This award winning documentary, narrated by Lou Reed, explores the breadth and depth of Occupy Wall Street and how it quickly grew from a small park in lower Manhattan to an international movement. The film highlights why people from diverse age, ethnic and financial backgrounds support the movement and its focus of removing money from politics in order to reclaim democracy from entrenched corporate interests so that critical issues including job creation, affordable access to health and education, protecting the environment and gun safety can be fully addressed. Featuring interviews with a wide range of subjects including Occupiers, economist Jeffrey Sachs and business magnate Russell Simmons.
Since the assassination of Dr. George Tiller in Kansas in 2009, only four doctors in the United States continue to perform third-trimester abortions. These physicians, all colleagues of Dr. Tiller, sacrifice their safety and personal lives in the name of their fierce, unwavering conviction to help women.
In 1999, filmmakers Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson turned the camera on themselves and began filming their five-year-old son, Idris, and his best friend, Seun, as they started kindergarten at the prestigious Dalton School just as the private institution was committing to diversify its student body. Their cameras continued to follow both families for another 12 years as the paths of the two boys diverged—one continued private school while the other pursued a very different route through the public education system.
Notorious killer whale Tilikum is responsible for the deaths of three individuals, including a top killer whale trainer. Blackfish shows the sometimes devastating consequences of keeping such intelligent and sentient creatures in captivity.
Wisconsin—birthplace of the Republican Party, government unions, cheeseheads and Paul Ryan—becomes a test market in the campaign to buy Democracy, and ground zero in the battle for the future of the GOP.
Follows three young, committed Public Defenders who are dedicated to working for the people society would rather forget. Long hours, low pay and staggering caseloads are so common that even the most committed often give up.
Progeria is a rare, fatal genetic condition that causes accelerated aging in children; its young victims rarely live past 13. This moving documentary explores the remarkable world of Sam Berns and the relentless pursuit of a treatment and cure by his parents (both doctors) to save their son from the disease.
On February 12, 2008, in Oxnard, California, eighth-grade student Brandon McInerney shot his classmate Larry King twice in the back of the head during first period. When Larry died two days later, his murder shocked the nation. Was this a hate crime, one perpetrated by a budding neo-Nazi whose masculinity was threatened by an effeminate gay kid who may have had a crush on him? Or was there even more to it?
The story begins with an experiment. A filmmaker in the country of Georgia posts an ad inviting youth to audition for her film. Facing the camera, the hopefuls confess their struggles and dreams. These raw interviews unfold seamlessly into cinematic slivers of Georgian life.
When Salma, a young Muslim girl in a south Indian village, was 13 years old, her family locked her up for 25 years, forbidding her to study and forcing her into marriage. During that time, words were Salma’s salvation. She began covertly composing poems on scraps of paper and, through an intricate system, was able to sneak them out of the house, eventually getting them into the hands of a publisher. Against the odds, Salma became the most famous Tamil poet: the first step to discovering her own freedom and challenging the traditions and code of conduct in her village.
The Square looks at the hard realities faced day-to-day by people working to build Egypt’s new democracy. Cairo’s Tahrir Square is the heart and soul of the film, which follows several young activists. Armed with values, determination, music, humor, an abundance of social media, and sheer obstinacy, they know that the thorny path to democracy only began with Hosni Mubarak’s fall. The life-and-death struggle between the people and the power of the state is still playing out.
"Monday's Girls" explores the conflict between modern individualism and traditional communities in today's Africa through the eyes of two young Waikiriki women from the Niger delta. Although both come from leading families in the same large island town, Florence looks at the iria women's initiation ceremony as an honor, while Azikiwe, who has lived in the city for ten years, sees it as an indignity.
Initially, there's that moment of happiness: an African-American celebrating in Harlem cheers "We're free!" as if Barack Obama's victory meant the ultimate end of slavery. AMERICAN PASSAGES is an associative journey through the United States: a disillusioned Iraq veteran, gay adoptive fathers, black judges, white party animals and a pimp at a casino table in Las Vegas. The extreme contrasts of black and white, rich and poor, winners and losers are often as surprising as the meaning of the constitutional right to the pursuit of happiness in these times of crisis. An epic panorama of America.
Director Christina Voros and producer James Franco pull back the curtain on the fetish empire of Kink.com, the Internet's largest producer of BDSM content. In a particularly obscure corner of an industry that operates largely out of public view, Kink.com's directors and models strive for authenticity. In an enterprise often known for exploitative practices, Kink.com upholds an ironclad set of values to foster an environment that is safe, sane, and consensual.
The story of young, brilliant African-American Anita Hill who accuses the Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas of unwanted sexual advances during explosive Senate Hearings in 1991 and ignites a political firestorm about sexual harassment, race, power and politics that resonates today.
The Crash Reel tells the story of a sport and the risks that athletes face in reaching the pinnacle of their profession. This is Kevin Pearce’s story, a celebrated snowboarder who sustained a brain injury in a trick gone wrong and who now aims, against all the odds, to get back on the snow.
'Running from Crazy' is a documentary examining the personal journey of model and actress Mariel Hemingway, the granddaughter of Ernest Hemingway, as she strives for a greater understanding of her family history of suicide and mental illness.
A biodoc about the first female filmmaker and her relative disappearance from the history of cinema after directing, producing, and writing more than 700 films.
Birth Story: Ina May Gaskin and The Farm Midwives captures a spirited group of women who taught themselves how to deliver babies on a 1970s hippie commune. Today as nearly one third of all US babies are born via C-section, they fight to protect their knowledge and to promote respectful, safe maternity practices all over the globe. From the backs of their technicolor school buses, these pioneers rescued American midwifery from extinction, changed the way a generation approached pregnancy, and filmed nearly everything they did. With unprecedented access to the midwives' archival video collection, as well as modern day footage of life at the alternative intentional community where they live, this documentary shows childbirth the way most people have never seen it--unadorned, unabashed, and awe-inspiring.
Explores the music scene in Greenwich Village, New York in the '60s and early '70s. The film highlights some of the finest singer/songwriters of the day.