2021 marks the 50th anniversary of "Coal Miner’s Daughter," the Loretta Lynn song that became a book, a feature film, and an indelible part of popular culture. Like so many other songs written by Lynn, the lyrics told the story of her life and spoke to women who struggled to make ends meet. Lynn’s simple, straightforward song stories gave legitimacy to the joys, heartaches, struggles and triumphs.
Jack Kerouac's life is examined through interviews with his contemporaries and friends including Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti and William S. Burroughs. The film also employs dramatic recreations of Kerouac's life beginning with his early childhood.
In the late 1960s, the Beach Boys' Brian Wilson stops touring, produces "Pet Sounds" and begins to lose his grip on reality. By the 1980s, under the sway of a controlling therapist, he finds a savior in Melinda Ledbetter.
The story of a Serer village in the groundnut basin of Senegal. Using the words of their ancestors passed on by oral folklore, the villagers trace the history of their village and their difficulties in working their land and living off their produce. Fad'jal is an extraordinary boundary defying film that interweaves ethnographic footage, intimate observation of everyday village life and fictionalised historical scenes. With it, Faye carefully encourages the viewers to reflect both on African history and storytelling, and on the intersection of fiction and documentary.
The Purity Ball symbolizes a father's protection over his daughter's virginity, but how does this reflect in the choices she makes, understanding her sexuality, and knowing her worth as a woman? This documentary examines the effects of Abstinence-Only Programs versus Comprehensive Sex Education in schools and what society can do to help lower teen pregnancies, abortions, and STDS, as well as poverty and sexual abuse.
A documentary portrait of International Chrysis, a New York “show girl” and drag queen. Surreal herself, Chrysis was one of Salvador Dali’s inner circle, a woman from the waist up, a man from the waist down.
Shot by a reported “1,001 Syrians” according to the filmmakers, SILVERED WATER, SYRIA SELF-PORTRAIT impressionistically documents the destruction and atrocities of the civil war through a combination of eye-witness accounts shot on mobile phones and posted to the internet, and footage shot by Bedirxan during the siege of Homs. Bedirxan, an elementary school teacher in Homs, had contacted Mohammed online to ask him what he would film, if he was there. Mohammed, working in forced exile in Paris, is tormented by feelings of cowardice as he witnesses the horrors from afar, and the self-reflexive film also chronicles how he is haunted in his dreams by a Syrian boy once shot to death for snatching his camera on the street.
Set in the military outpost of San Antonio, Texas, AFTER FIRE highlights the challenges faced by the fastest-growing group of American veterans: women, who now account for one in five new recruits to the U.S. Armed Forces. Demonstrating courage during their military service and resilience in its aftermath, three women military veterans candidly confront the fallout of their experiences on their personal lives as they adjust to the civilian world. The film throws a spotlight on the human toll of military service - including military sexual trauma, combat injuries and bureaucratic dysfunction - telling a universal story about strength in the aftermath of trauma.
Every Wednesday at noon, women who were kidnapped for sexual purpose by the Japanese army during its imperialism and their supporters demonstrate against Japanese government to request official apology and indemnity for their crimes. This documentary portrays sexually abused old women's suppressed story of overcoming of their shame and forced silence.
Portraits of contemporary African women from four West African nations: Burkina Faso, Mali, Senegal and Benin.
In postwar Liberia Clarice Gargard searches the truth concerning her father's dubious connection to warlord Charles Taylor.
Road's End is the story of Daina who lives in Latgale in Eastern Latvia, close by the Russian border. She lives two miles from the nearest road, with no electricity or running water. The roof has collapsed. She is completely dependent upon herself in order to cope with her everyday life. Daina’s children have both emigrated, her son to Norway and her daughter to Italy. When she feels lonely, she goes to her husband's grave and sits there talking with him as if he were still alive. Road’s end is a both poetic and existential film about choices we make in life, about obstinacy, love and betrayal.
A portrait of Swedish jazz singer Monica Zetterlund.
Directed by Rachel Viollet, and featuring interviews with soccer legends; Sir Alex Ferguson, Bryan Robson, Denis Law, Nobby Stiles and Paddy Crerand, this inspiring documentary showcases the life of Manchester United and Busby Babe legend Dennis Viollet.
With precisely articulated turns of phrase, Sibylle Berg - celebrated novelist, playwright and columnist known for her provocations and the sharpness of her comments - takes the film's two directors on an anecdotal and humorous foray through her eventful life.
“Draw or Die” is the divine imperative received by the painter, Hannah, who is being nurtured by her Grandmother, but controlled by her pragmatic mother. When her Granny spirit shouts this command to Hannah, she closes a celebration of personal visions in a dance piece that is close to visionary in itself.
A nuanced portrait of a new generation, Dear Thirteen is a cinematic time capsule of coming of age in today’s world. Through the eyes of nine thirteen-year-olds, we see how pressing social, geographical and political challenges are shaping, and being shaped by, young people: rising anti-Semitism in Europe, guns in America, gender identity and racial divisions across Australia and Asia. With no adult commentary outside the filmmaker, Dear Thirteen offers an intimate view into the universal uncertainty inherent in growing up.
Each one of the 15 lighthouses around the island of Puerto Rico tells the story of the lighthouse keepers, wives or daughters that lived in them. Additional testimonies by architects, historians, biologists and fishermen take us on a trip of beauty, hope, perseverance around them, as we witness the magnificence of its structures and its magical surroundings. Some lighthouses are active, some have been restored, others have been abandoned but all have a unique story to tell.
The remarkable, forgotten story behind David Bowie’s biggest-ever hit record – and how an unlikely journey, deep into the Australian outback, led to its unprecedented success.
An unpredictable documentary from a fascinating storyteller, Agnès Varda’s last film sheds light on her experience as a director, bringing a personal insight to what she calls "cine-writing," traveling from Rue Daguerre in Paris to Los Angeles and Beijing.
A documentary about the life of Andrei Tarkovsky in exile in Western Europe including Italy, Sweden, Germany and France until his sad demise to a fatal cancer.