During the time of the Stolen Generations, thousands upon thousands of Aboriginal girls were taken from their families and pressed into domestic servitude by the Australian Government. They were supposedly employed as servants, but with total control over their movements, wages and living conditions, their lives all too frequently became an inescapable cycle of abuse, rape and enslavement, with consequences that echo powerfully to this day. Recounting the stories of five of these women – Rita, Violet and the three Wenberg sisters – Servant or Slave is a commanding piece of first-person testimony to a dark and unacknowledged corner of Australian history. Shot with admirable craft and humanity by documentarian Steven McGregor (Croker Island Exodus, MIFF 2012), Servant or Slave is a work of great sadness and urgency, bringing to forceful life the human tragedy of Australia's Indigenous history in the unadorned words of those who lived it.
When a brave high school student takes a stand against state-mandated BMI tests of her peers, she finds herself in the middle of a heated national controversy, sparking a battle of wills between herself and government officials.
Director-producer Andrew Wiseman began filming Richard and his family in 1989, making the documentaries Driving with Richard (1992) and Wonder Boy (2001) before On Richard's Side - the culmination of his 27-year project. Richard was born with a complex disability. He needs 24-hour care, seven days a week. Now in her early sixties, his mother Deirdre is apprehensive about her son's future. She is determined to build a circle of friends and carers for Richard, and to find him sustainable long-term accommodation. Wiseman's intimate documentary, enriched by Deirdre's impassioned voice, reveals just what it means to care for someone who needs care for life.
The Fall tells the remarkable story of a South African barefoot runner, an American track-and-field prodigy, and the events behind one of the most memorable moments in sporting history – the 1984 LA Olympics. The film charts two journeys, from rural South Africa under apartheid and the rolling hills of Southern California, to the starting line of the women’s 3,000 metres. It uncovers a tale of betrayal and exploitation, of the blurred lines between politics, media and sport, and of the dedication and sacrifice required to compete at the highest level. It’s a story that split governments and divided nations, but at its heart is a tale of two young women who, despite the turmoil in their lives, just wanted to run.
In the age of social media, nearly every day brings a new eruption of outrage. While people have always found something to be offended by, their ability to organize a groundswell of opposition to – and public censure of – their offender has never been more powerful. Today we're all one clumsy joke away from public ruin. Can We Take A Joke? offers a thought-provoking and wry exploration of outrage culture through the lens of stand-up comedy, with notables like Gilbert Gottfried, Penn Jillette, Lisa Lampanelli, and Adam Carolla detailing its stifling impact on comedy and the exchange of ideas. What will the future will be like if we can't learn how to take a joke?
HOMO SAPIENS is visionary documentarian Nikolaus Geyrhalter's exploration of the finiteness and fragility of human existence, the end of the industrial age, and what it means to be a human being. What will remain of our lives after we're gone? Empty spaces, ruins, cities, increasingly overgrown with vegetation, crumbling asphalt: the areas we currently inhabit, now abandoned and decaying, gradually reclaimed by nature. Comprised of a succession of eerily depopulated, dystopian landscapes from across the world, HOMO SAPIENS offers an at once mesmerizing and chilling vision of what a posthuman future might look like.
Poland, 1990. The first euphoric year of freedom, but also of uncertainty for the future. Four apparently happy women of different ages decide it's time to change their lives, and fulfill their desires.
Four teenage boys devote their summer to escaping the streets of Cleveland, Ohio, by pursuing a dream life of professional skateboarding. But when they get caught in the web of the local queenpin, their motley brotherhood is tested, threatening to make this summer their last.
In 1951, Marcus Messner, a working-class Jewish student from New Jersey, attends a small Ohio college, where he struggles with anti-Semitism, sexual repression, and the ongoing Korean War.
In 2013, in Cairo, a tragic fate brings together several detainees from different political and social backgrounds inside a police truck, during the turmoil that followed the ousting of president Morsi.
Morgan and Jean work well together as true crime podcasters because they didn’t work well, at all, as a couple. However, when Morgan strikes up a new relationship with the mysterious Simone, their shared interest turns into suspicion, paranoia, and fear.
A charming romance develops between a boy with one eye and an overweight girl, though when she loses weight after going to college, their relationship is tested in devastating ways they never dreamed would happen.
The danger is palpable as intrepid young filmmaker Nanfu Wang follows maverick activist Ye Haiyan (a.k.a Hooligan Sparrow) and her band of colleagues to Hainan Province in southern China to protest the case of six elementary school girls who were sexually abused by their principal. Marked as enemies of the state, the activists are under constant government surveillance and face interrogation, harassment, and imprisonment. Sparrow, who gained notoriety with her advocacy work for sex workers’ rights, continues to champion girls’ and women’s rights and arms herself with the power and reach of social media.
The chilling story of a young American boy living in France in 1918 whose father is working for the US government on the creation of the Treaty of Versailles. What he witnesses helps to mold his beliefs – and we witness the birth of a terrifying ego.
On a mission to sell his last remaining prize hog and reunite with old friends, an aging farmer abandons his foreclosed farm and journeys to Mexico. After smuggling in the hog, his estranged daughter shows up, forcing them to face their past and embark on an adventurous road trip together.
The principal of an elementary school calls a special parents meeting after it’s alleged that the seemingly empathetic and kindly-looking teacher Mrs. DrazdÄ›chová uses her students to manipulate their parents.
A paranormal-obsessed man mounts his own investigation into the beyond with his depressed best friend, misfit nephew, a cable access medium and an overeager security guard.
Rebecca must unlock the terror behind her little brother's experiences that once tested her sanity, bringing her face to face with a supernatural spirit attached to their mother.