Popular Documentary Movies on Kanopy - Page 202

NOVA: Prediction by the Numbers

2018

NOVA: Prediction by the Numbers

2018
5.8
Predictions underlie nearly every aspect of our lives, from sports, politics, and medical decisions to the morning commute. With the explosion of digital technology, the internet, and 'big data,' the science of forecasting is flourishing. But why do some predictions succeed spectacularly while others fail abysmally? And how can we find meaningful patterns amidst chaos and uncertainty? From the glitz of casinos and TV game shows to the life-and-death stakes of storm forecasts and the flaws of opinion polls that can swing an election, 'Prediction by the Numbers' explores stories of statistics in action. Yet advances in machine learning and big data models that increasingly rule our lives are also posing big, disturbing questions. How much should we trust predictions made by algorithms when we don't understand how they arrive at them? And how far ahead can we really forecast?
Carved from the Heart

1997

Carved from the Heart

1997
One man loses his son to a cocaine overdose. Grieving, Stan Marsden, a Tsimpsean wood carver decides to create a totem pole in his son's memory and invites the town of Craig, Alaska to help. Before he is done, the pole becomes a communal project, bringing people of diverse backgrounds and ages together.
Honey at the Top

2015

Honey at the Top

2015
Honey at the Top is a film about the Sengwer forest people of the Cherangani Hills, Kenya, being evicted from their ancestral land in the name of conservation. The film centres around father of two Elias as he works with his community to try and hold onto their culture and resist the evictions. It is an intimate portrait of this community at a crossroads, facing international pressure from organisations like the World Bank, a corrupt Kenya Forest Service who are burning their houses and attempts to turn the forest into a commodity through carbon offsetting schemes.
How It Feels to Be Free

2021

How It Feels to Be Free

2021
Tells the inspiring story of how six iconic African American female entertainers – Lena Horne, Abbey Lincoln, Nina Simone, Diahann Carroll, Cicely Tyson and Pam Grier – challenged an entertainment industry deeply complicit in perpetuating racist stereotypes, and transformed themselves and their audiences in the process.
Changing Our Minds: The Story of Dr. Evelyn Hooker

1992

Changing Our Minds: The Story of Dr. Evelyn Hooker

1992
3.6
The life and work of the woman described as "The Rosa Parks of Gay Rights". During the repressive 1950's, Dr. Evelyn Hooker undertook ground breaking research that led to a radical discovery: homosexuals were not, by definition, "sick." Dr. Hooker's finding sent shock waves through the psychiatric community and culminated in a major victory for gay rights: in 1974 the weight of her studies, along with gay activism, forced the American Psychiatric Association to remove homosexuality from its official manual of mental disorders. Startling archival footage of the medical procedure used to "cure" homosexuality, images from the underground gay world of the McCarthy era, and home movies of literary icon Christopher Isherwood bring to life history which we must never forget.
Call Me Waya

2025

Call Me Waya

2025
6
CALL ME WAYA follows a Cuban octogenarian “Outsider” artist’s work and tumultuous life trajectory, inviting friends and family to reflect on the consequences and wonders of his bohemian lifestyle.
The Harrisville Haunting: The Real Conjuring House

2022

The Harrisville Haunting: The Real Conjuring House

2022
3.5
Four paranormal researchers and YouTubers document the paranormal claims of the Harrisville Farmhouse. The inspiration for the well known movie "The Conjuring". Is it truly haunted?
For They Know Not What They Do

2019

For They Know Not What They Do

2019
6
When the Supreme Court legalized marriage equality, the backlash by the religious right was swift, severe, and successful. Karslake’s documentary looks at four faith-based families with LGBTQ children caught in the crosshairs of sexuality, identity, and scripture.
Sound of Heimat - Deutschland singt

2012

Sound of Heimat - Deutschland singt

2012
8.5
In the musical road movie, New Zealand musician Hayden Chisholm sets out on a journey of discovery across Germany in search of German folk music. As a stranger with an unbiased view of German culture and an open ear for the lyrics and melodies of modern and traditional musicians, he encounters a lively diversity of regional customs and activities. In Sound of Heimat – Deutschland singt, directors Arne Birkenstock and Jan Tengeler also shed light on the ambivalent attitude toward folk music and the understanding of one's own homeland that is so widespread in Germany. These are topics that have been forgotten in many places due to past ideologization and the "ideal world" of the Musikantenstadl.
Soul of a Farmer

