The ostensible subject of this film is the growing, drying, peeling and packaging of persimmons in the tiny Japanese village of Kaminoyama. The inhabitants explain that it is the perfect combination of earth, wind and rain that makes their village’s persimmons superior to those grown anywhere else, including the village just a few miles away. The film’s larger subject, however, is the disappearance of Japan’s traditional culture, the end of a centuries-old way of life.
Cuba, 1961: 250,000 volunteers taught 700,000 people to read and write in one year. 100,000 of the teachers were under 18 years old. Over half were women. MAESTRA explores this story through the personal testimonies of the young women who went out to teach literacy in rural communities across the island - and found themselves deeply transformed in the process.
Maestra
2012
0
For years, filmmaker Sacha Polak has known that she carries the BRCA1 hereditary cancer gene, responsible for breast cancer, but she can't decide what to do. Does she have her breasts removed as a preventive measure to minimize the risk of developing cancer? What if she had them removed, thus forsaking her femininity, for nothing? Sacha decides to make a personal and open documentary about her search.
Nieuwe tieten
2013
4
Childhood stories of the artist as a young lesbian and intimate tales of the lesbian as a young artist underscore the filmmaker's life of performances. With a Swiss army knife she robs an American Express Bank in Morocco, accosts a shepherd in a field on International Women's Day, and tap dances on Shirley Temple's star on Hollywood Boulevard. This child movie star was the ideal by which Hammer's ambitious mother measured her own Barbie. Grandma, already a cook for Lillian Gish in Hollywood, introduced the cute, loquacious child and her mother to D.W. Griffith. Lesbian autobiography is a slender genre, so Hammer draws from general culture studies for critique and to provide an ironic edge to the synthesized "voices of authority".
Tender Fictions
1995
4
Darwin meets Hitchcock in this documentary. Directors Dan Geller and Dayna Goldfine have created a parable about the search for paradise, set in the brutal yet alluring landscape of the Galapagos Islands, which interweaves an unsolved 1930s murder mystery with stories of present day Galapagos pioneers. A gripping tale of idealistic dreams gone awry, featuring voice-over performances by Cate Blanchett, Diane Kruger, and Gustaf Skarsgard.
The Galapagos Affair: Satan Came to Eden
2014
6
The panoramic shots are breathtaking: a majestic mountain landscape in winter, flat-roofed tin shacks cowering next to one other, women perched on steep slopes using primitive tools to break through pieces of rock. La Rinconada is situated over 5,000 meters high in the Peruvian Andes, on the edge of a gold mine. This 21st century El Dorado is an inhospitable place, where untold numbers of people live and work in the most precarious of conditions, hoping both for gold and a better life. Salomé Lamas has constructed a cinematic diptych to convey the extremity of this situation and the dimensions of its misery without having to resort to graphic images.
Eldorado XXI
2017
5
Jesus Camp is a Christian summer camp where children hone their "prophetic gifts" and are schooled in how to "take back America for Christ". The film is a first-ever look into an intense training ground that recruits born-again Christian children to become an active part of America's political future.
Jesus Camp
2006
7
A convicted felon builds a feminist movement from behind bars at an all-male prison in Soledad, California.
The Feminist on Cellblock Y
2018
10
When a Mongolian nomadic family's newest camel colt is rejected by its mother, a musician is needed for a ritual to change her mind.
Die Geschichte vom weinenden Kamel
2003
7
The film examines the ways that women directors have contributed to this genre and emphasizes the role that the media play in representation of sexuality and gender, underscoring the power that film has to shape our perceptions of one another. Visually, this documentary comes to life on screen through compelling and intimate original interviews, intercut with emotionally-charged archival footage, photographs, ephemera, inspired music, and film clips.
Dykes, Camera, Action!
2018
0
Arguably the most influential creator, writer, and producer in the history of television, Norman Lear brought primetime into step with the times. Using comedy and indelible characters, his legendary 1970s shows such as All In the Family, Maude, Good Times, and The Jeffersons, boldly cracked open dialogue and shifted the national consciousness, injecting enlightened humanism into sociopolitical debates on race, class, creed, and feminism.
