Mae West achieved great acclaim in every entertainment medium that existed during her lifetime, spanning eight decades of the 20th century. A full-time actress at seven, a vaudevillian at 14, a dancing sensation at 25, a playwright at 33, a silver screen ingénue at 40, a Vegas nightclub act at 62, a recording artist at 73, a camp icon at 85 - West left no format unconquered. She possessed creative and economic powers unheard of for a female entertainer in the 1930s and still rare today. Though a comedian, West grappled with some of the more complex social issues of the 20th century, including race and class tensions, and imbued even her most salacious plotlines with commentary about gender conformity, societal restrictions and what she perceived as moral hypocrisy. Mae West: Dirty Blonde is the first major documentary film to explore West's life and career, as she "climbed the ladder of success wrong by wrong" to become a writer, performer and subversive agitator for social change.
Meat the Future ushers the viewer into a world vexed by the impacts of modern day industrial animal agriculture and zeros in on a solution-focused story. Revealing challenges and breakthroughs and posing a myriad of questions about the future, this 90-minute character-driven documentary explores the advent of real meat without the need to raise and slaughter animals. Spanning three years, Meat the Future chronicles the potentially game-changing birth of a new food industry referred to as “cell-based” “clean” and “cultured” meat – a term hotly debated as the industry approaches commercialization
Five Years North is the coming-of-age story of Luis, an undocumented Guatemalan boy who just arrived alone in New York City. He struggles to work, study, and evade Judy - the Cuban-American ICE officer patrolling his neighborhood.
This seven year journey chronicles the brash once-respected Canadian comedian Richard Lett, whose addiction to drugs and alcohol lead him to become homeless; estranged from his daughter and community.
Williamstown, Kentucky, is home to the Ark Encounter – a “life-size” creationist museum filled with all of the creatures that traveled in Noah's Ark, including dinosaurs. With incredible access to the park leading up to its opening, the filmmakers expose the larger system behind the creationist movement, piecing together the many factors that have led to the museum presenting its information as historical fact, and the people who are fighting to set the scientific record straight. Amid a climate of science denial and a well-funded corporate behemoth, three Kentuckians (a local geologist, an ex-creationist, and an atheist activist) try their best to challenge the movement that is taking over their home state. Meanwhile, fervent believers work diligently to create the lifelike animatronics that will be on display in the Ark.
Planned by Britain’s MI6 and then executed by America’s C.I.A., the coup d’état which follows will destroy Iran’s last democracy, and relations between Iran and the West until the present day. Most shocking of all, the truth about Her Majesty’s role will be hidden from the Queen herself, and even the all-powerful Shah who will be used by Britain and American to replace Iran’s last democratic Prime Minister. The coup will lead to political upheaval all over the Middle East for decades to come, eventually resulting in the Islamic Revolution of 1979 which will end the reign of the Shah, and British and American influence in Iran, inspiring countless other Islamist revolutions around the world.
Emojis are a worldwide phenomenon, with some arguing that these smiling poops and heart-eyed faces are on the verge of actually becoming their own language. Who, if anyone, is in charge of this new global digital language?
When a courageous young woman and a radical lawyer discover a pattern of illegal involuntary sterilizations in California’s women’s prison system, they take to the courtroom to wage a near-impossible battle against the Department of Corrections. With a growing team of investigators inside prison working with colleagues on the outside, they uncover a series of statewide crimes - from dangerously inadequate health care to sexual assault to coercive sterilizations - primarily targeting women of color. But no one believes them. This shocking legal drama captured over seven years features extraordinary access and intimate accounts from currently and formerly incarcerated women, demanding our attention to a shameful and ongoing legacy of eugenics and reproductive injustice in the United States.
A portrait of a growing movement amongst Indigenous Americans to reclaim their spiritual and cultural identities through obtaining sovereignty over their ancestral food systems, while battling against the historical trauma brought on by centuries of genocide.
Cumbia of the world and for the whole world. From Buenos Aires as a starting point, the documentary Cumbia Around The World takes us on a tour through several countries: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Peru, Portugal, Spain, Germany, Vietnam, the Philippines, Cambodia and Japan; to discover the origins, the present and the future of this rhythm that engages all social classes…
EDDIE, an intimate look at the life of one of basketball’s most legendary coaches, takes audiences on a turbulent ride across Sutton’s five-decade career and provides an unprecedented off the court look at both the demons that haunted him and the relationships crucial to overcoming them. With a wealth of never-before-seen footage and interviews with Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, a “who’s who” of college basketball, elite journalist, coaches and players, and even former President Bill Clinton, EDDIE is a complex story rooted in basketball, but exploring universal themes of substance abuse, tested relationships, and most importantly, perseverance.
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.
An audiovisual allegory on communication – this film follows cable technicians in four different countries (Ukraine, Romania, Bulgaria, Moldova) as they visit their customers. Each client they call on provides a glimpse into their own individual universe. With so many tools for communication, we still inhabit a modern-day Tower of Babel; an ordered discordance of personalities and perspectives.
In 2016 the Mexican District Attorney secretly buried more than 100 murdered bodies during the war against drug trafficking. They kept it hidden until a group of women, mothers, discovered it while searching for their missing children. One of them retrieves the body of her brother. "To See You Again" narrates the participation of Mexican women as they exhume what remains of the corpses and learn about forensic work. They help us discover the crimes committed by the state when burying the bodies.
“We transgender are the revolution!” Indianara Siqueira, trans activist and politician, admonishes her political party for ousting her days before the 2018 Brazilian national elections. In the same election cycle extreme-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro is a forerunner for President of the Republic. Indianara is the ‘mother’ at the head of a homeless shelter and community center for trans sex workers called Casa Nem in Rio de Janeiro. Casa Nem is a squat, and facing the threat of eviction, Indianara occupies a colonial palace nearby to bargain with the city to save the house.
Pakistan, ‘Land of the Pure’, remains a country of contradictions. A bastion of radical Islam trying to change to a modern state. We examine some of the undercurrents threatening the stability of this Atomic nation.
Up in the Himalayas, at an altitude of 6,000 meters, a bizarre sort of war is being waged. 1,000 Pakistani soldiers face off against 3,000 Indian soldiers for control of the Siachen Glacier, biggest reserve of fresh water available. With 70% of the population of both India and Pakistan depend upon this water supply any change to its status could be catastrophic. We filmed an exclusive report with Pakistani Special Forces.
Few musicians have made an impact throughout the decades as seismic as Bob Dylan. Retrace his journey, from humble folk beginnings in Hibbing, to the bustling electric Greenwich Village.
This down-home documentary chronicles the struggles of a sleepy town in Alabama as it's sparked back to life by embracing local lore and learning to love Bigfoot. It covers the town's history, it's many Sasquatch sightings and how it became the Bigfoot Capital of Alabama.