Twenty-five years after the verdict in the Rodney King trial sparked several days of protests, violence and looting in Los Angeles, LA 92 immerses viewers in that tumultuous period through stunning and rarely seen archival footage.
Tan France: Beauty and the Bleach (2022)
When he was only 9-years-old Tan France tried to lighten his own skin with bleaching cream. He faces up to his own experiences in an attempt to explore perceptions of beauty, skin tone and colourism.
Wilmington on Fire (2015)
A historical and present day look at the Wilmington Massacre of 1898 and how the descendants of the victims of the event are asking for legal action in regards to compensation.
La banlieue, c’est le paradis (2025)
In the 1960s, the suburbs were meant to be modern havens for newcomers from rural France, Portugal, Spain, North Africa, and Africa, helping rebuild post-war France. Large housing complexes symbolized this ideal, offering comfort, heating, and electricity. But by the 1980s, disillusionment set in as economic crisis, unemployment, poverty, crime, racism, and police violence took hold. Mohamed Bouhafsi tells the story of a dream that didn’t last.
Alien Island (2023)
Chile, 1984. As a wave of UFO sightings — and a military dictatorship — sweep the country, a group of short-wave radio operators receive mysterious communications from a nearby island. Through the crackling voices, they learn that a highly developed extraterrestrial race has taken residence on Friendship Island and is offering the listeners the promise of a better world.
Harakiri (1962)
Down-on-his-luck veteran Tsugumo Hanshirō enters the courtyard of the prosperous House of Iyi. Unemployed, and with no family, he hopes to find a place to commit seppuku—and a worthy second to deliver the coup de grâce in his suicide ritual. The senior counselor for the Iyi clan questions the ronin’s resolve and integrity, suspecting Hanshirō of seeking charity rather than an honorable end. What follows is a pair of interlocking stories which lay bare the difference between honor and respect, and promises to examine the legendary foundations of the Samurai code.
Scandalize My Name: Stories from the Blacklist (1998)
A look at the confluence of the Red Scare, McCarthyism, and blacklists with the post-war activism by African Americans seeking more and better roles on radio, television, and stage. It begins in Harlem, measures the impact of Paul Robeson and the campaign to bring him down, looks at the role of HUAC, J. Edgar Hoover and of journalists such as Ed Sullivan, and ends with a tribute to Canada Lee. Throughout are interviews with men and women who were there, including Dick Campbell of the Rose McLendon Players and Fredrick O'Neal of the American Negro Theatre. In the 1940s and 1950s, anti-Communism was one more tool to maintain Jim Crow and to keep down African-Americans.
The Trial (1984)
In over eight years of research, "Der Prozess" follows the longest criminal proceedings in Germany′s legal history - the "Majdanek Trial". In interviews with judges, the accused, victims and eye witnesses, and with the use of documentary footage and reports, the film recounts (in three parts) the legal trials against the workers and perpetrators of the Lublin/Majdanek concentration camp from the first day to the pronouncement of the judgment.
The Thin Blue Line (1988)
Errol Morris's unique documentary dramatically re-enacts the crime scene and investigation of a police officer's murder in Dallas.
The Shitthropocene (2024)
The Shitthropocene is a journey from the cellular-level origins of our lack of impulse control to the ways our central nervous systems have been hacked in the name of capitalism. It’s also about how we might begin to save ourselves from ourselves. Plus, there are dancing cave people.
Concerning Violence (2014)
Concerning Violence is based on newly discovered, powerful archival material documenting the most daring moments in the struggle for liberation in the Third World, accompanied by classic text from The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon.
Queens of Jazz: The Joy and Pain of the Jazz Divas (2013)
The documentary tracks the diva's difficult progress as she emerges from the tough, testosterone-fuelled world of the big bands of the 30s and 40s, to fill nightclubs and saloons across the US in the 50s and early 60s as a force in her own right. Looking at the lives and careers of six individual singers (Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Peggy Lee, Sarah Vaughan, Nina Simone and Annie Ross), the film not only talks to those who knew and worked with these queens of jazz, but also to contemporary singers who sit on the shoulders of these trailblazing talents without having to endure the pain and hardship it took for them to make their highly individual voices heard above the prejudice of mid-century America.
Bus 174 (2002)
Documentary depicts what happened in Rio de Janeiro on June 12th 2000, when bus 174 was taken by an armed young man, threatening to shoot all the passengers. Transmitted live on all Brazilian TV networks, this shocking and tragic-ending event became one of violence's most shocking portraits, and one of the scariest examples of police incompetence and abuse in recent years.
Fantastic Lies (2016)
One night in Durham, North Carolina, a rape accusation set fire to the reputations of three college athletes and their elite university. As the Duke lacrosse players grappled with their transition from model student to the criminally accused, several wars were launched on different fronts.
The Donut King (2020)
Cambodian refugee Ted Ngoy builds a multi-million dollar empire by baking America's favourite pastry: the doughnut.
Ka Ho‘ina: Going Home (2014)
Ka Hoʻina documents members of Hui Mālama I Nā Kūpuna O Hawaiʻi Nei's final repatriation of over 140 sets of iwi kupuna and provides an intimate look into the legacy forged by these committed and passionate few, ensuring that Hawaiians will mālama or care for kupuna for generations to come.
The Blade Runner Phenomenon (2021)
Ridley Scott's cult film Blade Runner, based on a novel by Philip K. Dick and released in 1982, is one of the most influential science fiction films ever made. Its depiction of Los Angeles in the year 2019 is oppressively prophetic: climate catastrophe, increasing public surveillance, powerful monopolistic corporations, highly evolved artificial intelligence; a fantastic vision of the future world that has become a frightening reality.
Obaida (2019)
OBAIDA, a short film by Matthew Cassel, explores a Palestinian child’s experience of Israeli military arrest. Each year, some 700 Palestinian children undergo military detention in a system where ill-treatment is widespread and institutionalized. For these young detainees, few rights are guaranteed, even on paper. After release, the experience of detention continues to shape and mark former child prisoners’ path forward.
Down a Dark Stairwell (2020)
Set in motion by a tragic police-involved shooting, two communities of color navigate fraught perceptions of injustice, inequality, and discrimination in the eyes of the law.
Rotten: Behind the Foodfight (2024)
In 2012, the animated feature Foodfight! was unleashed on the world. It was given a theatrical release just a year before in the UK, Russia, and Dubai. The movie cost approximately 32 million dollars, starred Charlie Sheen, Wayne Brady, Hillary Duff, Eva Longoria, and Christopher Lloyd. Yet it only made back less than 1% of its budget and lives in infamy as the worst animated feature ever created. This is its story.