During the summer holidays, a documentary-maker and his 12 year-old son stay at an abandoned hotel in Lisbon: an empty hotel like the one in the film The Shining.
When looking for a gift for his kid, Jon Heder (Napoleon Dynamite) is introduced to the world of Grimdark. In that moment he starts down a journey that will take him all over the world and through interviews with prominent Grimdark authors, game developers, and dedicated fans, he delves into the themes that define the genre—all in an effort to find the man who started it all: John Blanche.
The Nita & Zita Project is the story of two Jewish immigrant sisters in the 1920’s who rose to international burlesque stardom, then became recluses and transformed into the ultimate New Orleans eccentrics.
Emerging from a wild, working-class dreamscape of friendship, fame and fuzzy guitars, this is the story of six Wirral teens who became The Coral and shook the British indie scene.
Afghan documentary maker Najiba Noori offers not only a loving and intimate portrait of her mother Hawa, but also shows in detail how the arduous improvement of the position of women is undone by geopolitical violence. The film follows the fortunes of Noori’s family, who belong to the Hazaras, an ethnic group that has suffered greatly from discrimination and persecution.
A gripping journey through seven decades of sexual ignorance, oppression, and suffering, brought to life through the words and experiences of the first Soviet sexologist. Ukrainian survivors of the regime courageously recount the harsh realities they endured, from the pervasive suppression of sexual expression to the rampant exploitation and abuse that plagued Soviet society.
Becoming Thurgood: America’s Social Architect traces Marshall’s life and career from his birth in Baltimore in 1908, through his years at Historically Black Colleges and Universities Lincoln University and Howard University School of Law, and on to his groundbreaking career as a lawyer championing civil rights. After launching his legal career in Baltimore in 1935, Marshall went on to win 29 of the 32 cases he argued before the U.S. Supreme Court , most notably the landmark Brown v. Board of Education case in 1954, which ended racial segregation in public schools. In 1967 he was appointed to the Supreme Court, where he served until his retirement in 1991.
In the still hours of Kharkiv's curfewed nights, a quiet resilience hums through its empty streets. The short film captures people who work under the cover of darkness, navigating both routine and risk as Russia often attacks when residents try to sleep. Those who stay awake to work do so for the city's survival. The film explores how Ukraine's second-largest city has transformed because of war, its collective hope that dawn will arrive quietly, and the human need to carry on.
The American Southwest is a feature length blue chip natural history film narrated by indigenous environmentalist Quannah Chasinghorse. The movie journeys down the mighty Colorado River, examining the astonishing beauty and biodiversity of the region, while confronting the environmental destruction from dams and the perilous fate of the river. The story is told through never-before-seen wildlife sequences such as beavers building wetlands, condors recovering from the brink, and the potential return of Jaguars to American soil. The film beautifully advocates for better management of the river and increased wildlife conservation efforts in the iconic landscapes of The American Southwest.
Shifting Paths explores one family's resilience during the 1933 boycott of Jewish businesses in Frankfurt, Germany. This film traces the loss of a family-owned pharmaceutical company and how a once banned chamomile product, Kamillosan, has survived today with few knowing anything of its history.
The revolutions that swept Latin America in the second half of the 20th century owe much to the participation of millions of Christians who engaged in political struggles in the name of their faith, paying a heavy toll for undermining the traditional relationship between the Church and power. Driven by Liberation theology, they challenged military regimes and oligarchies, risking their lives. Far from Marx's idea of religion as 'opium of the people', here the people fought for the advent of the Kingdom of God on Earth, rather than in Heaven.
In this follow up to Robert Port's Twin Towers, follow the journeys of NYPD Detective Joe Vigiano's children in their call to service in an effort to honor their father’s memory, first in the Marine Cops and then as sworn officers in the NYPD.
Tulsa Terrors follows the direct-to-home-video movie boom of the late 1980s, which began in part due to some tenacious Oklahomans. "Thanks to RSU TV – northeastern Oklahoma’s public-television station – and its senior producer-director, Bryan Crain, I was recently able to co-produce and direct a documentary that I’ve been itching to do for a long time. I was on the scene as a Tulsa World entertainment writer at the time, so I was lucky enough to have witnessed firsthand the start of the whole phenomenon and how it impacted home entertainment across the country and even the world.
In July 1943, dark, smoky clouds suddenly descended over Los Angeles, causing residents to complain of burning eyes, nausea, and difficulty breathing. People couldn’t see across the street and visibility was so bad that cars crashed. With World War II raging, many feared a chemical attack by the Japanese, but it soon became evident that no foreign enemy was to blame. The waves of pollution called “smog” — a combination of “smoke” and “fog” — continued and the cause remained a mystery. It was the beginning of an epic struggle for clean air involving years of scientific investigation and civic pressure, bringing together people across ideological divides in a remarkable example of bipartisanship. Their work would lead to the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency and the Clean Air Act, which have had an enduring effect on the quality of air Americans breathe.
Milutin and Mica returned, after forty years, to the school in Orlja Glava where they had begun their teaching careers. The crumbling walls and dim shadows inside the building stirred memories of former students, as well as a way of teaching that seems to have vanished forever.
This unique narrative incorporating documentary elements follows Rey, a 40-year-old non-binary teacher and typhoon survivor, on a roadtrip to fame. With surreal comedy and social portrait realism, filmmaker Seán Devlin explores climate change, LGBTQ+ issues, and the impact of colonialism on contemporary Philippines.
The boundless joy and unabashed passion of master gelato-maker Sergio Dondoli take center stage in this exuberant tribute to the delights of food, creativity, and a life well-lived. 'Sergio Dondoli's Happy Life' chronicles the rise of Dondoli and his world-famed Tuscan gelateria. What emerges is a portrait of a man who started from the humblest beginnings yet found a way to cultivate sweetness in all its forms through his life's work.
American filmmaker Julia Loktev, born in the Soviet Union, returned to Moscow in 2021 to make a documentary on the persistence of independent media journalism in Putin’s Russia—just months, as it turned out, before the country’s invasion of Ukraine. Structured in five chapters, Loktev’s film is an extraordinary vérité document of a moment of immense change and anxiety.