A boy posts a message on the Internet seeking a suicide partner. A girl reads it and flies to meet him one week later. Together they jump off a 600-meter cliff. They found each other on an Internet newsgroup called alt.suicide.holiday, or ASH. Internet newsgroups are virtual discussion forums amongst people with common interests. The subject of this one is suicide. You come across thousands of letters. The unknown leave behind their open hearted life stories for us to read. Who are these people and why are they seeking each other on the Internet? What lives lay hidden behind the blue light of the computers. In ASH worlwide suicide we meet four writers of this newsgroup.
2002-09-28
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A program about Ted Gärdestad and his music with archival images from his entire musical career and newly made interviews with people who have influenced and were influenced by Ted's music.
Three young men commit themselves to one of the best summers of their lives...marching in a World Class drum and bugle corps. The bond of brotherhood this organization provides, helps them through both their struggles and their triumphs.
Lukas Moodysson's acclaimed film Lilja 4-ever, seen by 100,000's of moviegoers is based on a real life story. The film's Lily was in fact called Danguole Rasalaites and came from Lithuania to Sweden when she was 16 years old. She was stripped of her passport and held captive in an apartment in Malmö where she was forced into prostitution.
A collection of death scenes, ranging from TV-material to home-made super-8 movies. The common factor is death by some means.
Cats might be cute but they are decimating the environment just like other invasive species. As ecologists and activists try to control outdoor cat populations, not everyone is on board. Especially in Cornwall, Ontario, where advocates are fighting for humane solutions. Finding a fix won't be easy in this small city with a big cat problem.
The third installment of the infamous "is it real or fake?" mondo series sets its sights primarily on serial killers, with lengthy reenactments of police investigations of bodies being found in dumpsters, and a staged courtroom sequence.
Narrated by Sarah Jessica Parker, Honorable but Broken highlights the highs and significant lows -- the emotional toll of the job, lack of mental health resources, pitiful wages and overall undervaluation -- of working in EMS, and looks for viable solutions.
Iggy Pop reads and recites Michel Houellebecq’s manifesto. The documentary features real people from Houellebecq’s life with the text based on their life stories.
A documentary about a 78-year-old Indian woman in New York who is the world's most passionate theatergoer. Nicki Cochrane has been seeing a play every day for more than 25 years, acquiring free tickets using a variety of ingenious means.
Famous by age 9, struggling by age 20 and dead at ripe age of 34, this documentary dives deep into the life of pop singer Aaron Carter. He became a mainstay of the early 2000s pop scene, touring the world as a child solo artist with chart-topping hits like “I Want Candy” and earning the title “The Little Prince of Pop” from Michael Jackson. Just a few years after his rise to fame, Carter began a cycle of mental health struggles, experienced family turmoil, and grappled with addiction ― culminating in his untimely death in November 2022.
Dash Snow rejected a life of privilege to make his own way as an artist on the streets of downtown New York City in the late 1990s. Developing from a notorious graffiti tagger into an international art star, he documented his drug- and alcohol-fueled nights with the surrogate family he formed with friends and fellow artists Ryan McGinley and Dan Colen before his death by heroin overdose in 2009. Drawing from Snow’s unforgettable body of work and involving archival footage, Cheryl Dunn’s exceptional portrait captures his all-too-brief life of reckless excess and creativity.
Programming prodigy and information activist Aaron Swartz achieved groundbreaking work in social justice and political organizing. His passion for open access ensnared him in a legal nightmare that ended with the taking of his own life at the age of 26.
We live in a world where the powerful deceive us. We know they lie. They know we know they lie. They do not care. We say we care, but we do nothing, and nothing ever changes. It is normal. Welcome to the post-truth world. How we got to where we are now…
Michael Hutchence was flying high as the lead singer of the legendary rock band INXS until his untimely death in 1997. Richard Lowenstein’s documentary examines Hutchence’s deeply felt life through his many loves and demons.
The Bridge is a controversial documentary that shows people jumping to their death from the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco - the world's most popular suicide destination. Interviews with the victims' loved ones describe their lives and mental health.
Satan in the Suburbs tells the shocking story of a grisly ritualistic murder in the quiet bedroom community of Northport, Long Island in the summer of 1984. The killing, it soon emerged, was linked to a teen satanic cult. Perhaps more disturbing than the details of the murder itself was the revelation of a conspiracy of silence among the town's teenagers, many of whom had been aware of the, e killing in the two weeks before an anonymous call finally tipped off local police. 17- year-old Ricky Kasso was arrested and confessed to the crime; five days later, he hung himself in his holding cell. Kasso's friend Jimmy Troiano also. confessed, but was acquitted after jurors learned that he was beaten by local police. The murder shocked the local community and reverberated nationally, with some uninformed observers rushing to scapegoat rock music as the cause.
On the night of Oct. 2, 2005, Hart and Dana Perry's 15-year-old son Evan jumped to his death from his New York City bedroom window. This moving film is the story, told by his filmmaker parents and others who knew him, of Evan’s life and death, and his life-long struggle with bipolar disorder. It delves into the complexity of Evan's disease, sharing his family's journey through the maze of mental illness. In showing how one family deals with generations of loss and grief, the film defies the stigma related to mental illness and suicide and tells a human story that touches everyone.
As a teenager in the '90s, Soleil Moon Frye carried a video camera everywhere she went. She documented hundreds of hours of footage and then locked it away for over 20 years.
James Franco interviews three experts on the poet Hart Crane, whose life was the subject of his feature The Broken Tower (2011).
Documentary from the UK's Channel 4 investigating the death of INXS lead vocalist Michael Hutchence, which exclusively revealed information presented to the coroner in a police report which had not been made public at the official hearing - and explores the rumor which suggested that Hutchence died accidentally while engaged in a bizarre sex act. The documentary also features his last partner Paula Yates speaking on British television for the first time about what she believed led to the death of her lover. She talks candidly about their sex life, his passion for adventure and how the birth of their daughter turned the rock and roll wild man into a devoted father. Yates was not satisfied with the coroner's verdict and felt strongly that further investigation into the events of that night were crucial to both her and her daughter's future well-being.