The film follows Yudale, a religious youth from the settlements, as he experiences a crisis of faith. As he receives a camera from Michal, a Tel Aviv director who teaches him how to film, Yehuda documents his life on the line between the settlement Tko’a and Tel Aviv: his final conversations with his dying father—Rabbi Menachem Fruman– their joint study, and saying goodbye to him. When his father dies, Yehuda chooses to take off his kippah. During the year of mourning, he continues to document his life outside the religious world: exploring Tel Aviv, talking to Michal, and his new perspective on his family and their way of life. Elisheva, a newly observant Jew orphaned from her mother, comes into his life as a soul mate exactly at the moment when he loses hope of finding his way.
Yuda’le
The directors want to shoot a film about a man known as the son of god. But what starts out as a practical joke, extends to become a curious portrait of what could either be a petty fraud or the world’s most secret miracle. A film crew tracks his bizarre pilgrimage as magic and religion, faith and doubt, real and unreal blur and melt to the point that one of the director becomes one of the characters. The film traverses all descriptions, before ending as both an affirmation of faith for the faithless and a criticism of faith for the overly faithful.
A quietly devastating look at a family of Ponderai Native Americans as they travel to Yellowstone to preserve their treaty hunting rights.
Short piece for the TV series Aujourd'hui en France [Today in France]. The review of an exhibition by Miró at the Maeght Foundation offers the opportunity to approach the surrealist artist from the filmmaker's central themes: the theatre, the interrelationship between the arts and the transformation of the childhood experience through art. The ensemble is like a work by Joan Miró translated into real life. This is its first screening after its television premiere in 1980. Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
In post-revolution Libya, a group of women are brought together by one dream: to play football for their nation. But as the country descends into civil war and the utopian hopes of the “Arab Spring” begin to fade, can they realise their dream? And is there even a country left to play for? Freedom Fields is a film about hope and sacrifice in a land where dreams seem a luxury. Through the eyes of these accidental activists we see the reality of a country in transition, where the personal stories of love, struggle and aspirations collide with History.
Six adult siblings and the vicissitudes of fertility, infertility, and the desire - met and unmet - for a baby. Focusing on one couple's attempt to become pregnant, and the inevitable highs and lows of a year of hope and disappointment.
A film that captures the portraits and stories of extraordinary women around the world who are coming together to heal the injustices against the earth, weaves together poetry, music, art, and stunning scenery to create a hopeful and collective story that inspires us to work for the earth. The list of impassioned, indefatigable female environmental activists featured in this film includes Winona LaDuke, a Native American who has championed the use of solar and wind power on reservations; Theo Colborn, head of The Endocrine Disruption Exchange, who fights against toxic chemicals in our water supplies; Beverly Grant, who’s created a vibrant farmer’s market in a black neighborhood of Denver, Colo.; Dana Miller, who spearheads an “urban agriculture movement” in the same city; and Vandana Shiva, who champions organic farming in India.
My Louisiana Love follows a young Native American woman, Monique Verdin, as she returns to Southeast Louisiana to reunite with her Houma Indian family. But soon she sees that her people’s traditional way of life- fishing, trapping, and hunting these fragile wetlands– is threatened by a cycle of man-made environmental crises. As Louisiana is devastated by Hurricane Katrina and Rita and then the BP oil leak, Monique finds herself turning to environmental activism. She documents her family’s struggle to stay close to the land despite the cycle of disasters and the rapidly disappearing coastline. The film looks at the complex and uneven relationship between the oil industry and the indigenous community of the Mississippi Delta. In this intimate documentary portrait, Monique must overcome the loss of her house, her father, and her partner – and redefine the meaning of home. Her story is both unique and frighteningly familiar.
A powerful documentary about the lives of teens and young adults as seen through the gender lens. Approaching society's ideas and ideals of gender through clothes, sexuality, sports, dance, safety, consumerism and emotion, the film addresses the complexities of conceptions of masculinity and femininity for Generation Z.
