An absurd game of “finding happiness” is being played by local Latvian coyotes* and illegal immigrants on the Russian and the European Union border. It is a game with no winner – all participants are driven to play by the sense of despair. While one side leaves home and undertakes a perilous journey to the other side of the globe, hoping to spend the rest of their lives in a free country, the other side risks their freedom to earn a chance to stay right where they are, in their homeland. *coyote – someone who smuggles illegal immigrants
This documentary follows 8 teens and pre-teens as they work their way toward the finals of the Scripps Howard national spelling bee championship in Washington D.C.
Weaving together original film and photographic archives, A CLOUD NEVER DIES tells the story of a humble young Vietnamese monk and poet whose wisdom and compassion were forged in the suffering of war. In the face of violence, fear, and discrimination, Thích Nhất Hạnh’s courageous path of engaged action reveals how insight, community, and a deep aspiration to serve the world can offer hope, peace, and a way forward for millions.
Incarcerated participants in a mental health experiment watch videos of sunset-soaked beaches, wildflowers and forests on loop, prompting them to reflect on isolation and wilderness. Equal parts meditation and provocation, Blue Room identifies the damage done by withholding access to the outdoors and how we are all prisoners when the essential human need for communion with nature is denied.
Documentary that shows the changing attitude towards immigrant labor in The Netherlands. The documentary follows three immigrants that arrived in Holland 30 years ago to work in a bakery.
Paper Dolls follows the lives of transgender migrant workers from the Philippines who work as health care providers for elderly Orthodox Jewish men and perform as drag queens during their spare time. It also delves into the lives of societal outcasts who search for freedom and acceptance.
Errol Morris examines the incidents of abuse and torture of suspected terrorists at the hands of U.S. forces at the Abu Ghraib prison.
Pete and Toshi Seeger, their son Daniel, and folklorist Bruce Jackson visited a Texas prison in Huntsville in March of 1966 and produced this rare document of of work songs by inmates of the Ellis Unit. Worksongs helped African American prisoners survive the grueling work demanded of them. With mechanization and integration, worksongs like these died out shortly after this film was made.
With unprecedented access, this documentary looks into the hidden world of one of Russia's most impenetrable and remote institutions - a maximum security prison exclusively for murderers. Deep inside the land of the gulags, this is the end of the line for some of Russia's most dangerous criminals - 260 men who have collectively killed nearly 800 people. The film delves deep into the mind and soul of some of these prisoners. In brutally frank and uncensored interviews the inmates speak of their crimes, life and death, redemption and remorselessness, insanity and hope. The film tracks them though their unrelenting days over several months, lifting the veil on one of Russia's most secretive subcultures to reveal what happens when a man is locked up in a tiny cell for 23 hours every day, for life. A startling insight into inscrutable minds and the forbidding world they have been condemned to. (Storyville)
Released from prison, former oil oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky expounds on his newfound freedom and complex relationship with Vladimir Putin.
A short film documenting the immigrant experience. Open-borders? Policing? Naturalizing? Etc.
Documentarist Jane Wong films her mother and two Chinese friends as they discuss their lives and experiences as émigrés living in Liverpool.
It was the biggest escape in the history of the Berlin Wall: in one historic night of October 1964, 57 East-Berliners try their luck through a tunnel into West Berlin. Just before the last few reach the other side, the East German border guards notice the escape and open fire. Remarkably, all the refugees and their escape agents make it out of the tunnel unscathed, but one border guard is dead: 21-year-old officer Egon Schultz.
Evaporating Borders is a poetically photographed and rendered film on tolerance and search for identity. Told through 5 vignettes portraying the lives of migrants on the island of Cyprus, it passionately weaves themes of displacement and belonging.
In buildings where foreign workers lived in Germany, there were strict rules of conduct, defined by the house rules and supervised by the building superintendents. Many rights regarding the freedom of movement, communication and behavior were abused. Interviews with the tenants and with the "orderlies" which point out absurd situations and clashes caused by these restrictions.
A film about borders and border checkpoints, poetically following the people that come into contact with them - one way or another. Borders is about men and women dreaming of a better life in Europe and the high price they often have to pay for it - if they succeed at all. Without taking an immediate moral stance, the film follows the route that many immigrants take from the heart of Africa to the centre of Europe, stopping at each border: Nigeria, Niger, Burkina Faso, Mali, Senegal , Mauritania, Morocco, Spain, France, Belgium, and finally, the Netherlands.
The Big One is an investigative documentary from director Michael Moore who goes around the country asking why big American corporations produce their product abroad where labor is cheaper while so many Americans are unemployed, losing their jobs, and would happily be hired by such companies as Nike.
Immigrant residents of a “shift-bed” apartment in the heart of New York City’s Chinatown share their stories of personal and political upheaval. As the bed transforms into a stage, the film reveals the collective history of the Chinese in the United States through conversations, autobiographical monologues, and theatrical movement pieces. Shot in the kitchens, bedrooms, wedding halls, cafés, and mahjong parlors of Chinatown, this provocative hybrid documentary addresses issues of privacy, intimacy, and urban life.
'Sydney Castells: Spirit of Catalunya' is a documentary exploring Catalan climbing and culture. Bringing light to a relatively unknown community based in Sydney, NSW. Viewing insights into the personal lives of individuals who partake in this thrilling sport.
A compelling look at the choices that lead to incarceration and the reality of being locked up in Pelican Bay State Prison.
Upon his arrival in Paris, filmmaker Tomas Cali immerses himself in learning French, as well as the language of sketching. In an art studio, he meets transgender life model Linda Demorrir, who helps him to connect with himself and his new city in a profoundly different way.