2021

Soul of a Farmer

2021
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.
Woolly

2024

Woolly

2024
The director follows her sister Rakel as she takes over the family farm; she will be the fourth generation to run the farm. With her wife Ida, she is packing up her life as a musician and heading north. Rakel is enthusiastic, but she is also aware that there is a lot she doesn’t know how to handle. Her wife Ida has never lived on a farm before and will also have to find her place in this new everyday life and this unfamiliar work. Rakel’s father has been a farmer for 40 years and knows the challenges ahead of her: years when spring never arrives, summers with significant losses to predators, poor harvests, and sheep on the run.
Shirley Temple: America's Little Darling

1993

Shirley Temple: America's Little Darling

1993
There never was a star quite like her. Adored by adults and children alike, at four she already led at the box office — ahead of Gable and Cooper. Her films saved a movie studio from bankruptcy, and a President credited her with raising the morale of Depression-weary Americans. Her earliest movies gave a foretaste of her talents and soon would become the songs and dances that helped make those movies immortal.
Atomic: Living in Dread and Promise

2015

Atomic: Living in Dread and Promise

2015
6.6
Using only archive film and a new musical score by the band Mogwai, Mark Cousins presents an impressionistic kaleidoscope of our nuclear times – protest marches, Cold War sabre-rattling, Chernobyl and Fukishima – but also the sublime beauty of the atomic world, and how x-rays and MRI scans have improved human lives. The nuclear age has been a nightmare, but dreamlike too.
9 Variations on a Dance Theme

1967

9 Variations on a Dance Theme

1967
6.9
Bettie de Jong performs the same dance nine times, starting and ending in a reclined position. As the film proceeds the camera becomes more and more adventurous.
Rampart

2021

Rampart

2021
6.5
Marko spends time in the abandoned apartment of his childhood in Belgrade. Traces of the past are being drawn and memories, both idyllic and traumatic, are combined. The family VHS archive shows his universe during 1998 and 1999: gatherings, pets, videogames, and moments of uncertainty reveal a common life embraced by an historical event.
The Climate Baby Dilemma

2022

The Climate Baby Dilemma

2022
9
Deciding whether to have a child is an emotionally fraught and deeply personal process. Deciding amid increasingly dire warnings about the climate makes it even more paralyzing. The Climate Baby Dilemma is a documentary charting the growing number of young people either refusing to bring a child into an increasingly unstable world or struggling with the ethics of whether they should or not. As the conversation about intimacy and climate change heats up, we meet activists, journalists, parents and prospective parents, ethicists and scientists to unpack this growing trend.
Mae West: Dirty Blonde

2020

Mae West: Dirty Blonde

2020
6.8
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.
Zambezi

2012

Zambezi

2012
Africa's wildest river is home to the most spectacular wildlife. Hippos fight for territory while herds of elephant, water buffalo and zebra depend on it for life. In the wet season the rains burst the riverbanks and everyone, including people, must move whilst fish swim through the villages. In the dry season the creatures fight over the few pools of water while predators prowl. At its heart it plunges over Victoria Falls and into wild ravines before draining into the Indian Ocean, where storm clouds cycle the water back into the heart of Africa.
Fight the Power: The Movements That Changed America

2021

Fight the Power: The Movements That Changed America

2021
“Looks at the impact key movements throughout U.S. history have had in shaping our society, laws and culture. From the labor movement of the 1880s, women's suffrage and civil rights, to the LGBTQ+ and Black Lives Matter movements, protest is in the American DNA and this documentary gives an unfiltered look at the ways it has evolved the world in which we live.”
White Supremacy: Going Under

2016

White Supremacy: Going Under

2016
1
Combining reenactments and interviews with the primary players involved, three separate cases in the early 1990s of individuals going undercover to infiltrate and thus bring down white supremacist activities are presented. This documentary posits that such undercover operations are one of if not the most most effective means of stopping these white supremacist activities.