El Almafuerte

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.

Defending Our Lives(en)

Documentary about the magnitude and severity of domestic violence. This film features four women imprisoned for killing their batterers and their terrifying personal testimonies. It won an Oscar at the 66th Academy Awards in 1994 for Documentary Short Subject.

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.

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.

From Gaol to Rectory(xx)

On a blustery January day bishops arrive for the opening of the new Knutsford Test School.

Guillermo Vilas: Settling the Score(es)

For more than forty years, Argentinean sportsman Guillermo Vilas, a tennis legend, has tirelessly demanded that the official rankings (1973-78) be revised in order to finally be recognized as the best player in the world. Eduardo Puppo, a sports journalist, making Vilas' demand his own, fought for more than ten years against a powerful sports corporation to prove that Vilas was indeed unfairly displaced from the top of world tennis.

Antarctic Dream(es)

In this spectacular real-life adventure, a small team of Argentinean mariners sets sail for Antarctica in a custom-built sailboat. But to get there they and their vessel will have to brave the treacherous Drake Passage, one of the most dangerous bodies of water on Earth.

Historias de la Teleprisión(es)

This is How the Obelisk Was Born(xx)

The construction of the Obelisco in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Chodorkowskis neue Freiheit(de)

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

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)

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.

MILWAUKEE 53206(en)

MILWAUKEE 53206 chronicles the lives of those living in the ZIP code that incarcerates the highest percentage of black men in America, up to 62%. Through the intimate stories of three 53206 residents, we witness the high toll that mass incarceration takes on individuals and families that make up the community. The film examines Milwaukee’s ZIP code 53206 to illuminate the story of people from across the United States who live with the daily affects of mass incarceration.

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.

Behind Bars(en)

Documentary about the 1980 New Mexico State Penitentiary Riots in which 33 inmates were killed.

Hors les murs(fr)

Wrong Fellows(nl)

Documentary about four maffia-like friends based in Amsterdam.

Cruel and Unusual(en)

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

Waiting for Godot in San Quentin(en)

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

Blue Room(en)

Incarcerated participants in a mental health experiment watch videos of sunset-soaked beaches, wildflowers and forests on loop, prompting them to reflect on isolation and wilderness. Equal parts meditation and provocation, Blue Room identifies the damage done by withholding access to the outdoors and how we are all prisoners when the essential human need for communion with nature is denied.