
Whilst most young women in her home town of Zambia were busy planning weddings, Esther Phiri had other ideas: to stay single, be a professional boxer and complete the high school education that she abandoned when her family fell on hard times. Her quick and meteoric rise to an undefeated world champion took not only the boxing world by surprise, but sent emotions fever pitch. But whilst the global press rushed to portray her as a strong and confident woman tagged »Zambia’s Million Dollar Baby», in private Esther slowly crumbled under the weight of her success. Adulation and celebrity had increased, but so had criticism, envy and expectations from her family and fans. In the pursuit of independence from a husband, her global success had made her a symbol of hope and empowerment, and a provider for her family and friends whose demands increased as Esther’s fortune grew.

Whilst most young women in her home town of Zambia were busy planning weddings, Esther Phiri had other ideas: to stay single, be a professional boxer and complete the high school education that she abandoned when her family fell on hard times. Her quick and meteoric rise to an undefeated world champion took not only the boxing world by surprise, but sent emotions fever pitch. But whilst the global press rushed to portray her as a strong and confident woman tagged »Zambia’s Million Dollar Baby», in private Esther slowly crumbled under the weight of her success. Adulation and celebrity had increased, but so had criticism, envy and expectations from her family and fans. In the pursuit of independence from a husband, her global success had made her a symbol of hope and empowerment, and a provider for her family and friends whose demands increased as Esther’s fortune grew.
2014-09-23
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6.7Unprecedented access to Muhammad Ali's personal archive of "audio journals" as well as interviews and testimonials from his inner circle of family and friends are used to tell the legend's life story.
7.2Diaries, audiotapes, videotapes and testimonials from friends and colleagues offer insight into the life and career of Gilda Radner -- the beloved comic and actress who became an icon on Saturday Night Live.
7.3The Crash Reel tells the story of a sport and the risks that athletes face in reaching the pinnacle of their profession. This is Kevin Pearce’s story, a celebrated snowboarder who sustained a brain injury in a trick gone wrong and who now aims, against all the odds, to get back on the snow.
6.9Christy Martin broke boundaries and noses as she rose in the boxing world, but her public persona belied personal demons, abuse and a threat on her life.
7.1Girl next door, activist, so-called traitor, fitness tycoon, Oscar winner: Jane Fonda has lived a life of controversy, tragedy and transformation – and she’s done it all in the public eye. An intimate look at one woman’s singular journey.
7.2Over seven decades, actor and activist George Takei journeyed from a World War II internment camp to the helm of the Starship Enterprise, and then to the daily news feeds of five million Facebook fans. Join George and his husband, Brad, on a wacky and profound trek for life, liberty, and love.
7.5In 1977, a book of photographs captured an awakening - women shedding the cultural restrictions of their childhoods and embracing their full humanity. This documentary revisits those photos, those women and those times and takes aim at our culture today that alarmingly shows the need for continued change.
7.2In 1992, teenager Sandi Tan shot Singapore's first indie road movie with her enigmatic American mentor Georges – who then vanished with all the footage. Twenty years later, the 16mm film is recovered, sending Tan, now a novelist in Los Angeles, on a personal odyssey in search of Georges' vanishing footprints.
6.5A documentary about the sport of boxing, as seen through the eyes of champions Mike Tyson, Evander Holyfield and Bernard Hopkins.
7.2Beloved by children of all ages around the world, Elmo is an international icon. Few people know his creator, Kevin Clash, who dreamed of working with his idol, master puppeteer Jim Henson. Displaying his creativity and talent at a young age, Kevin ultimately found a home on Sesame Street. Narrated by Whoopi Goldberg, this documentary includes rare archival footage, interviews with Frank Oz, Rosie O’Donnell, Cheryl Henson, Joan Ganz Cooney and others and offers a behind-the-scenes look at Sesame Street and the Jim Henson Workshop.
7.1Directed and edited by Stanley Kubrick's daughter Vivian Kubrick, this film offers a look behind the scenes during the making of The Shining.
