

In 2022, while living and working in Hong Kong, Hester started writing daily about her experiences. The previous year, inspired by the weekly online film discussions at "Caochangdi Workstation," She finally took her neglected camera out of the closet and began capturing everything around her. Together, her writing and visual documentation created a tangible memoir of her life in 2022.
2024-12-31
5
0.0Can a secret change who you are? Mysterious events unfold and reveal how Martha, a Polish holocaust survivor, managed to lead a double life in Australia. The vivacious Jewish artist and doting mother, died without ever revealing her secret. The film follows Martha’s daughter Eve, over a decade, as she unlocks the mystery behind the streets named Eve and Martha. Clues are found in old recordings and Martha’s home movies revealing a mystery man gazing into the lens. Eve’s investigation leads her to the Sobieski castle in the Ukraine, the site of a massacre where her grandmother died, and the Eichmann trial as she explores her parents’ holocaust survival and her father’s heroic escape from a concentration camp. When a ‘doppelgänger’ contacts Eve, her life is forever altered, as she uncovers lies, tracks down her mother’s young lover and reveals the family secret that led her to rewrite her entire life.
0.0Evan, a filmmaker from Mississippi, catches feelings for a gal he meets at a found footage film festival in San Francisco. They decide to make a movie together, exploring the haunted landscapes of Evan’s family history in the swamplands of Florida. Old wounds are reopened and generational trauma reveals itself to be perhaps the scariest part of this attempted mockumentary that ends up being a little too real.
0.0Different experts make a stand against today's putatively criminal and harmful health system, focusing on Anthony Fauci and his role in the shaping of the AIDS and COVID-19 epidemics.
7.9As the first part of our investigation, the CORONA.FILM prologue will delve into the science behind the pandemic. Starting at the very beginning, we shine a light on the responses. The aim is not to point the finger; our aim is to tell the whole story in all its complexity, as we believe that justice cannot prevail if only one side of the story is told.
0.0A father’s heartfelt plea to have lifesaving talks with pre-teens and teens comes after his 12-year-old son’s suicide from COVID-related isolation.
6.0A group of young architects, confined to a forest in Barcelona during the COVID crisis, explore the problems generated by the ambition of wanting to be completely self-sufficient.
0.0A feature documentary about Kansas City, as its people tell us how they got through the pandemic and look back at what they lost.
7.3At the edge of the Yangtze River, not far from the Three Gorges Dam, young men and women take up employment on a cruise ship, where they confront rising waters and a radically changing China.
6.0The story of the unprecedented sports shutdown in March of 2020 and the remarkable turn of events that followed. This sports documentary is a chronicle of the abrupt stoppage, athletes’ prominent role in the cultural reckoning on racial injustices that escalated during the pandemic, and the complex return to competition in the summer and fall.
6.0It's war. War against an invisible enemy that is not as deadly as we are told. The world is changing rapidly. Disproportionate measures are taken worldwide that disrupt society as a whole. A dichotomy in society forced vaccinations and restrictions on freedom. Have we had the worst? Or is there something more disturbing to awaiting us.
6.0The famous Spanish comedian Andreu Buenafuente, CEO of the production company El Terrat and prestigious TV host, tells how he and his numerous collaborators, both on set and behind the cameras, managed to carry on with their work despite the chaos and the several logistical and human problems caused by the global pandemic that began in early 2020.
8.0The Covid hysteria began with slogans like “just 15 days to flatten the curve”, but within a year, it evolved to be “everyone must get vaccinated”. Your rights to the absence of coercion and informed consent are now under continual attack! People around the world are unable to get on planes and trains, access hospitals, attend funerals, go to restaurants and gyms, simply because they do not have a “health” pass.
7.0It was aboard the legendary and sturdy Peugeot 504 and Renault 12 that most North African families made the "route du bled," a ritual return to their homeland for summer vacations in Morocco or Algeria. The film chronicles a summer migration across the Mediterranean from the 1970s to the 1990s. The memory of these epic journeys punctuates the history of North Africans in France with bittersweet nostalgia, where travel stories blend industrial automotive heritage with personal memories.
5.3A 19-year-old high school graduate travels through Australia as a backpacker and accompanies his adventure with a camera.
6.5Thanks to DNA, this documentary establishes the identity of Marilyn's biological father, thus revealing her new paternal family, 60 years after the icon's death.
The bride and groom kiss at the wedding hall. Not all the guests are wearing masks. A, who is in a field of film, reckons it strange, and then B, a friend of A, tells him the pandemic has been completely over and asks A how could not know it. At that moment, A wakes up from his dream. The situation never ends up, and the world heads toward an unpredictable future for a new life.
6.5Using intimate footage recorded by passengers and crew, The Last Cruise is a first-person account of the nightmare that transpired aboard the ill-fated Diamond Princess cruise ship, which set sail from Japan on the earliest days of the COVID-19 pandemic.
