In January 2011 Paul Crane discovered a tent city in downtown St. Louis, along the Mississippi River. He was curious as to who these people were, how they ended up there, and what life was like for them each day. He initially thought he would simply go down during the day and capture footage when possible, but he quickly realized that if he wanted to truly capture how these people lived and the full reality of their collective and individual existence, he would have to be there full time and become a part of the place, so he moved in with them.
Himself
49 Up is the seventh film in a series of landmark documentaries that began 42 years ago when UK-based Granada's World in Action team, inspired by the Jesuit maxim "Give me the child until he is seven and I will give you the man," interviewed a diverse group of seven-year-old children from all over England, asking them about their lives and their dreams for the future. Michael Apted, a researcher for the original film, has returned to interview the "children" every seven years since, at ages 14, 21, 28, 35, 42 and now again at age 49.In this latest chapter, more life-changing decisions are revealed, more shocking announcements made and more of the original group take part than ever before, speaking out on a variety of subjects including love, marriage, career, class and prejudice.
This feature-length documentary by Alanis Obomsawin examines the plight of Native people who come to Montreal searching for jobs and a better life. Often arriving without money, friends or jobs, a number of them quickly become part of the homeless population. Both dislocated from their traditional values and alienated from the rest of the population, they are torn between staying and returning home.
A cinematic portrait of the homeless population who live permanently in the underground tunnels of New York City.
Community First! Village is designed to lift the chronically homeless off the streets of the Austin, TX, offering them a place to call home, helping them to heal from the ravages of life on the streets, and allowing them to rediscover a purpose in their lives. This documentary explores the events that cause homelessness and the heartwarming stories of being welcomed into a nurturing environment where dignity and self-worth are restored.
Follows musician and DJ Simone Marie Butler as she attempts to understand the life of homeless people and their dogs, and how the charity Dogs on the Street has helped them.
A homeless musician finds meaning in his life when he starts a friendship with dozens of parrots.
In Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone, a group of friends lives on the streets. They call themselves the Freetown Streetboys, even though there are some women among them as well. Suley, Lama, David, Alfred, Shero and Sarah have all faced enormous physical and psychological challenges, and have been abandoned by the world around them. Without commentary and in poetic, cinematic images, the camera records the dark environment that they inhabit. The group shares their heartrending stories of the precarious nature of life in this complex country. But there is also room for everyday personal struggles, such as starting relationships, how to bring up children (or not), and sex.
Now a successful filmmaker, Lorna Tucker was once a teenage runaway sleeping rough on the streets of London. For this frank, forceful and inspiring documentary, she returns to her former haunts and speaks to current and former homeless people about why, twenty-five years later, record numbers of people are still reduced to living on Britain's streets.
Max Ramsey, an advocate for those experiencing poverty, uses what he has gone through to serve the impoverished community of Milwaukee despite internal struggles and disapproval from the city.
Pia Sjögren was the subject of three documentaries by director Tom Alandh, beginning in 2001. He first saw her on the street selling newspapers, homeless, addicted to drugs, trying to make enough money for the day. Since then, she has become clean, and now gives lectures about her experiences, sharing her knowledge. This is the fourth film about her, filmed between 2011-2020. At the start of this installment, Pia has recently begun having heart and breathing issues, her own daughter is in prison for narcotics, and her mother, who we were introduced to in previous installments, continues to struggle with rapidly decreasing eyesight.
In the spring of 2018, the filmmaker Maria Petschnig befriended Marc who at that time was living in his car in Brooklyn for more than a year, while also holding a day job. Petschnig started to record his life and struggle, his thoughts, routines, etc. over the course of two years.
Jörg is one of the many homeless living near the Vatican. But there is something unusual about him: he appears and talks like a sort of holy man, prophesying, among other things, his next reincarnation as Jesus Christ. This transformation will enable him to drastically change the way things are on this Earth. However, beneath the delusions of omnipotence of a man fighting for glory and universal justice, we find a lonely and pained individual, frightened by the great mystery that awaits all of us.
Documentary tells the story of Maxim Vakhmin, a veritable alleycat of a man. Revered as both an angel and a devil, Maxim (once known as a successful artist in his native Russia) is losing friends and finding new ones as a homeless person in the USA.
Examines the intergenerational impact of addiction by chronicling the love, labor, loss, and uncertainty of one woman’s struggle to live a life of sobriety. Weaving together moments of glee, fulfillment, acceptance, sorrow, and disappointment, this documentary takes an intimate look at the bonds that hold one family together and a disease that threatens to tear them apart.
1994 at the Ambassador Hotel, 55 Mason Street in the Tenderloin district of San Francisco, California. From 1978 to 1996, the hotel was managed by Hank Wilson, a San Francisco LGBT activist who made the hotel a model for harm reduction housing. 134 run-down and exhausted rooms populated by homeless men and women, sometimes even children. All of them in urgent need of care, compassion and humanity. Nobly provided by voluntarily working professional health care and social workers staff, various benefactors, volunteers, neighbors, and community contributions.
Homeless man Robert (Bobby) Webb discovers the art of filmmaking, turning pages of his life into a heartfelt reel. Through his journey he finds hope and new meanings in unexpected aspects of his life as he relives them.
Documentary that follows Pablo, a man that used to live on the streets in Brazil
The Street is a gritty portrait of 3 homeless men living on the streets near Guy metro in Montreal. Made over a period of 6 years, the film follows the ups and downs of these deteriorating lives and is an intense, intimate portrait of street life.
Moving Day tells the story of the people who were left outside – quite literally – during a global pandemic. With the rise of Covid-19, shelters closed, jobs were lost, and homelessness in "Victoria B.C." (unceded L'kwungen Territories), swelled. A community formed in the city’s biggest park and as they learn of an ambitious plan to house everyone by March 31, 2021, uncertainty in the park, and in their lives mounts.