The history of the roles of women in Quebec society, beginning with the women shipped from France to the New World by the King to populate the colony with the men already there, and ending with the modern career woman.
The High Holy Brothers is a documentary on a mysterious Messianic cult formed by peasants who fled the violence of the forties/fifties in Colombia and are admitted to live in the mountains of southern Tolima. Its members dress in sacks, they have their own dialect and regard everything as “Blessed”, minus the right side of the body, which castrated covering it with the “holy coat”. This group rejects all elements of the consumer society, established institutions, the state, church and political parties.
THE PEARL is a cinematic and intimate portrait of four transgender women who come out in their senior years. Set in logging towns in the Pacific Northwest, the visceral, observational story explores what it means to leave behind presenting as a man.
Fiona Humphrey (9 y/o) suffers from Sanfilippo Syndrome, a rare form of MPS that is slowly destroying her abilities and will ultimately kill her. Her mother Catriona suffers from an equally rare kidney disease. Her adolescent sisters Paige and Heather function as parents when their father Randy is working at Cracker Barrel, as the sole source of income. This is a look into their life, and the sacrifices they make to be happy.
For years, filmmaker Sacha Polak has known that she carries the BRCA1 hereditary cancer gene, responsible for breast cancer, but she can't decide what to do. Does she have her breasts removed as a preventive measure to minimize the risk of developing cancer? What if she had them removed, thus forsaking her femininity, for nothing? Sacha decides to make a personal and open documentary about her search.
Childhood stories of the artist as a young lesbian and intimate tales of the lesbian as a young artist underscore the filmmaker's life of performances. With a Swiss army knife she robs an American Express Bank in Morocco, accosts a shepherd in a field on International Women's Day, and tap dances on Shirley Temple's star on Hollywood Boulevard. This child movie star was the ideal by which Hammer's ambitious mother measured her own Barbie. Grandma, already a cook for Lillian Gish in Hollywood, introduced the cute, loquacious child and her mother to D.W. Griffith. Lesbian autobiography is a slender genre, so Hammer draws from general culture studies for critique and to provide an ironic edge to the synthesized "voices of authority".
Nonfiction filmmaker Jill Morley documents her exploration of the exotic dancer (stripper) experience. Through tactfully selected and edited sequences, you get an insider's view into the job itself, how clubs chauffeur dancers, protect them, what's required of them, how much money they can make, tricks that dancers use to make more money, and keep clients at bay. By trying to work as a dancer, Morley gives the viewer a very personal perspective on the experience. Long-time professional dancers reveal personal anecdotes and feelings about how the job effects them in candid, personal interviews. A group discussion with several dancers is likewise illuminating.
Room 19 follows an elementary school teacher who uses an innovative art curriculum to inspire her students, and transform the way they see the world, and themselves. Room 19 is a third grade classroom at Tulita Elementary School in Redondo Beach, California, the home room of teacher Mrs. Julie Tamashiro. Mrs. Tamashiro has created an innovative learning environment which incorporates in depth arts activities and lessons in her daily curriculum.
Pauline Horovitz has been filming her father since 2009. In this new chapter with hints of a bittersweet documentary comedy, the hero, a former doctor “programmed” to work, takes advantage of his retirement to become an actor. Following the first steps of this liberating new life, the daughter-filmmaker watches her “creature” escape her…
This documentary, set in the Lower East End of Vancouver's downtown core, is a pretty honest account of life on the streets in urban Canada. It is aimed at educating high school kids on the dangers of addiction to hard drugs and is the brainchild of a group of city police officers who videotape their interactions with local homeless personalities.
"Conspiracy of Silence" is a powerful, disturbing documentary revealing a nationwide child abuse and pedophilia ring that leads to the highest levels of government. Featuring intrepid investigator John DeCamp, a highly decorated Vietnam war veteran and 16-year Nebraska state senator, "Conspiracy of Silence" reveals how rogue elements at all levels of government have been involved in systematic child abuse and pedophilia to feed the base desires of key politicians