6.0An in-depth look at the race to develop, manufacture and distribute a vaccine for Covid-19 - which may be the most monumental scientific achievement in modern history. Interviews with some of the main players take you inside the real-life drama as it unfolded.
0.0A look behind the scenes revealing the courage and resilience of caregivers, patients, and their families during the COVID-19 pandemic. It is ultimately a story of hope and healing.
7.1This documentary recounts the experiences of people on the ground in the earliest days of the novel coronavirus and the way two countries dealt with its initial spread, from the first days of the outbreak in Wuhan to its rampage across the United States.
7.1This documentary focuses on the actors and their journey over two summers to create the remake to the original IT, by Stephen King. The documentary originally released as bonus material, bundled with IT: Chapter Two.
6.7The life and career of one of comedy's most inimitable modern voices, Mr. Gilbert Gottfried.
6.5A documentary that explores the downloading revolution; the kids that created it, the bands and the businesses that were affected by it, and its impact on the world at large.
7.4The life and career of an actor, artist, and icon. His own journey through his own camera.
6.9Brilliant, long in-the-works story of the life and art of the world's greatest comedian and the cinema's first genius, Charlie Chaplin. Produced, written and directed by renowned film critic Richard Schickel.
7.0Photographer Estevan Oriol and artist Mister Cartoon turned their Chicano roots into gritty art, impacting street culture, hip hop and beyond.
7.5With exclusive access to his extraordinary unseen and unheard personal archive including hundreds of hours of audio recorded over the course of his life, this is the definitive Marlon Brando cinema documentary. Charting his exceptional career as an actor and his extraordinary life away from the stage and screen with Brando himself as your guide, the film will fully explore the complexities of the man by telling the story uniquely from Marlon's perspective, entirely in his own voice. No talking heads, no interviewees, just Brando on Brando and life.
7.9Those who knew iconic funnyman John Candy best share his story, in their own words, through never-before-seen archival footage, imagery, and interviews.
7.4The life of Mr. Spock, as well as that of Leonard Nimoy, the actor who played him for almost fifty years, written and directed by his son: Adam.
7.6A compilation of over 30 years of private home movie footage shot by Lithuanian-American avant-garde director Jonas Mekas, assembled by Mekas "purely by chance", without concern for chronological order.
6.3Dee, the detective serving Chinese empress Wu Zetian, is called upon to investigate a series of strange events in Loyang, including the appearance of mysterious warriors wearing Chiyou ghost masks, foxes that speak human language and the pillar sculptures in the palace coming alive.
7.6When Allied forces liberated the Nazi concentration camps in 1944-45, their terrible discoveries were recorded by army and newsreel cameramen, revealing for the first time the full horror of what had happened. Making use of British, Soviet and American footage, the Ministry of Information’s Sidney Bernstein (later founder of Granada Television) aimed to create a documentary that would provide lasting, undeniable evidence of the Nazis’ unspeakable crimes. He commissioned a wealth of British talent, including editor Stewart McAllister, writer and future cabinet minister Richard Crossman – and, as treatment advisor, his friend Alfred Hitchcock. Yet, despite initial support from the British and US Governments, the film was shelved, and only now, 70 years on, has it been restored and completed by Imperial War Museums under its original title "German Concentration Camps Factual Survey".
6.8BBC Arena's documentary on the Dames of British Theatre and film featuring Maggie Smith, Eileen Atkins, Judi Dench and Joan Plowright on screen together for the first time as they reminisce over a long summer weekend in a house Joan once shared with Sir Laurence Olivier.
7.5Alexander McQueen's rags-to-riches story is a modern-day fairy tale, laced with the gothic. Mirroring the savage beauty, boldness and vivacity of his design, this documentary is an intimate revelation of McQueen's own world, both tortured and inspired, which celebrates a radical and mesmerizing genius of profound influence.
7.4Venturing into the wilds of China, "Born in China" captures intimate moments with a panda bear and her growing cub, a young golden monkey who feels displaced by his baby sister, and a mother snow leopard struggling to raise her two cubs.
6.2SEDUCED AND ABANDONED combines acting legend Alec Baldwin with director James Toback as they lead us on a troublesome and often hilarious journey of raising financing for their next feature film. Moving from director to financier to star actor, the two players provide us with a unique look behind the curtain at the world's biggest and most glamourous film festival, shining a light on the bitter-sweet relationship filmmakers have with Cannes and the film business. Featuring insights from directors Martin Scorsese, 'Bernando Bertolucci' and Roman Polanski; actors Ryan Gosling and Jessica Chastain and a host of film distribution luminaries.
6.2During a pandemic lockdown, Nico, a young man with rare immunity, must overcome martial law, murderous vigilantes and a powerful family to reunite with his love, Sara.
5.9Serial killer Dennis Nilsen narrates his life and horrific crimes via a series of chilling audiotapes recorded from his jail cell.