Happy is a 2011 feature documentary film directed, written, and co-produced by Roko Belic. It explores human happiness through interviews with people from all walks of life in 14 different countries, weaving in the newest findings of positive psychology. Director Roko Belic was originally inspired to create the film after producer/director Tom Shadyac (Liar, Liar, Patch Adams, Bruce Almighty) showed him an article in the New York Times entitled "A New Measure of Well Being From a Happy Little Kingdom". The article ranks the United States as the 23rd happiest country in the world. Shadyac then suggested that Belic make a documentary about happiness. Belic spent several years interviewing over 20 people, ranging from leading happiness researchers to a rickshaw driver in Kolkatta, a family living in a "co-housing community" in Denmark, a woman who was run over by a truck, a Cajun fisherman, and more.
The parallel stories of four Pakistani immigrants in Greece become the trigger for the director to explore the story of his father, a worker in the Perama Shipyard. The background unfolds a most deadly shipwreck, Libyan immigrants found in limbo, as well as a (possibly racist) crime, which was committed during the shooting of this film.
A young Orthodox priest, fed up with too much intolerance and hypocrisy at the Kyiv Pechery Lavra, decides to leave his service there. He finds for himself a new flock: gays, lesbians, bisexual and transgender people as well as those living with HIV/AIDS. However, the official Orthodox Church denies them in the right to be Christians and homophobic society compels them to hide their sexual orientation. What has to happen to make the Church embower LGBT believers?
On a Knife Edge is a father-son story about Guy and George Dull Knife that unfolds over the course of George’s coming-of-age journey. Under his father’s guidance, George becomes an activist and organizer, and begins identifying with the role of traditional Lakota warrior, which he views as his family legacy. He commits himself to the fight for social justice, but struggles with adapting the old ways and his father’s expectations to the modern-day realities of growing up on the Pine Ridge Reservation. Told largely through George’s eyes, the film offers a privileged glimpse into the youngest generation of the American Indian Movement, as well as George’s own evolving notions of Native identity, manhood, and duty. His story is interwoven with animated sequences that depict five generations of family history, narrated by his father and based on paintings he has created to explore the continuum of their fight through the generations.
In Fabrizio Terranova’s film, Donna Haraway – an original thinker and activist, one of the founders of cyberfeminism and the author of A Cyborg Manifesto, which proposed a number of innovative theories about the existence of scientific knowledge – calls for the abandonment of the idea of human exceptionalism and for a conception of the world as complex web of interconnections between people, animals and machines. Jellyfish can be seen flying around her home while she discusses the stories that are necessary for Earth’s preservation and reads her fantastic tale of the art of survival on a broken planet, and of fusion and care between the species.
Journalism in times of war has become an increasingly lethal and traumatic endeavor for the men and women who face constant threats to their lives and psyches. With the death toll skyrocketing from only two reporters killed in World War I to almost a journalist a week being killed in the last two decades, UNDER FIRE weaves together portraits, battlefield accounts and combat footage to reveal what the reporters see, think and feel. Martyn Burke, documentary filmmaker whose work has brought him to battlefields around the world, and Anthony Feinstein, the psychiatrist who works with journalists to heal the trauma, delve into the experiences of top tier correspondents from AP, New York Times, BBC, and LA Times, among others, bringing a unique understanding and insight into the psychological cost of covering war
A diverse cast of visionary teenagers, stirring public protests, private threats, criminal charges, and drama-filled school board meetings: this is the explosive world of BANNED TOGETHER. The film pulls back the curtain on two of the most controversial issues in America today: book bans and curriculum censorship in public schools.
In a mountain village in southwestern China, just south of Tibet, one of the last remaining traditional bearers of the Lisu ethnic group is amid the mountains of new changes seeping into every crevice of their lives. Will their tradition survive?
A core group of architects embraced the West Coast from Vancouver to LA with its particular geography and values and left behind a legacy of inspired dwellings. Today, architects celebrate the influence established by their predecessors.
After a tragic accident leaves Justin Wadlington blind in his left eye at age 5, he develops a unique artistic ability with no formal art training. Despite growing up without parents and living in emergency shelters on the streets of Philadelphia, Wadlington takes advantage of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and begins a journey of ascension to the highest echelon of the fine art world.
Follows Patty Gentry, a former chef, as she battles to earn a living on her three acre Early Girl Farm on Long Island. Isabella Rossellini, from whom Patty rents her land tells us, "Patty is the Picasso of vegetables!" The documentary upends the romance of farm-to-table – buying fresh produce directly from farmers markets and at farm stands is wonderful, but the farmer's life is a constant struggle. We watch Patty work her butt off (with her small, mostly female team) seven days a week, growing the vegetables her top chef clients treasure. Patty's passion is to constantly improve her soil, increase her yield of organic vegetables, and just as urgently scramble to stay afloat.
Army Aviators say they fly "above the best" see the lengths these heroes will go to, to protect the soldiers on the ground, and each other during intense combat in the most dangerous places on Earth.
In his 51 BIRCH STREET, one of the most highly praised personal documentaries of recent years, Doug Block took a hard look at his parents marriage and his own relationship with his father. With his latest film, Block turns in the other direction, offering an exceptionally moving film about his relationship with his only child, Lucy. THE KIDS GROW UP is a chronicle of Lucy's emotionally-fraught last year at home before leaving for college. Moving fluidly between past, present and the fast-approaching future, Block uses a lifetime of footage to craft not only a loving portrait of a girl transitioning into womanhood, but also an incredibly candid look at modern-day parenting, marriage, and what it means to let go.
In 1985 a picturesque Argentinian holiday town was completely flooded, not to re-emerge until 2009. Now only Pablo remains in this modern day Atlantis.
Part jazz history, part true-crime tale, Kasper Collin’s new documentary employs extensive archival footage and new interviews to tell the tragic story of the magnificently talented trumpeter Lee Morgan and his common-law wife Helen, who murdered him in a New York bar in 1972.
Comedian Bonnie McFarlane dons her investigative journalist's hat to find out once and for all if women are funny and report her unbiased findings in what some are calling the most important documentary of our generation.