During the Fall of 2021, Ukraine was slowly emerging from a global pandemic. Around this time, a film crew began shooting a documentary focused on the country’s wine-making regions. Then, in 2022, things took a sharp turn when Russia escalated a war against Ukraine. This film tells the stories of hard-working people who, against all odds, remain engaged in continuing in business.
The Art of Antony Gormley features the documentary Antony Gormley and the 4th Plinth, produced for Sky Arts, which reveals the background to this living monument and explores its origins in the sculptor's beautiful and mysterious art. Works created across more than two decades were filmed in HD for this visually sumptuous and thought-provoking documentary.
When doctors diagnosed 19-year-old rock star Jason Becker with Lou Gehrig's Disease, they said he would never make music again and that he wouldn’t live to see his 25th birthday. 22 years later, without the ability to move or to speak, Jason is alive and making music with his eyes.
The documentary follows the life of former Femen member Amina Sboui and the community of LGBTQ+ friends she houses in her Tunisian home. Offering unparalleled insight into life following the Arab Spring, social persecution, and political struggle, from a queer perspective. Dive into the stories of Amina's strong and enchanting group of LGBTQ+ loves and comrades: Sandra, Ramy, Ayoub, and Atef, as they bond and build a queer community against a backdrop of global trauma and struggle.
Known for his bold, abstract and stark white buildings, American architect Richard Meier now takes on the challenge of building the Jubilee Church in Rome. Holding the location in high regard, Meier praises the vibrant visual layout of the city and tells us, "Rome is a city of architecture; it's a city of walls and columns and spaces and places and defined places and wherever you look there's architecture" (Richard Meier). Staying true to his signature design style, Meier has created a structure resembling grand soaring sails which appear steady and peaceful as they stand in striking opposition to the city's landscape. Three curved walls separate three distinct spaces: the main sanctuary, the weekday chapel and the baptistry, each with its own entrance. As a contrast he shows us his favorite churches in Rome by his famous colleagues from earlier times.
This stylish documentary about the iconic ska, reggae and rock-steady label is a timely and wide-ranging celebration of british Jamaican working-class youth culture.
Dwarves Kingdom is a documentary film about a theme park featuring performances by little people with dwarfism who live in a fantasy recreation of a magical empire. Built by a wealthy Chinese businessman, this other-worldly kingdom, officially called World Ecological Garden of Butterfly and Little People Kingdom, is located in the mountains surrounding the city of Kunming in Western China.
In this epic story of American politics, race, and triumph against all odds, director Joe Winston chronicles the captivating rise, surprising reign, and enduring legacy of Chicago’s first African American Mayor, Harold Washington. Steeped in archival footage capturing a 1980s Chicago rife with corruption and discrimination, Punch 9 features candid interviews with Jessie Jackson, Vice Mayor Richard Mell, and others on the frontlines and in the backrooms of power as it follows the charismatic politician’s shrewd maneuverings, stinging betrayals, and unlikely victories. Inspiring and compelling, Washington’s journey continues to resonate for a city and nation confronting the same enduring social issues.
Parents, educators, students and college admissions professionals all intimately understand the financial, emotional and intellectual burden of the SAT/ACT—tests that are not only an integral part of the college admissions process for most American students, but also can be a rite of passage for teenagers in the United States. Even as adults, few of us forget our score, or how we felt about what it took to earn it. The Test & the Art of Thinking traces the history and evolution of the SAT/ACT as a major player on the pathway to higher education in America, and it documents its current power in our culture. In so doing, it strives to support individuals who are embarking on the road to college, by examining what the SAT/ACT measures and means, and asking a range of educational leaders, admissions professionals and stakeholders in the test—from tutors to parents to test designers—to grapple with the test’s use, ramifications and future.
Raising Bertie is a longitudinal documentary feature following three young African American boys over the course of six years as they grow into adulthood in Bertie County, a rural African American-led community in Eastern North Carolina. Through the intimate portrayal of these boys, this powerful vérité film offers a rare in-depth look at the issues facing America's rural youth and the complex relationships between generational poverty, educational equity, and race. The evocative result is an experience that encourages us to recognize the value and complexity in lives all too often ignored.
What’s it like to dedicate your life to work that won’t be completed in your lifetime? Fifteen years ago, filmmaker David Licata focused on four projects and the people behind them in an effort to answer this universal question.
With credits including Strictly Ballroom, Muriel’s Wedding, The Dish, Moulin Rouge!, Romeo + Juliet and Road to Perdition Jill Bilcock is regarded as one the world’s great film editors. Axel Grigor’s hugely entertaining documentary traces Bilcock’s journey from Melbourne film student in the 1960s to working as an extra in Bollywood movies and learning her craft when Australia had virtually no feature film industry. Bilcock’s cheeky charm and illuminating appearances by key collaborators make this a must-see for film lovers.
Documentary of the Symposium on the Dialectics of Liberation and the Demystification of Violence, held in London, July 1967, organized by R.D.Laing, with Stokely Carmichael, Allen Ginsberg, Paul Goodman, Herbert Marcuse, John Gerassi, and many others. An important record of the spectrum of left-wing politics and personalities during the turbulent Sixties.
On May 8, 1970, construction workers violently clashed with students demonstrating against the Vietnam War in lower Manhattan. The workmen, who came to be known as “hardhats,” were at the cutting edge of a new kind of class war. With the war in Vietnam raging on, it was the sons of the working class who were doing most of the fighting. Workmen saw the protesting students as privileged “draft dodgers” disparaging the country and those who fought for it. On the other side, many student activists saw the workers as pawns, unwilling to see the changes that America needed. Hard Hat Riot tells the story of a struggling metropolis, a flailing president, a divided people, and a bloody juncture when the nation violently diverged ― culminating in a new political and cultural landscape that radically redefined American politics and foreshadowed the future.