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.
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.
A documentary on the once promising American rock bands The Brian Jonestown Massacre and The Dandy Warhols. The friendship between respective founders, Anton Newcombe and Courtney Taylor, escalated into bitter rivalry as the Dandy Warhols garnered major international success while the Brian Jonestown Massacre imploded in a haze of drugs.
In the Realms of the Unreal is a documentary about the reclusive Chicago-based artist Henry Darger. Henry Darger was so reclusive that when he died his neighbors were surprised to find a 15,145-page manuscript along with hundreds of paintings depicting The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What is Known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glodeco-Angelinnian War Storm, Cased by the Child Slave Rebellion.
As artists and visual architects, husband and wife Massimo and Lella Vignelli have been producing unique and groundbreaking work as brand designers. This up-close documentary reveals their major influence in reshaping our visual environment.
In Oct. 2006, the U.S. government decided to build a 700-mile fence along its troubled 2000-mile-plus border with Mexico. Three years, 19 construction companies, 350 engineers, thousands of construction workers, tens of thousands of tons of metal and $3 billion later, was it all worth it? When Arizona recently enacted one of the most extreme immigration laws in the country, the Obama administration responded by filing a lawsuit against the state. This dispute was merely the latest symptom of a greater national problem: the lack of a comprehensive, workable U.S. immigration policy. In its place, lawmakers have resorted to a series of half-measures, the most expensive of which — the U.S.-Mexico border fence — extends through the desert 150 miles south of the Arizona state capital.
We get up, go to work, eat and go to bed. Is our life about daily rituals or is there a deeper, more inscrutable meaning of life? Kjeld lives surrounded by nature in his small house and soon becomes a father. He seeks satisfaction in the simplicity of life in nature. Anna is a young artist looking for answers in her poetry and music. A philosophical documentary essay in which the search for the core of life is central. How should we live if there are no answers anywhere?
Maria Zmarz-Koczanowicz directed this insightful TV documentary (2005) tracing the Polish filmmaker's career. Former classmates reminisce about Kieslowski's happy beginnings at the Lodz film school and how his dissatisfaction with some of his early documentaries prompted the dramatic work and stylistic experimentation that led to his monumental series of films The Decalogue (1989). Wim Wenders, Agnieszka Holland, and Juliette Binoche are among the many admirers weighing in on his hard-driving work methods and preoccupation with the ephemeral. In Polish, French, and German with subtitles.
Using almost totally historical material, For Love or Money encompasses the role of Australian women in both paid and unpaid work, over a 200 year period.
A film that captures the portraits and stories of extraordinary women around the world who are coming together to heal the injustices against the earth, weaves together poetry, music, art, and stunning scenery to create a hopeful and collective story that inspires us to work for the earth. The list of impassioned, indefatigable female environmental activists featured in this film includes Winona LaDuke, a Native American who has championed the use of solar and wind power on reservations; Theo Colborn, head of The Endocrine Disruption Exchange, who fights against toxic chemicals in our water supplies; Beverly Grant, who’s created a vibrant farmer’s market in a black neighborhood of Denver, Colo.; Dana Miller, who spearheads an “urban agriculture movement” in the same city; and Vandana Shiva, who champions organic farming in India.
League of Exotique Dancers explores vintage Burlesque's world of fun, frolic, and feathers, yet also turns the spotlight on the poverty, racism, and sexism that were rampant under all that glitter.
A documentary of insect life in meadows and ponds, using incredible close-ups, slow motion, and time-lapse photography. It includes bees collecting nectar, ladybugs eating mites, snails mating, spiders wrapping their catch, a scarab beetle relentlessly pushing its ball of dung uphill, endless lines of caterpillars, an underwater spider creating an air bubble to live in, and a mosquito hatching.
Twenty five years after Miguel died from AIDS, his niece, filmmaker Cecilia Aldarondo, embarks on an excavation into a quagmire of unresolved family drama. Like many gay men in the 1980s, Miguel moved from Puerto Rico to New York City; he found a career in theater and a rewarding relationship. Yet, on his deathbed he grappled to reconcile his homosexuality with his Catholic upbringing. Now, decades after his death, Cecilia locates Miguel’s lover Robert, who has been shunned and demonized by the family, in order to understand the whole story.
In 2012, California voters approved Proposition 36, effectively repealing the state's notoriously harsh three-strikes law that had sentenced thousands of nonviolent offenders to a lifetime behind bars. But what does it mean to be released from prison after being sentenced to life? How does one begin to reintegrate into society? The Return depicts the struggles of two newly released former lifers as they deal with restoring relationships, avoiding personal triggers, finding meaningful employment, and managing the mental health problems which had previously contributed to their imprisonment.
The lives and careers of four Asian-American rappers trying to break into a world that often treats them as outsiders. Sharing dynamic live performance footage and revealing interviews, these artists will make the most skeptical critics into believers.
A moving tribute to New York icon Mike Kuchar, filmed on his last day before leaving Manhattan to relocate to San Francisco
A tribute to legendary black lesbian feminist poet Audre Lorde, one of the most celebrated icons of feminism's second wave.
We wanted to make a film about a teenage mother. We met Joana in a casting that took place in Setubal, in the Bela Vista neighborhood. She appeared to us as a porcelain doll, small, fragile, pale, with a little hair bow. Little by little, she crumbled apart, revealing a charming complexity. We were conquered by the duality of strength and fragility, freedom and incarceration, joy and sorrow. The intimacy and complicity we were able to establish with her made this film possible. In Cat's Cradle, we share her with everyone else.
Fed up with being pushed around, a group of gay and trans teens of color form a gang and fight back on the brutal streets of Washington D.C. They call their gang ‘Check it’ and this group of one-time victims of bullying, rape and abuse have turned the tables on anyone trying to hurt them. The group formed to provide its members safety in numbers and let people know that if they jump a queer kid in D.C., they may get beaten into a coma. This raw and intimate portrait follows three childhood friends as they struggle to survive and claw their way out of gang life through an unlikely avenue: fashion.
The self-help industry is worth $11 billion dollars a year. It’s an industry that captivates those seeking happiness, release from suffering and those longing for a path and a leader to follow. James Arthur Ray for many who followed him was that leader to guide his flock. But as the story unfolds, as told by Ray himself and also by his followers, we learn that that path was fraught with danger and perhaps even greater suffering.