7.6A look at the first years of Pixar Animation Studios - from the success of "Toy Story" and Pixar's promotion of talented people, to the building of its East Bay campus, the company's relationship with Disney, and its remarkable initial string of eight hits. The contributions of John Lasseter, Ed Catmull and Steve Jobs are profiled. The decline of two-dimensional animation is chronicled as three-dimensional animation rises. Hard work and creativity seem to share the screen in equal proportions.
6.3Jackie Chan is one of the world's biggest action stars, famed for his wacky sense of humor, remarkable martial arts techniques, and willingness to perform incredible stunts without the use of doubles -- or a net. This video takes a personal look at Chan as he works on screen projects in Hollywood and Beijing and candidly discusses his life and work.
7.2In the Realms of the Unreal is a documentary about the reclusive Chicago-based artist Henry Darger. Henry Darger was so reclusive that when he died his neighbors were surprised to find a 15,145-page manuscript along with hundreds of paintings depicting The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What is Known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glodeco-Angelinnian War Storm, Cased by the Child Slave Rebellion.
6.8An intimately raw and magical journey through the life, mind, and heart of iconic artist Frida Kahlo. Told through her own words for the very first time — drawn from her diary, revealing letters, essays, and print interviews — and brought vividly to life by lyrical animation inspired by her unforgettable artwork.
7.5Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg now 84, and still inspired by the lawyers who defended free speech during the Red Scare, Ginsburg refuses to relinquish her passionate duty, steadily fighting for equal rights for all citizens under the law. Through intimate interviews and unprecedented access to Ginsburg’s life outside the court, RBG tells the electric story of Ginsburg’s consuming love affairs with both the Constitution and her beloved husband Marty—and of a life’s work that led her to become an icon of justice in the highest court in the land.
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.
6.9The film MISS REPRESENTATION exposes how American youth are being sold the concept that women and girls’ value lies in their youth, beauty and sexuality. Explores the under-representation of women in positions of power and influence in America, and challenges the media's limited portrayal of what it means to be a powerful woman. It’s time to break that cycle of mistruths.
7.2Through interviews with both victims and instigators, Nanfu Wang, a first-time mother, breaks open decades of silence on a vast, unprecedented social experiment that shaped — and destroyed — countless lives in China.
6.9An epic cinematic and musical collaboration between SHERPA filmmaker Jennifer Peedom and the Australian Chamber Orchestra, that explores humankind's fascination with high places.
6.7Forty years before WikiLeaks and the NSA scandal, there was Media, Pennsylvania. In 1971, eight activists plotted an intricate break-in to the local FBI offices to leak stolen documents and expose the illegal surveillance of ordinary Americans in an era of anti-war activism. In this riveting heist story, the perpetrators reveal themselves for the first time, reflecting on their actions and raising broader questions surrounding security leaks in activism today.
4.8This documentary tells two stories simultaneously: it's a profile of Bernard Tapie, a wealthy man who rises and falls spectacularly in French society and may be on the rise again; and, it's a look at Marina Zenovich's fascination with Tapie, behaving oddly in spite of her awareness that she's being irrational. Politicians, athletes, friends, companions, and journalists comment on Bernard's charm, his rise to prominence in sports and politics, and his subsequent trouble with the law. Zenovich becomes fixated on her need to interview Tapie, becoming virtually a stalker in her quest.
Filmed in New York in the summer of 2006: a march across the Brooklyn Bridge in support of the Palestinian and Lebanese populations. Habibi means "beloved" in Arabic.
6.0An animated history of American health care provider, Planned Parenthood.
7.3Four years after a military coup overthrew the Brazilian government in 1964, all civil rights were suspended and torture became a systematic practice. Using a mix of fiction and documentary this extraordinary film is a searing record of personal memory, political repression and the will to survive. Interviews with eight women who were political prisoners during the military dictatorship are framed by the fantasies and imaginings of an anonymous character, portrayed by actress Irene Ravache.
5.0Kick Like Tayla shares a raw and unfiltered look into the life of AFLW player and boxing champion, Tayla Harris, as she confronts public and personal challenges, and channels her platform for good.
