A portrait of Chicagoland ICU nurse Jeanette Alvarez-Basem captured through the perspective of her son Ben Basem. Between her night shifts and Illinois Nurses Association union meetings, Jeanette navigates what it means to be a nurse and a human during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Soviet Submarine (2021)
On March 26th, 2020, seven boys locked themselves in a house for 48 hours, with only potatoes, bread, and red light for survival. Watch the chaos unfold and tension rise between the comrades as they struggle to find a cure before it's too late.
Phantoms of the Sierra Madre (2024)
A Danish writer travels to Mexico with the purpose of locating a mysterious Apache tribe that fervently seeks to remain in obscurity.
K'i Tah Amongst the Birch (2020)
Filmmaker/activist Melaw Nakehk’o has spent the pandemic with her family at a remote land camp in the Northwest Territories, “getting wood, listening to the wind, staying warm and dry, and watching the sun move across the sky.” In documenting camp life—activities like making fish leather and scraping moose hide—she anchors the COVID experience in a specific time and place.
Thursday (2020)
Thursday shot from filmmaker Galen Johnson's high-rise apartment during COVID-19 “lockdown” in Winnipeg, captures people going about their daily routines in the city's eerily empty streets, yards and parking lots, on their balconies and on the riverbanks. The extreme distance and the diminutive scale of humans is paired with sound close-ups—a combination that embodies the strange, heightened intensity of feeling of the time, knowing an era-defining tragedy is happening yet being so physically removed.
Faces from Home (2024)
In an empty house, we see the memories of a home, from those who once lived and filled it with joy and love.
Kindergarten (2020)
A childhood story is narrated while home movie footage is displayed. The narrator recounts her assimilation experience: moving to America, learning English, giving up your culture and a part of yourself.
Eliot Ness vs. Al Capone (2009)
January, 1947. The public receives the news of Al Capone's death with indifference, although twenty years earlier he had ruled Chicago's crime underworld with brute force and corrupting many touchable individuals. Until the day the head of the Untouchables Brigade, Eliot Ness, entered the scene. Since then, a cruel battle between the two of them began, a battle that ended in trial, conviction, disease, insanity and death.
Up the Yangtze (2007)
A luxury cruise boat motors up the Yangtze - navigating the mythic waterway known in China simply as "The River." The Yangtze is about to be transformed by the biggest hydroelectric dam in history. At the river's edge - a young woman says goodbye to her family as the floodwaters rise towards their small homestead. The Three Gorges Dam - contested symbol of the Chinese economic miracle - provides the epic backdrop for Up the Yangtze, a dramatic feature documentary on life inside modern China.
Dont Look Back (1967)
In this wildly entertaining vision of one of the twentieth century’s greatest artists, Bob Dylan is surrounded by teen fans, gets into heated philosophical jousts with journalists, and kicks back with fellow musicians Joan Baez, Donovan, and Alan Price.
Christmas In Florida (2021)
A canceled Thanksgiving parade and no options professionally or personally, Kimberly DiPersia and Alex R. Wagner decide it would be a perfect opportunity to travel to Florida.
Life on the move (2021)
In his first heartfelt documentary, Jack Belhumeur takes the viewer on a ride, navigating the trials and tribulations of life as an essential worker far from home during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Window Visits (2020)
Window Visits documents a family’s weekly afternoon visits to a long-term care facility from a child’s perspective.
American Pathogen (2020)
Documentary film detailing how America became the epicenter of the COVID-19 outbreak, from the dismantling of our preparedness system starting in 2016 to the “missing months” of inaction in early 2020.
Coronation (2020)
As the first city hit in the global pandemic, Wuhan, with a population of 11 million, was placed under an unprecedented lockdown. The film showcases the incredible speed and power of China’s state machinery in its fight against the virus. On the other side of the scale is the crushing bureaucracy of that same machine.
Nightsong (1964)
A portrait of the Chicago Near-North nightlife scene in the mid-1960s, centering around the struggles and romantic desires of an African American singer played by long-forgotten folk sensation Willie Wright. (Courtesy Chicago Film Archives)
The Giacomettis (2023)
The rugged Swiss mountain valley of Bregaglia has produced an entire dynasty of artists: the Giacomettis. Alberto revolutionised the art world with his slender sculptures. Before him, his father was an Impressionist of the first hour. What makes this valley the birthplace of so many artists?