The Nature of the Beast explores the life and case of a woman, Bonnie Jean Foreshaw, who was subjected to years of abuse, as a child and in three separate marriages. At the age of thirty-eight, Ms Foreshaw was found guilty of first degree murder when, in a moment of panic, she accidentally shot and killed a pregnant woman in an attempt to protect herself from a man who was physically assaulting her at a gas station in Hartford, Connecticut. Both her assailant and victim were complete strangers to Ms. Foreshaw. Although the man later testified in court that he had pulled the pregnant woman in front of him as a shield when he saw Ms. Foreshaw take out her hand gun, she was nevertheless found guilty of pre-meditated murder. Ms. Foreshaw is now serving the longest prison sentence of any woman in Connecticut—45 years—without the possibility of parole.
Herself
10.0In the bitter winter of 1978, four desperate council members from a small Virginia town hatched a daring Bigfoot hoax to save it from the brink of bankruptcy. But as the money grew, so did the greed-triggering the town's first unsolved murder.
0.5February 8, 2024 will mark ten years since Els Borst was murdered. This documentary highlights the remarkable career and life of the former Minister of Health, based on conversations with people who knew her well. It shows Borst's personal side and her impressive contribution to Dutch society. In addition to the successful cases, what were they encountering? How did Borst deal with political opposition? What did this do to her personally? The documentary provides a tangible image of Els Borst as a politician and a person, with attention to her legacy and the tragic end of her life.
6.7A retrospective documentary about the groundbreaking horror series, Friday the 13th, featuring interviews with cast and crew from the twelve films spanning 3 decades.
7.5A horrific triple child murder leads to an indictment and trial of three nonconformist boys based on questionable evidence.
6.7The true-life story of a Harlem's notorious Nicky Barnes, a junkie turned multimillionaire drug-lord. Follow his life story from his rough childhood to the last days of his life.
10.0Still today, people say that during the stormy night from March 31st to April 1st, 1922, the devil had come to Hinterkaifeck. On the farmstead near Schrobenhausen, all 6 inhabitants – 4 Adults and two children – are struck down bestially. The police did not manage to seek out the murderer(s). As the case is still unsolved as of today, the story still lives on in the minds of the people. Motion pictures, theatre plays, and the bestselling novel “Tannöd”, behind all of them stands Hinterkaifeck. Aspiring police investigators and a self-declared “Internet – special commission ‘Hinterkaifeck’” have now once again taken up the trail of the case. This exciting search for traces is followed by the film, and its findings are recreated in elaborate play scenes. Thereby, a picture of an era thought to be bygone and an idea of what really happened back then comes into existence. More precise than any fiction, the docudrama manages to get closer to the truth.
7.0Using two separate filmmaking teams (an all-white crew filming white residents and an all-black camera crew filming black residents), TWO TOWNS OF JASPER captures very different racial views by townsfolk in Jasper, Texas, the location for a racially motivated murder of an African American man in 1998.
6.4A documentary about the rival gangs Mara 18 and Mara Salvatrucha, originating in Los Angeles but terrorizing El Salvador. It explores their origins as possible founding myths of organized crime in a globalized world.
7.1An intimate portrait of Matthew Shepard, the gay young man murdered in one of the most notorious hate crimes in U.S. history. Framed through a personal lens, it's the story of loss, love, and courage in the face of unspeakable tragedy.
7.0Metamorphosis is a documentary-style film giving the true account Bill Troester and the transformation he experienced by Jesus out of a life of violence, crime and drug addiction.
6.7British documentarian Nick Broomfield creates a follow-up piece to his 1992 documentary of the serial killer Aileen Wuornos, a highway prostitute who was convicted of killing six men in Florida between 1989 and 1990. Interviewing an increasingly mentally unstable Wuornos, Broomfield captures the distorted mind of a murderer whom the state of Florida deems of sound mind -- and therefore fit to execute. Throughout the film, Broomfield includes footage of his testimony at Wuornos' trial.
6.2Black Box BRD steps back into German history, showing the Federal Republic of Germany of the 70s and 80s. The country is polarized due to the power struggle of the German state and the "Red Army Faction". Society is torn, the fronts are irreconcilable. The life stories of both Wolfgang Grams and Alfred Herrhausen are tragically linked to this era. Grams is the one who takes up arms for moral rigor; Herrhausen however seizes power and dies when powerful.
9.0Mihai Moldoveanu, a former Romanian army officer, was sentenced to 25 years behind bars for a crime he claims he did not commit. Following a long series of attempts to prove his innocence, the European Court of Human Rights ruled in Moldoveanu's favor in June 2012. The documentary follows him after his provisional release and focuses on the referral of the case and the consequences of the new sentence, giving the viewer the role of a juror in a complicated and controversial lawsuit.
6.6In 2016, a young Austrialian filmmaker began documenting amateur inventor Peter Madsen. One year in, Madsen brutally murdered Kim Wall aboard his homemade submarine. An unprecedented revelation of a killer and the journey his young helpers take as they reckon with their own complicity and prepare to testify.
0.0Amanda Knox served four years in an Italian prison for the murder of her British flatmate Meredith Kercher in Perugia in 2007, always insisting on her innocence. In 2011, she was acquitted on the basis of DNA evidence but prosecutors successfully appealed and her acquittal was struck down. In 2014 she was again found guilty in absentia after a retrial and sentenced to 28 years and six months in jail. The saga came to and end when Italy's highest court overturned the convictions of Ms Knox and her former boyfriend, Italian student Raffaele Sollecito in March 2015. Known burglar Rudy Guede was arrested a short time later following the discovery of his bloodstained fingerprints on Kercher's possessions. He was later found guilty of murder in a fast-track trial and is currently (as of 2019) serving a 16-year prison sentence.
6.7The shocking murder of 21-year-old British backpacker, Grace Millane, in New Zealand grabbed headlines around the world in 2018, as did the ensuing investigation and trial. This chilling true-crime documentary revisits the night of her tragic murder with previously unseen footage and expert analysis, exploring the alarming, regressive attitudes laid bare in the subsequent trial, and highlighting important, broader issues of violence against women in today’s society.
0.0Hungary was the site of serial murders on ethnic basis. Over the course of one year, the murderers killed and seriously injured Roma children and adults. The state charged 4 men with committing the crime with racial motivation. This historical trial started March, 2011, and ended August, 2013 in Budapest. The 167 days of hearings was only documented continuously by our crew. We had exclusive permission to use multiple cameras in the court-room. The film is a classical chamber-drama, taking place in a small, claustrophobic court room, in the middle of Europe. What will be the outcome of the marathon, 3 year-long trial?
6.6For the first and last time, Amber Hagerman’s mother details her daughter’s shocking murder and shares chilling documentary footage that captures the 9-year-old’s final days; Amber’s legacy is an alert system that has saved over a thousand children.