Do You Dream in Color? in this documentary follows four courageous blind high school students. This coming-of-age story see's the students as they strive to prove that their disability will not hold them back from achieving their dreams.
6.0This haunting film comprises of footage shot during WWI from opposite sides of the conflict: Czarist Russia and the Austro-Hungarian empire. The filmmakers tinted the material with sensual colors from sepia to red, blue, and purple and slowed the footage to analyze the material. The total absence of commentary renders the material eloquent and disturbing. - MoMA
0.0Rites of winter, rites of peyote. A creative documentary based on texts by Antonin Artaud read by Jean Rouch, and the words of the last shaman’s peyote, translated by Raymonde Carasco.
7.6Far from home, 17-year-old Ying Ling practices for her examination to become a mortician at one of China's largest funeral homes. The everyday routine of this unusual occupation also serves up both humorous and life affirming moments.
Throughout the Islamic world, each year hundreds of women are shot, stabbed, strangled or burned to death by male relatives because they are thought to have “dishonoured” their families. They may have lost their virginity, refused an arranged marriage or left an abusive husband. Even if a woman is raped or merely the victim of gossip, she must pay the price. Crimes of Honour documents the terrible reality of femicide – the belief that a girl’s body is the property of the family, and any suggestion of sexual impropriety must be cleansed with her blood. We meet women in hiding from their families, a brother who describes his reasons for killing the sister he loved, and a handful of women who have committed themselves to the protection of young women in danger of losing their lives.
5.7This film features two Russian communist politicians. Being committed Leninists; both of them have served several terms as city council members. Their horizons are broad, but what concerns them the most is the future of global communism. At one point, by decree of fate, their booming activities begin to expand far beyond the boundaries of their native St. Petersburg and the Russian Federation. However, the future of global communism remains unclear. What remains clear is the fact that in the modern world the tail still wags the dog. A documentary comedy.
7.1When a Mongolian nomadic family's newest camel colt is rejected by its mother, a musician is needed for a ritual to change her mind.
5.7"If buildings could talk, what would they say about us?" CATHEDRALS OF CULTURE offers six startling responses. This 3D film project about the soul of buildings allows six iconic and very different buildings to speak for themselves, examining human life from the unblinking perspective of a manmade structure. Six acclaimed filmmakers bring their own visual style and artistic approach to the project. Buildings, they show us, are material manifestations of human thought and action: the Berlin Philharmonic, an icon of modernity; the National Library of Russia, a kingdom of thoughts; Halden Prison, the world's most humane prison; the Salk Institute, an institute for breakthrough science; the Oslo Opera House, a futuristic symbiosis of art and life; and the Centre Pompidou, a modern culture machine. CATHEDRALS OF CULTURE explores how each of these landmarks reflects our culture and guards our collective memory.
6.8Documentary depicting the lives of child prostitutes in the red light district of Songachi, Calcutta. Director Zana Briski went to photograph the prostitutes when she met and became friends with their children. Briski began giving photography lessons to the children and became aware that their photography might be a way for them to lead better lives.
10.0A dual portrait of young drifters on the streets of Odessa, where every day seems the same and the future keeps getting further away.
6.7The film describes the microcosmos of the small village Wacken and shows the clash of the cultures, before and during the biggest heavy metal festival in Europe.
6.5Gunvor Nelson stares intently at her mother Carin, a woman whose body has been devastated by the challenges of her last days on this earth. In three astute shots, Nelson looks with honesty rather than awe at a woman whose spirit has somehow flown away but whose body still demands a share of our time and our space.
7.6Since the late 18th century American legal decision that the business corporation organizational model is legally a person, it has become a dominant economic, political and social force around the globe. This film takes an in-depth psychological examination of the organization model through various case studies. What the study illustrates is that in the its behaviour, this type of "person" typically acts like a dangerously destructive psychopath without conscience. Furthermore, we see the profound threat this psychopath has for our world and our future, but also how the people with courage, intelligence and determination can do to stop it.
6.0Short directed by Agnès Varda in 1986 on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the French Cinematheque, presenting a contrast between the famous stairs from the place along with classic film images also revolving around stairs.