Embrace Kids

With a pair of scissors and some paper, he turned his art into a weapon the Nazis feared. A look back at the eventful career of satirist John Heartfield (1891-1968), pioneer of photomontage and modern graphic design.

Once a year, people from different marginalized communities meet together in the woods to delve into the art of circus and have this discipline become a common way to express themselves, away from the city.

Malcolm Margolin , Writer, Publisher, and Founder of Heyday Books, winner of the San Francisco Foundation 2008 Community Leadership Awards (the Helen Crocker Russell Award) - for promoting California's diverse cultures for more than 30 years, and for bringing voice, visibility, and value to multicultural, multilingual communities.

THE OPENER is a feel-good, underdog music doc about a street performer who wrote 30 songs in 30 days to process his grief and isolation during the pandemic, and found that his music spoke to millions. When it reached the ears of one of his heroes, Grammy-winner Jason Mraz, he was invited on his very first tour and given a chance to prove himself on the big stage.

A journey between the sacred and profane in which the Femminielli, an ancient non-binary Neapolitan figure, fight for their survival against the globalizing tides of modernity.

A group of young, risk-embracing day traders used social media to organize a massive stock buy-up. Jordan Belfort provides details about the story, exploring how it shook the world's markets.

By the dawn of the 21st century, hip-hop sales had reached an all-time high, but one thing has remained the same. The doors were still locked, and the music industry held the keys. Young artists began to self-market on the Internet, ultimately helping to collapse the music industry as we knew it. It’s Yours explores how it became possible to become a rap star through a Twitter account, YouTube site or Myspace page. It tells this story through the unique perspectives of numerous artists, producers, record industry insiders, and music and cultural critics.

Fame driven Ken Dean becomes the subject of a documentary when he attempts to start a pornography company. Following the failure of the company, Ken uses his father's religious music to start a Christian rock band but finds himself trapped in a gay conversion cult.

The line between justice and revenge blurs when a devastated family uses social media to track down the people who killed 24-year-old Crystal Theobald.

Mystifications

Notre année sur Terre

Documentary shows what social connections actually are and what role social media plays in this. She portrays four influencers who are all at different points in their social media careers at the beginning of the film: Tasha Kimberly, Emilia Horn and Heiko and Roman Lochmann, formerly of "Die Lochis". They are all driven away from the platforms for different reasons. Using their example, the film explores the clichés of Generation Z and attempts to understand social media as a pop-cultural tool.

Teenager Olivia Oras has 20,000 Instagram followers. The documentary follows a year of her life.

Australian blind surfer Matt Formston’s mettle is pushed to the limits in this thrilling documentary. With only 3% vision, the 4x World Champion attempts his most fearsome and dangerous challenge yet, surfing the monster waves of Nazaré.

Richard Clay, art historian and expert on semiotics and iconoclasm and the interplay between new technology and shifts in meaning, compares and contrasts cultural symbols from across the centuries, unpicking iconic images, music, and other cultural outputs to explain where ‘stickiness’ comes from.

Wie uns Soziale Medien abhängig machen

An examination of Israel and its society after many months of war, seen initially through the prism of viral social media posts - and exclusive interviews with the soldiers behind them. These posts, some shared millions of times, show soldiers humiliating bound Palestinians, ransacking their homes, joking as they detonate schools and whole districts, and laughing as they launch high explosive ordnance into densely-packed areas. The award-winning team behind this Basement Films production traveled to Israel to interview some of these soldiers, who proudly defended themselves and their videos, some expressing callous disregard for Palestinians in Gaza. Through additional interviews with Israeli radical groups, politicians, and media figures, the film reveals Israeli Jewish society in the aftermath of October 7th, gripped by a vengeance and hate that puts into question any possibility for peace.

The Meaning of Vanlife is an adventurous, revealing look into the Vanlife community through the eyes of nomads who have chosen to live a life of freedom on the road. A movement that exemplifies a deeper societal trend towards minimalism and authentic community building.

Explores the meaning of fame and influence in the digital age through an innovative social experiment. Following three Los Angeles-based people with relatively small followings, the film explores the attempts made to turn them into famous influencers by purchasing fake followers and bots to “engage” with their social media accounts.

Using real cases, this documentary demonstrates the extent to which violent criminals can use social media to locate and manipulate victims.