When director Jasmin Mara López sees a photo of her niece with her grandfather, she is flooded by painful memories of her own childhood sexual abuse at his hands—and the following 24 years of her silence. In this cinematically striking and poetic documentary, López bravely films her story as a willful act to accept difficult truths while finding beauty in the process of healing. As she defies the cultural silence that pervades her family and confronts her abusive grandfather, who is a Baptist minister, a world of generational abuse unfolds, and she quickly discovers she is not alone. Through archival family footage and intimate moments with her family, López has created a film about confronting painful truths and the beauty one can feel when they reach the other side of grief.
Galvanized by the number of white women who voted for Donald Trump, two women of colour envision what unity looks in the United States. But instead of marching through the streets, they take a different approach. Race2Dinner was born, an afternoon of wining, dining and honest conversations about white supremacy and unconscious biases that white women live by. Navigating everyday privileges and cultural differences, the bold intervention changes minds and opens eyes for some, while others turn away because it is too hard. Everything is on the table to eat and unpack, but there is only one rule: no crying at the dinner table.
Rikke Brewer and Aiden Knox struggle with the death of their best friend Nye Newman, and subsequent mental health issues, in very different ways, that threaten to tear them apart. In pursuit of 15million clicks of fame and money, and a career as a youtuber, outgoing Rikke seeks the dangerous thrill of UrbEx stunts as a way to numb his loss and pain. Aiden, more introverted, seeks solace in Parkour, while working menial jobs to pay for his increasing reliance on alcohol. As they process Nye's tragic death, deeper scars from difficult childhoods emerge. Exclusive rights to 10 years of their self-shot archive reveal a rich story of their formative years. As we watch the stunts with sweaty palms and open mouths, we ultimately engage with the warmth and humanity of these two extraordinary young men.
One in four pregnancies ends in miscarriage, but many women feel ashamed to speak about it. If Everyone Knew documents three women's journeys with baby loss. They tell their personal stories to encourage wider understanding and acceptance.
The story of James Cotton, harmonica powerhouse, whose music shaped blues and rock. Orphaned at 9, Cotton’s life tracks America’s history—from the post-depression cotton fields of the Mississippi Delta to being mentored by the original Delta bluesmen, to Chicagoland’s artistic reinvention to the live music scene in Austin, Texas.
Who runs the world? With the recent surge of women in politics, director Chloe Sosa-Sims's timely feature debut focuses on three political stars in three countries. For Jess Phillips of the UK, Pramila Jayapal of the US and Canada's Conservative MP Michelle Rempel Garner, politics is a deep and committed passion. Positioned on different points along the political spectrum, they take on their jobs in government with bold determination, advocating for their individual agendas. Phillips is focused on combating domestic violence, while Jayapal has set her sights on a new bill to expand American health care and Rempel Garner is looking for ways to create jobs for oil workers in her home province of Alberta. With elections looming in all three countries, the women are working hard on reforming patriarchal political institutions from the inside, and despite their differences they each fight to rise to the occasion.
This documentary catalogues and examines early space age anomalies and UFOs. Cary and Stanton demonstrate NASA's interest in UFOs through astronaut testimony, examinations of declassified documents, and a history of cover up.
“Luminous” tells the story of the first astronomer in history to publicly predict the near-future explosion of a star. But will he be right? Others in the astronomical community are skeptical, and professional reputations hang in the balance. In production since 2014, “Luminous” follows Calvin College astronomy professor Larry Molnar’s five-year journey to test his unprecedented prediction, knowing that its success or failure will unfold squarely in the international spotlight.
The Color of Care chronicles how people of color suffer from systemically substandard healthcare in the United States, with a pressing focus on how the Covid-19 pandemic shed light on the tragic consequences of that inequity. Oprah’s Harpo Productions and the Smithsonian Channel are teaming up on the timely project, which traces the origins of this systemic inequity to practices that first emerged during slavery in the United States.