Norman Lear: Just Another Version of You
2016
7
Things Left Behind explores the transformative power of 'Hiroshima,' the first major international art exhibit devoted to the atomic bomb. The exhibition, at the Museum of Anthropology in Vancouver, Canada, featured 48 large-format color photographic prints of clothing once worn by those who perished in the atomic bomb, taken by renowned Japanese photographer Ishiuchi Miyako. Ishiuchi brought the garments--still colorful and fashionable nearly seven decades later--out of permanent storage at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial archive and photographed them in the light, to trace the spirits of those who once wore them. The photographs, exhibited without any identifying caption, mutely solicited viewers to imagine or divulge a narrative, and unlocked a wealth of secrets and memories from those who encountered them.
ひろしま - 石内都・遺されたものたち
2012
0
In this tense and immersive tour de force, audiences are taken directly into the line of fire between powerful, opposing Peruvian leaders who will stop at nothing to keep their respective goals intact. On the one side is President Alan Garcia, who, eager to enter the world stage, begins aggressively extracting oil, minerals, and gas from untouched indigenous Amazonian land. He is quickly met with fierce opposition from indigenous leader Alberto Pizango, whose impassioned speeches against Garcia’s destructive actions prove a powerful rallying cry to throngs of his supporters. When Garcia continues to ignore their pleas, a tense war of words erupts into deadly violence.
When Two Worlds Collide
2016
7
Renowned filmmakers D A Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus follow determined animal rights activist Steven Wise into the courtroom for an unprecedented battle that seeks to utilize the writ of habeas corpus to expand legal “personhood” to include certain animals. Wise’s unusual plaintiffs—chimpanzees Tommy and Kiko, once famed showbiz stars—are now living in filth, struggling to survive. Wise and his impassioned legal team take us into the field, revealing gripping evidence of such abuse and plunging us into the intricacies of their case as they probe preconceived notions of what it means to be a non-human animal.
Unlocking the Cage
2016
6
Emboldened by a giant block party on the evening of their high school prom, a group of students enter the night with the hope of transcending their rural town and the industrial landscape that surrounds them.
The Send-Off
2015
5
A documentary that examines whether a charity organized by Pat Robertson to aid Rwandan genocide refugees was a front for diamond mining.
Mission Congo
2013
7
Alanis Obomsawin tells the story of Shannen’s Dream, a national campaign to provide equitable access to education for First Nations children, in safe and suitable schools. She brings together the voices of those who have successfully brought the Dream all the way to the United Nations in Geneva.
Hi-Ho Mistahey!
2013
6
In 1972, John Wojtowicz attempted to rob a Brooklyn bank to pay for his lover’s sex-change operation. The story was the basis for the film Dog Day Afternoon. The Dog captures John, who shares his story for the first time in his own unique, offensive, hilarious and heartbreaking way. We gain a historic perspective on New York's gay liberation movement, in which Wojtowicz played an active role. In later footage, he remains a subversive force, backed by the unconditional love of his mother Terry, whose wit and charm infuse the film. How and why the bank robbery took place is recounted in gripping detail by Wojtowicz and various eyewitnesses.
The Dog
2013
6
Fists of Pride follows Little Tiger and his fellow fighters as their Thai coaches prepare them for the annual Water Festival competition. In a boxing camp on the Thai-Burmese border the children of mostly illegal migrant workers fleeing Burma live and train for prize fights. In a region where combat sports have always been a matter of honor and money, the film reveals their daily struggles. Bets are open and as the hope of prize money rizes, the young boxers contemplate what it could mean for them and their families
Les Poings de la Fierté
2011
0
A Zen priest in San Francisco and cookbook author use Zen Buddhism and cooking to relate to everyday life.
How to Cook Your Life
2007
5
A portrait of Paul Joe Vest and requiem for people living and dying with AIDS he composed setting poems of Walt Whitman to music.
Song of the Open Road
1992
0