Ritterblut - Verliebt in einen Knacki(2016)

Out of Mind, Out of Sight(en)

Four-time Emmy winner John Kastner was granted unprecedented access to the Brockville facility for 18 months, allowing 46 patients and 75 staff to share their experiences with stunning frankness. The result is two remarkable documentaries: the first, NCR: Not Criminally Responsible, premiered at Hot Docs in the spring of 2013 and follows the story of a violent patient released into the community. The second film, Out of Mind, Out of Sight, returns to the Brockville Mental Health Centre to profile four patients, two men and two women, as they struggle to gain control over their lives so they can return to a society that often fears and demonizes them.

Hors les murs(fr)

Standard Operating Procedure(en)

Errol Morris examines the incidents of abuse and torture of suspected terrorists at the hands of U.S. forces at the Abu Ghraib prison.

Offshore(en)

An observational mini-documentary following the home lives of Eve and Barry when Barry's work takes him offshore.

Afro-American Work Songs in a Texas Prison(en)

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.

Wrong Fellows(nl)

Documentary about four maffia-like friends based in Amsterdam.

The Big One(en)

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.

Life After Life(en)

After decades behind bars, three men set out to prove success can lie on the other side of tragedy. Follows the stories of Harrison, Noel, and Chris as they return home from San Quentin State Prison. After spending most of their lives incarcerated, they are forced to reconcile their perception of themselves with a reality they are unprepared for. Each struggles to overcome personal demons and reconstruct their fractured lives. Grappling with day-to-day challenges and striving for success, they work to reconnect with family and provide for themselves for the first time in their adult lives. Told in an unadorned vérité style, we experience the truth of their heartaches and triumphs. As their stories unfold over weeks, months and years, the precarious nature of freedom after incarceration in America is revealed.

Extreme Consequences: The Reality of Prison Life(en)

A compelling look at the choices that lead to incarceration and the reality of being locked up in Pelican Bay State Prison.

The Condemned(en)

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)

Chodorkowskis neue Freiheit(de)

Released from prison, former oil oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky expounds on his newfound freedom and complex relationship with Vladimir Putin.

The Happiest Man on Earth(fi)

A lonely 40-year-old man sits on the balcony of a Finnish apartment building. Joonas Berghäll has learned that he will die in 14 years’ time, unless he changes his way of living or attitude towards life. Joonas wants to make a film about the state of wellbeing of Finnish men, drawing from his own experiences and mirroring the society at large. The film is built around six stories. It starts with the context of school and proceeds through the contexts of military service, custody battle, burnout and substance abuse to end on the subject of premature death caused by health problems.

Perfecting the Art of Longing(en)

Cut off from his loved ones due to the strict COVID-19 lockdown at the long-term care facility where he lives, a quadriplegic rabbi is filmed by his daughter while reflecting on love, mortality and longing.

Queen of Splinters(sv)

”I haven’t been in love with any of the men I have been with. I don’t know what love is.” A 66-year-old woman examines her life. We see her memories take shape through bizarre experiences at night clubs and during hotel nights spent with strangers. Those have not provided any comfort or safety for her. Rag dolls by artist Pauliina Turakka Purhonen portray the woman at the ages of 3, 5, and 60.

Cruel and Unusual(en)

Five transgender women share their prison experiences. Interviews with attorneys, doctors, and other experts are also included.

Visions of Abolition: From Critical Resistance to a New Way of Life(en)

Weaving together the voices of women entangled in the criminal justice system, along with leading scholars on prison abolition, this film provides a critical analysis of the disfunctionality and violence of the prison system.

Waiting for Godot in San Quentin(en)

Documentary about the staging of 'Waiting for Godot' in prison.

22-17 a.k.a Anyways: Chapters I & II(es)

Early spring, 2022. Seventeen (or more) friends live through what they don't know will be a quick last few months of school, facing their final exams, closing activities, but more importantly the idea that they may never see each other again. Chapters I and II see the craziness mixed with the sense of possible loss of a friendship that surfaced quickly and may be fading all too soon.

Refuge(e)(en)

Refuge(e) traces the incredible journey of two refugees, Alpha and Zeferino. Each fled violent threats to their lives in their home countries and presented themselves at the US border asking for political asylum, only to be incarcerated in a for-profit prison for months on end without having committed any crime. Thousands more like them can't tell their stories.

Like It Is(en)

This documentary on the "youth movement" of the late 1960s focuses on the hippie pot smoking/free love culture in the San Francisco Bay area.