My Town

An intimate portrait, in his own words, of the Indian writer Salman Rushdie, author of The Satanic Verses (1988), thirty years after the fatwa uttered by the Iranian Ayatollah Khomeini: his youth in multicultural Bombay, his life in England, his many years of forced hiding, his thoughts on President Trump's United States of America.

Iran, January 16th, 1979. Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi flees after being overthrown. Ayatollah Khomeini returns to Tehran and proclaims the Islamic Republic on April 1st, 1979. In the same year, Saddam Hussein seizes power in Iraq and, after several border skirmishes, attacks Iran on September 22nd, 1980, initiating a cruel war that will last eight years. Since its outbreak, correspondent Saeid Sadeghi documented it from its beginning to its bitter end.

A harrowing exploration of the rapid rise of American religious fanaticism after 9/11. This film explores an emerging ultra Right Wing mass movement seeking dominion over all aspects of contemporary American society. The film weaves archival video, contemporary Christian Nationalist movement propaganda (recruiting videos, apocalyptic/military videogame imagery, etc.) and original investigative material) to create an intense examination of the totalistic mindset and its will to power.

Jesus Camp is a Christian summer camp where children hone their "prophetic gifts" and are schooled in how to "take back America for Christ". The film is a first-ever look into an intense training ground that recruits born-again Christian children to become an active part of America's political future.

According to the official history of Afghanistan, ruthless destruction has always prevailed over art and creation; but there is another tale to be told, the forgotten account of a diverse and progressive country, seen through the lens of innovative filmmakers, a story that survives thanks to a few brave Afghans, a small but very passionate group that secretly fought to save a huge film archive that was constantly menaced by war and religious fanaticism.

In 2019, some still consider homosexuality as a disease that needs to be cured. Focusing on movements with roots in the United States, which draw on both religion and psychiatry to justify so-called conversion therapies, an investigation into the devastating consequences of certain practices that seem to successfully avoid any control by European public authorities.

How is secularism depicted in films? The term "Aa'La'Ma'Ni" means worldly in Arabic. It's significant in the Middle East, where secularism is controversial since the majority often link secularism with atheism and anti-religious sentiment. SECULAR | Aa'La'Ma'Ni, a documentary based on academic research, explores the depiction of secularism in Middle Eastern cinema and TV channels. Filmmakers and regional producers openly discuss religion, sectarianism, authorities, minorities, and industry challenges.

Historically, republics have gone through distinct stages of development, eventually ending in moral and economic collapse. Tyranny inevitably follows the collapse of democratic systems. Is that happening to America? Are we nearing the end of our greatness, or is there hope for renewal of the foundational principles that made that greatness possible? Our founding fathers intended religion and morality to be pillars of the new republic, providing the restraint that would allow maximum liberty for the citizenry. Today, this delicate balance of religion and state has been eroded by a secularist push to isolate Christianity in our culture and render it irrelevant. The choice in our day is a stark one: As a people we either return to our Christian roots - or we divorce God altogether. Returning to the principles established by our founders in the way to restore moral sanity and rebuild the foundations that made our nation great.

This short film was created by a group of Indigenous filmmakers at the NFB in 1972 and is essentially a song by Willie Dunn sung by Bob Charlie and illustrated by John Fadden: "Who were the ones who bid you welcome and took you by the hand, inviting you here by our campfires, as brothers we might stand?" The song expresses bitter memories of the past, of trust repaid by treachery, and of friendship debased by exploitation upon the arrival of European colonists.

While The Rolling Stones rehearse "Sympathy for the Devil" in the studio, an alternating narrative reflects on 1968 society, politics and culture through five different vignettes.

A documentary about the world's most published and controversial comic artist: Jack T. Chick. His cartoons, conspiracies, and controversies are revealed for the first time on screen. Both critics and supporters give a complete view of this mysterious recluse, the invisible mastermind behind the Chick empire.

A century ago the Torres Strait Island were the subjects of the famous Cambridge Anthropological Expedition - the resulting depletion of their cultural artifacts left them with nothing but a history of remembered loss. The only people in the Pacific to make elaborate turtleshell masks have none left - they are all in foreign museums. In a quest to reclaim the past, Ephraim Bani, a wise and knowledgeable Torres Strait Islander, travels with his wife to the great museums of Europe where his heritage lies. The film, an SBS Independent production, shows that the thickest of masks cracks when a descendant of the original owners enters a museum.

A Mondo documentary focused on the 1960's American lifestyle, consumerism, religion, adversity, and oddity. An outsider's look at a country afflicted by episodes of racism and neo -Nazism. Scenes of a Ghost Town, LSD in NYC, Sunset Strip Los Angeles California, Amish, Klu Klux Klan, African-American Fashion Show, etc.

Dieu peut se défendre tout seul

The passion the original Star Wars trilogy inspires in its fans is unparalleled; but when it comes to George Lucas himself, many have found their ardor has cooled into a complicated love-hate relationship. This hilarious, heartfelt documentary delves deep into Lucas’s cultural legacy, asking all the tough questions. Has Lucas betrayed his masterwork? Should he just have left the original trilogy alone? Is The Phantom Menace so bad it should carry a health warning? Utilizing interviews taken from over 600 hours of footage, and peppered with extraordinary Star Wars and Indiana Jones recreations lovingly immortalized in song, needlepoint, Lego, claymation, puppets and paper-mâché, above all this film asks the question: who truly owns that galaxy far, far away—the man who created it, or the fans who worship it?

Documentary about atheist Madalyn Murray O'Hair who, for 30 notorious years, successfully challenged God in America, and was brutally murdered in the summer of 1995. O'Hair had come to occupy a special place in the American psyche since her 1963 campaign which ended compulsory prayer in US schools after a Supreme Court action on behalf of her son William. She journeyed from Cold War paranoia, through to the rise of the neocons and born again Christianity in Reagan's America and beyond. (Storyville)

When four University of Idaho coeds are brutally stabbed to death, brilliant criminology student Bryan Kohberger is accused of their murders.

Moving between two extremes - the intimate verite drama of the Miss India pageant's rigorous beauty "bootcamp" and the intense regime of a militant Hindu fundamentalist camp for young girls. The World Before Her delivers a provocative portrait of India and its current cultural conflicts during a key transitional era in the country's modern history.

How the Islamic State has created a powerful propaganda factory that manipulates and twists at its convenience the subjects and icons of the Western popular culture in order to lure into darkness certain young people and recruit them to achieve a dreadful purpose, an industry of fear that overcomes the infamous Nazi machinery and the methods used by both sides during the Cold War.

Scientists Richard Dawkins and Lawrence Krauss travel the globe promoting a scientific worldview and the rational questioning of religious belief.