
The film uses a documentary approach to tell the stories of 12 Chinese pioneers, chosen from the fields of business and the arts. The protagonists reflect upon their life journeys against the backdrop of modern China.
0.0In 2011, Syria's Bashar al-Assad answered his nation's demands for freedom by launching a brutal war against his own people. While the U.S. drew red lines for intervention, Assad ramped up the attacks, starving and killing civilians and children, including the use of chemical weapons, leveling cities, targeting journalists and blocking humanitarian aid to millions of victims. Abandoned by the outside world, individual activists stepped in to fill the roles of banned journalists, international aid agencies and feckless foreign governments. Red Lines tells the story of two such activists, who despite overwhelming obstacles, attempt to establish democratic enclaves in their devastated homeland.
8.0Susana Barriga’s documentary, the illusion, begins with violence. A long shot reveals a man standing on a street corner, his features indiscernible in the night. He moves out of the camera’s line of vision, but the filmmaker, persistent, moves with him as the jostling of the camera marks her steps. As we learn moments later, the man in the distance is Susana’s father – and this is the clearest image of him we will have. Suddenly, an angry British man demands that Susana cease filming. Susana protests in heavily accented English, “He is my father!” Glimpses of a man’s torso are followed by blurred images as the camera spins rapidly over surfaces. The image cuts to black. A new male voice asks in carefully spaced out words if Susana would like him to call the police. When she doesn’t respond immediately, he speaks louder, as though volume would compensate for the language difference. She gives her name; she refuses the offer of an ambulance.
5.5Michôd and Peedom's hour-long documentary recounts the tale of Andrew McAuley, an Australian adventurer who, in 2006, launched a quest to become the first person to paddle a kayak across the treacherous Tasman Sea, one of the loneliest and toughest stretches of water in the world.
8.3Sir David Attenborough takes us on a journey through the weird and wonderful world of frogs, shedding new light on these charismatic, colorful and frequently bizarre little animals through first-hand stories, the latest science, and cutting-edge technology. Frogs from around the world are used to demonstrate the wide variety of frog anatomy, appearance and behavior. Their amazing adaptations and survival techniques have made them the most successful of all amphibians.
Three stand-up comedians seek fame and fortune in the hottest comedy scene in the world: San Francisco in the 1980s.
10.0A documentary about Asperger syndrome that will teach you we don't all take the same journey towards happiness.
6.5Documentary about French philosopher (and author of deconstructionism) Jacques Derrida, who sparked fierce debate throughout American academia.
0.0Lisbon has the second largest community of Hindus in Europe. This film portrays this community, focusing on a family originally from Diu, who then emigrated to Mozambique and then, in 1976, to Lisbon. The film portrays the contrast and conflict between this group of Diu families, low caste with the Lohanas group, the merchants caste. A new temple is being built, however in the courtyard of his house the family Carsane still makes its parties and alternative rituals ....
An award-winning feature-length documentary narrated by Golden Globe nominee Blair Underwood, FIRST GENERATION tells the story of four high school students - an inner city athlete, a small town waitress, a Samoan warrior dancer, and the daughter of migrant field workers - who set out to break the cycle of poverty and bring hope to their families and communities by pursuing a college education. Shot over the course of three years and featuring some of our nation’s top educational experts (Richard Kahlenberg, The Century Foundation; J.B. Schramm, College Summit; Dr. Bill Tierney, University of Southern California), this 95 minute documentary explores the problem of college access faced by first generation and low-income students and how their success has major implications for the future of our nation.
Re-framing the U.S. gun violence debate from Second Amendment rights to public health prevention.
4.0Helke Sander interviews multiple German women who were raped in Berlin by Soviet soldiers in May 1945. Most women never spoke of their experience to anyone, due largely to the shame attached to rape in German culture at that time.
0.0China marks the beginning of the extensive Asian theme in Ottinger’s filmography and is her first travelogue. Her observant eye is interested in anything from Sichuan opera and the Beijing Film Studio to the production of candy and sounds of bicycle bells.
7.1Documentary filmmaker Amy Berg investigates the life of 30-year pedophile Father Oliver O'Grady and exposes the corruption inside the Catholic Church that allowed him to abuse countless children. Victims' stories and a disturbing interview with O'Grady offer a view into the troubled mind of the spiritual leader who moved from parish to parish gaining trust ... all the while betraying so many.
0.0A film essay that intertwines the director's gaze with that of her late mother. Beyond exploring mourning and absence as exclusively painful experiences, the film pays tribute to her mother through memories embodied by places and objects that evidence the traces of her existence. The filmmaker asks herself: What does she owe her mother for who she is and how she films? To what extent does her film belong to her?
6.3A documentary on seniors at a high school in a small Indiana town and their various cliques.
0.0FLY BY NIGHT follows artist Duke Riley as he embarks on his biggest project to date -- training thousands of pigeons outfitted with tiny LEDs to twirl, swoop, and glide over the East River at dusk from a decommissioned naval vessel in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Commissioned by the public arts nonprofit Creative Time, the visually mesmerizing project received acclaim from the art world and the thousands of New Yorkers who witnessed the performances during the spring of 2016. The Village Voice awarded Riley a lifetime achievement award for "elevating the prestige of pigeons in the public consciousness." This piece follows Riley's process from conception to final performance, and ultimately like the project itself, examines urban humanity's relationship to the natural world.
0.0A rich and little-known part of Canadian history unfolds through the stories of the first Chinese women to come to Canada and of subsequent generations of Chinese Canadian women. It is an amazing tale of courageous women who left behind their families, knowing they would never see them again and of girls who were shipped off to the New World to marry men they had never met. These are the women who fought against the many forms of racism they faced in Canada while, at the same time, challenging sexism within their own communities. By passing on language, culture, and values to their children, these women defined what it means to be Chinese Canadian. Beautiful old photographs from family albums, the recollections of seven women who grew up in Canada in the first half of the 20th century, and the memories of narrator and director, Dora Nipp, whose grandfather came to Canada in 1881 to build the railway, create a remarkable story of stunning impact.
6.2The film does not have a plot per se; it mixes documentary footage, along with standard movie scenes, to give the audience the mood of Germany during the late 1970s. The movie covers the two-month time period during 1977 when a businessman was kidnapped and later murdered by the left-wing terrorists known as the RAF-Rote Armee Fraktion (Red Army Fraction). The businessman had been kidnapped in an effort to secure the release of the original leaders of the RAF, also known as the Baader-Meinhof gang. When the kidnapping effort and a plane hijacking effort failed, the three most prominent leaders of the RAF, Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin, and Jan-Carl Raspe, all committed suicide in prison. It has become an article of faith within the left-wing community that these three were actually murdered by the state.
8.0Diana The Woman Inside highlights Diana as a woman and mother, rather than just a tragic icon.