Nearly a decade in the making, The House We Lived In is a strikingly candid portrait of a family transformed by a father’s brain injury. In 2011, 61-year-old Tod O’Donnell awoke from a coma with a case of total amnesia that doctors assured his wife and children was temporary. But when it proved permanent, and for no discernible reason, the O’Donnell’s were left to themselves to untangle the mystery — a struggle for answers that would only raise more questions as they came to realize, painfully, that the real mystery was Tod himself.
Sam Now is a gripping family story consisting of home videos, Super 8 films and modern-day HD videos told over a lifetime. Director Reed Harkness captures the story of his half-brother, Sam, who grappled with the disappearance of his mother during the most formative years of his life. After setting out to find her as a teenager, Sam works through the subconscious trauma caused by her absence, his family members' denial and his feelings toward his mother, whose new life proves better than raising kids. Sam's journey is an emotional roller coaster with loops of mental health, commitment issues and familial relationships.
Mobile homes have long been an affordable option for people who struggle with the cost of other housing in the United States. But now the economy of mobile home parks is under threat as private equity firms are buying up properties and looking to squeeze more money out of mobile home owners. Filmmaker Sara Terry uses this backdrop to explore urgent class issues that resonate across America, and especially in the high-priced rental market of New York City.
From its shocking opening image of a bridge snapped in two, Zero Position crosses an eerie landscape fractured by dueling Russian separatist and Ukrainian forces. On this cinematic journey, there are no interviews or extensive explanations of the conflict between the opposing sides. Accompanied by an evocative soundscape, the film moves like a ghostly presence through a troubled region, pausing at heavily armed checkpoints and competing front lines. As the camera captures people scurrying past the aftermath of conflict, carrying plastic bags bulging with items gleaned from abandoned homes, we see the stark reality of a people caught in a borderland between East and West. Director Louie Palu's expressive, sparse and poetically delivered voiceover adds context to places the nightly news cameras don't take us, including an old coal mine and a family's home. Through its mood and atmosphere, Zero Position offers us an experiential look at a region on the brink of all-out war.
In the Bones is a lyrical documentary that explores the personal and political by interweaving the lives of 12 characters living in Mississippi during a legislative session in which equal pay for equal work and abortion rights are being decided. Although set in three distinct regions of Mississippi, In the Bones is a much broader exploration of our culture, an unsettling portrait of America that shines a light on the weight women live under in this country and also the resilience expressed in everyday acts of survival.
On Nov. 5, 2021, rapper Travis Scott headlined the Astroworld Festival in Houston, which tragically led to the deaths of 10 concertgoers in a crowd crush.
“The 7 Churches of Revelation: Times of Deception,” the second film in this series, investigates the final 4 churches: Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia and Laodicea. The film ventures to these ancient church locations to uncover what we can learn today from the warnings given to those churches of the 1st Century. These Biblically prophetic letters point to a future that applies to us today. What do they warn? What important understandings are we to heed?
In the shadow of the pandemic, a small town rallies to protect a beloved local bookstore. A landmark in Lenox, Massachusetts, The Bookstore is a magical, beatnik gem thanks to its owner Matt Tannenbaum, whose passion for stories runs deep. This portrait of The Bookstore and the family at its heart offers a journey through good times, hard times, and the stories hidden on the shelves.
The fall of 2021 marked the 50th anniversary of Fiddler on the Roof, the film Pauline Kael (The New Yorker) called "the most powerful movie musical ever made." Narrated by Jeff Goldblum, FIDDLER'S JOURNEY TO THE BIG SCREEN captures the humor and drama of director Norman Jewison's quest to recreate the lost world of Jewish life in Tsarist Russia and re-envision the beloved stage hit as a wide-screen epic. Oscar-nominated filmmaker Daniel Raim puts us in the director's chair and in Jewison's heart and mind, drawing on behind-the-scenes footage and never-before-seen stills as well as original interviews with Jewison, Topol (Tevye), composer John Williams, production designer Robert F. Boyle, film critic Kenneth Turan, lyricist Sheldon Harnick, and actresses Rosalind Harris, Michele Marsh, and Neva Small (Tevye’s daughters). The film explores how the experience of making Fiddler deepened Jewison as an artist and revived his soul.