebrity with a cacophony of gossip merchants, publicists, and “a host of stars.”

This short documentary shows the reactions of European immigrants as they land in Halifax at the beginning of the 1960s. From the port, we follow them on a snowy journey by train to Montreal.

From the slow waitings for opening of the big top to the loneliness in the dressing room backstage, Abuhadba follows the life of a small circus in Chile run entirely by a traditional circus family.

The film shows one day from waking up in the morning all the way to waking up again the next morning. The everyday situations that many commercials are made of, the little dramas that they create and solve through the product or service they sell, are stitched together into one day. This is a film about the everyday in (German, or Western-European) society because the commercials are part of the everyday of most people (everyone who watches television) and they depict an ideal image of society. The film abundantly uses repetition as an editing technique, in visual ways as described above, but also because commercials can be read in different ways. For instance, Brat baking foil shows up at the evening dinner sequence, when an ovendish is put on the table, and again later on in the sequence about going out to a classic concert, because the clip has classic music.

The Numbers Start with the River is a 1971 American short documentary film about small-town life in Iowa. Produced by Donald Wrye for the United States Information Agency, it was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Short.

Short documentary about the lives of three girls and the women who rescued them from retrogressive cultural practices in their own Maasai community at the AIC Girls School and Rescue Center in Kajiado, Kenya. It is an intimate portrait of these women as they sacrifice everything to make a stand against female genital mutilation and early forced marriage happening within their own culture.

In interviews, various actors and directors discuss their careers and their involvement in the making of what has come to be known as "cult" films. Included are such well-known genre figures as Russ Meyer, Curtis Harrington, Cameron Mitchell and James Karen.

With depth, intimacy, and humor, FLOAT! captures filmmaker Azza Cohen's magnetic grandma’s life-affirming journey learning to swim at 82, inspiring audiences to defy societal expectations of aging and to boldly look forward at every stage.

A young mother, alone with her daughter, confides in a friend who happens to be the director herself. Chantal Akerman, although she sympathizes with the mother, does not say a word.

This short explores the possibility that Louis XVII, son of King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, escaped death during the French Revolution and was raised by Indians in America.

The Making of feature for the George Lucas movie 'THX 1138'.

The earliest 'rockumentary' of John Mayall and his musicians filmed in their homes, dressing rooms, motorways, airports, clubs, concert halls and at festivals.

A short documentary about how "Fulton" the Ukrainian Football Club came together.