An uplifting feature documentary highlighting the transformative power of art and the beauty of the human spirit. Top-selling contemporary artist Vik Muniz takes us on an emotional journey from Jardim Gramacho, the world's largest landfill on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro, to the heights of international art stardom. Vik collaborates with the brilliant catadores, pickers of recyclable materials, true Shakespearean characters who live and work in the garbage quoting Machiavelli and showing us how to recycle ourselves.
Hannah: Buddhism's Untold Journey (2014)
'Hannah' tells the story of Buddhist pioneer Hannah Nydahl and her life bringing Tibetan Buddhism to the West. From her idealistic roots in 1960's Copenhagen to the hippie trail in Nepal, Hannah and her husband Ole became two of the first Western students of His Holiness the 16th Karmapa - the first consciously reincarnated lama of Tibet in 1110. Hannah went on to become an assistant and translator for some of the most powerful Tibetan lamas and a bridge between Buddhism in the East and the West.
Communion (2016)
When adults are ineffectual, children have to grow up quickly. Ola is 14 and she takes care of her dysfunctional father, autistic brother and a mother who lives apart from them and is mainly heard the phone. Most of all she wants to reunite a family that simply doesn’t work — like a defective TV set. She lives in the hope of bringing her mother back home. Her 13 year old brother Nikodem’s Holy Communion is a pretext for the family to meet up. Ola is entirely responsible for preparing the perfect family celebration. “Communion” reveals the beauty of the rejected, the strength of the weak and the need for change when change seems impossible. This crash course in growing up teaches us that failure is not final. Especially when love is in question.
Gérard Philipe, le dernier hiver du Cid (2022)
An adaptation of Jérôme Garcin’s novel Le dernier hiver du cid, this documentary built exclusively on archive footage and a delicate story telling style will permit a Cannes style celebration of Gerard Philipe’s 100th birthday anniversary. He will also be coming back to the Croisette through the screening of Fanfan la tulipe.
Frame by Frame (2015)
When the Taliban ruled Afghanistan, taking a photo was a crime. After the regime fell from power in 2001, a fledgling free press emerged and a photography revolution was born. Now, as foreign troops and media withdraw, Afghanistan is left to stand on its own and so are its journalists. Set in a modern Afghanistan bursting with color and character, FRAME BY FRAME follows four Afghan photojournalists navigating a dangerous media landscape as they reframe Afghanistan for the world, and for themselves. Through cinema vérité, powerful photojournalism, and never-before-seen footage shot in secret during the Taliban regime, the film connects an audience with four humans in the pursuit of the truth.
GTFO: Get The F% Out (2015)
Sparked by a public display of sexual harassment in 2012, GTFO pries open the video game world to explore a 20 billion dollar industry riddled with discrimination and misogyny. Every year, the gaming community grows increasingly diverse. This has led to a clash of values and women are receiving the brunt of the consequences every day, with acts of harassment ranging from name calling to death threats. Through interviews with video game creators, journalists, and academics, GTFO paints a complex picture of the video game industry, while revealing the systemic and human motivations behind acts of harassment. GTFO begins the conversation that will shape the future of the video game world.
Sailing a Sinking Sea (2015)
Sailing a Sinking Sea is a feature-length experimental documentary exploring the culture of the Moken people of Burma and Thailand. The Moken are seafaring people and one of the smallest ethnic minority groups in Asia. Wholly reliant upon the sea, their entire belief system, education, and economic and physical development revolve around water. Sailing a Sinking Sea illuminates the Moken lifestyle through recorded traditional music, folklore and conversations with the Moken people. Through intimate and dynamic cinematography and audio recordings, Sailing a Sinking Sea weaves a visual and aural tapestry of Moken mythologies and present-day practices.
