The story of an eccentric finance mogul's dream to create the world's largest urban farm in his hometown of Detroit, and the political firestorm he unintentionally ignited by announcing that he would spend $30 million of his own fortune to build this farm in one of the most economically devastated neighborhoods of the bankrupt Motor City.
The lives and careers of four Asian-American rappers trying to break into a world that often treats them as outsiders. Sharing dynamic live performance footage and revealing interviews, these artists will make the most skeptical critics into believers.
Although scientists and agribusiness have started touting edible insects as the future of sustainable food, the notion of eating bugs hasn’t exactly gained much popularity among the general public. Head Chef Ben Reade and Lead Researcher Josh Evans from the Nordic Food Lab in Denmark are looking to change that. With a focus on food diversity and deliciousness, they set out on a globe-trotting mission to take on the politics of the palate, sampling grubs in the Australian outback, pillaging giant wasp nests in Japan and attending food expos where entrepreneurs pitch their flavorless farmed crickets. Along the way, they put their own haute cuisine spin on local insect delicacies, whipping up dishes like cricket and grasshopper ravioli, maggot cheese gelato and bee larva ceviche.
At an exclusive Catholic boys school in Melbourne 1976, Tim Conigrave and John Caleo fell madly in love. Their passionate, tempestuous, operatic romance lasted for 16 years, facing disapproval, temptation, separation, and the looming shadow of the Grim Reaper. Their relationship has been immortalised in Conigrave's posthumous autobiography Holding the Man (now a major Australian film directed by Neil Armfield). This is the true story of how Romeo met Romeo and how first love can not only last but endure.
Signs of Humanity is a documentary film that explores the inter-related themes of home, homelessness, compassion and humanity. Artist and professor Willie Baronet has purchased more than 1,300 homeless signs over the past 24 years, and he uses this collection to create installations to raise awareness about homelessness. During the month of July, 2014, Willie and three filmmakers drove across the country, interviewing more than 100 people on the streets and purchasing over 280 signs. Signs of Humanity is a film about that trip.
A black straight preacher and a white lesbian activist form an unusual bond as they seek to find the intersection between the Black Civil Rights and the LGBTQ Equality movements of today.
Diana Beresford-Kroeger presents ancient forests of the Northern Hemisphere, revealing connections shared between the nature and the people of the regions.
Marking Out is a comedic documentary that follows a group of grown men as they try to figure out why they can't seem to let go of professional wrestling. Travel with them as they meet with wrestlers (including EC3, Eric Young, and the stars of Chikara and Olde Wrestling) and wrestling fans in an attempt to either rekindle their love of the business or put it behind them forever.
In the Aysén region dwell a population of 90000 isolated souls sharing the harsh landscapes of an area about the size of England. Here where beauty seems to be on first-name terms with fear and danger,in a place where the immensity of nature can never be dominated, the setting hesitates, along the expanses, between sparkling colours and the black and white of the snow and the water. The day-to-day images intermingle with a story of mythological aspect; that of the timeless quest for the Lost City of the Caesars, a city of gold built 500 years ago by the conquerors.
After three combat tours in Iraq, Alex Sutton attempts a fresh start hatching chickens and raising goats on 43 acres in rural North Carolina. Alex embraces life on the farm with his new love Jessica, but cycles between a state of heightened alert and “feeling zombified” from a cocktail of prescriptions meant to stabilize his injured mind. When Jessica becomes pregnant, the dark past Alex has tried to escape—the loss of his first family, the war he was forced to leave—closes in on him. The farm becomes another battleground. Farmer/Veteran attempts to reconcile the identity of a perfect soldier with the reality of a haunted man determined to hold onto the best chance at peace he’s ever known.
In 1994, four women were accused, tried, and convicted of the heinous sexual assault of two young girls—as one newscaster puts it, “the modern version of the witchcraft trials.” Twenty years later, the four women have maintained their innocence, insisting that the accusations were entirely fabricated, and borne of homophobic prejudice and a late-’90s mania about covens, cults, and child abuse.
Indianapolis has one of the lowest high school graduation rates in the country. Night School follows three adult students living in the city’s more impoverished neighborhoods as they attempt to earn their diplomas while juggling other difficult responsibilities and realities. Through their stories, the filmmakers explore many issues that low-income Americans deal with, including unjust minimum wage and working conditions, arbitrary legal hindrances, and race and gender inequality.
The self-help industry is worth $11 billion a year. It’s an industry that captivates those seeking happiness, release from suffering and those longing for a path and a leader to follow. James Arthur Ray for many who followed him was that leader to guide his flock. But as the story unfolds, as told by Ray himself and also by his followers, we learn that that path was fraught with danger and perhaps even greater suffering.
When a powerful Florida lobbyist discovered that a nanny sexually abused his daughter, he wielded all of his considered political capital to pass some of the strictest sex offender laws in the country. Today, 800,000 people are listed in the sex offender registry, yet the cycles of abuse continue. Moving from the halls of power to the cardboard homes of a marginalized pariah people, this enlightening documentary defies expectations and challenge assumptions to argue for a new understanding of how we think about and legislate sexual abuse.
Chronicles the creation of The Metropolitan Museum of Art's most attended fashion exhibition in history, "China: Through The Looking Glass," an exploration of Chinese-inspired Western fashions by Costume Institute curator Andrew Bolton.
William Wolff is nearly 90 and perhaps the most unconventional rabbi in the world. As the State Rabbi of North-East Germany, he looks after the Jewish Communities in Schwerin and Rostock, but still lives in a bungalow near Henley-on-Thames. Midweek he usually flies from Heathrow to Germany. After the services on Saturdays, he either makes his way home or on a leisure city trip. His annual highlight is betting at the Horse Race of Royal Ascot and joining a fasting-retreat in Bad Pyrmont. Willy Wolff leads a Jet-Set-Life, which he actually cannot afford, but dealing with money isn't one of his strengths. Naturally, that occasionally leads to quite temporal conflicts. Rabbi Wolff is the portrait of a fascinating character, a deeply religious man who, blessed with a tremendous joie de vivre, defies all conventions. More than that, it gives insight into the world of Judaism and introduces us to a uniquely German biography.
Toronto-based documentary filmmaker and cinematographer Nicholas de Pencier (Four Wings and a Prayer, Watermark) examines the complex global impact that the internet has had on matters of free speech, privacy and activism.
For 50 years, Berlin was the symbol of the Cold War. The city at the heart of the intelligence war between the US and the Soviet bloc. Thousands of KGB or CIA, agents observed each other, cogs in the biggest information war in history.