They Will Have to Kill Us First (2015)
In 2012, jihadists took control of northern Mali. They imposed one of the strictest interpretations of sharia law in history. On August 12th they banned music - radio stations destroyed, instruments burned and musicians facing torture, even death. Overnight, Mali’s most revered members of society – the musicians – were forced into hiding or exile. This film follows Mali’s musicians as they fight to keep music alive in their country. We witness fierce battles between the army and the jihadists, capture life over borders at refugee camps where money and hope are scarce, follow perilous journeys home to war ravaged cities, and for one band, Songhoy Blues, their path to international stardom.
Twinsters (2015)
Adopted from South Korea, raised on different continents & connected through social media, Samantha & Anaïs believe that they are twin sisters separated at birth.
My Daughter the Teenage Nudist (2012)
Mollie and Alex are part of a growing group of teens and twenty-something embracing the world of public nudity. They are on a quest to normalize nudity, question the media's obsession with the body beautiful, and encourage other young people to liberate themselves by simply going naked - in the streets, in cafes or at art shows
What the Darkness Cannot Extinguish: The Storytelling Madness of Clifford George (2023)
A feature-length documentary celebrating the life and work of Trinity Bay artist and storyteller Clifford George.
Thank You and Good Night (1992)
Director Jan Oxenberg's docu-fantasy narrative about aging and death, and how it affects her family.
Some Widows of Noirmoutier (2006)
A documentary film directed by French Agnès Varda as an extension of the exhibition 'L'île et elle'. The installation 'Les veuves de Noirmoutier' (or 'The Widows of Noirmoutier') had various women filmed by Varda, young and old, who spoke about their widowhood and their residence on the island of Noirmoutier. The film is a montage of these meetings, which are both simple and melancholic.
Daniel's World (2015)
Daniel is a young man. Daniel is a student and a writer. Also Daniel is a pedophile. He is in love and makes no secret of his sexual orientation; even not in front of the parents of his beloved boy. Daniel has never hurt any child. What is the way of the most intimate of feelings in Daniel's and his friends' heart? The film introduces the rises and falls of people living with pedophilia. It portrays Daniel and the Czech community of pedophiles. It narrates a story of forbidden love and a constant struggle to come to terms with oneself and the society.
Women of Today (1958)
Made on the occasion of March 8, it presents a series of brief portraits of women, from various professional fields, of different ages and even of different ethnicities, pointing out the benefits that the communist organization had brought to their daily lives. A special emphasis is placed on their status as mothers and on the role of nurseries and socialist kindergartens not only in making their lives easier, but also in giving them the time they need to build a career. Another concern of the filmmaker, starting from the concrete case of one of the protagonists, is to highlight the differences between the happy present and the not-too-distant past in which someone with her social status should have dedicated herself exclusively to raising children, in hygienic and extremely difficult lives.
Ugly, Me? (2013)
Ugly, Me? is a film manifesto made from a workshop for actors called Characters in Search of a Movie, in 'La pa', 'Rio De Janeiro', extended to Paris and 'Kerala' (India). Multifaceted like a kaleidoscope, the characters appear in multi-screens scenes and sequences. The images were captured with different kinds of cameras and Ugly, Me? uses this sign of the variety imposed by independent production as language experimentation. Transposing the boundaries of style, Ugly, Me? navigates in a sea of metaphors, philosophical and musical politics, from Prince Harry to Heraclitus, going through a series of authors like Rimbaud, Brecht, Nietzsche, Bispo do Rosario and Eduardo Viveiros DE Castro, capturing a contradictory and original country.
A Woman Like Me (2015)
A WOMAN LIKE ME is a hybrid documentary that interweaves the real story of director Alex Sichel, diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer in 2011, with the fictional story of Anna Seashell, who struggles to find the glass half full when faced with the same diagnosis. The film follows Alex as she uses her craft to explore what is foremost on her mind while confronting a terminal disease: parenting, marriage, faith, life, and death. When we are stuck between a rock and hard place, can our imagination get us out?
Green Chimneys (1997)
Green Chimneys follows three young boys living at Green Chimneys, a residential treatment center for children with emotional, behavioral, social and learning challenges.