Wild Combination is a visually absorbing portrait of the seminal avant-garde composer, singer-songwriter, cellist, and disco producer Arthur Russell. Before his death in 1992, Arthur prolifically created music that spanned both pop and the transcendent possibilities of abstract art. Now, over fifteen years since his passing, Arthur's work is finally finding its audience. Wolf incorporates rare archival footage and commentary from Arthur's family, friends, and closest collaborators to tell this poignant and important story.
In Minnesota’s unforgiving North Country, hockey is life. Over the course of a season, two rival high school programs—one an emergent dynasty, the other steeped in a proud legacy—strive for a coveted state championship. With the hopes of their towns behind them, boys on both sides cope with the pressures of adolescence along with the added burden of bringing glory to one of the country’s most hockey-crazed communities.
The film bears witness to German artist Anselm Kiefer's alchemical creative processes and renders in film, as a cinematic journey, the personal universe he has built at his hill-studio estate in the South of France.
Journalist Assia Boundaoui sets out to investigate long-brewing rumors that her quiet, predominantly Arab-American neighborhood was being monitored by the FBI.
In a fading Georgia town, a community recalls its dark past and faces a grim present. An undocumented immigrant, caught in legal limbo and facing deportation, contemplates his future. In the midst of it all, a massive, private immigration prison generates millions in profits. Where these stories meet, the hidden epicenter of America's immigration crackdown is revealed-a place called Lumpkin, GA.
From 1939 to 1942, in the village of Chabannes in central France, more than 400 Jewish children were hidden, schooled, and ultimately saved through the heroic efforts of the school's director and teachers and of Jewish rescue organizations that first got the children there, and then, as war closed around them, got all but a handful out safely. In 1996, two aged teachers and the children and their families reunite. Lisa Gossels, whose father and uncle were among the children, records it. Survivors' comments, photos and drawings from the war, footage of the school and town, and a celebration of the heroism and leadership of the school's director, Felix Chevrier, comprise the film.
“The Great 14th: Tenzin Gyatso, The 14th Dalai Lama In His Own Words", uniquely and exclusively features Tenzin Gyatso as both subject and narrator as he presents the full arc of his epic and very public life as the 14th Dalai Lama. Based on intimate conversations, it's a portrait both profound and inspiring.
Filmed over three years during the most historic and pivotal time in Nepal’s modern history, The Sari Soldiers is an extraordinary story of six women’s courageous efforts to shape Nepal’s future in the midst of an escalating civil war against Maoist insurgents, and the King’s crackdown on civil liberties. The Sari Soldiers follows Devi, a mother who's 15-year-old daughter is abducted by the army, and five other brave women, including Maoist Commander Kranti; Royal Nepal Army Officer Rajani; Krishna, a monarchist from a rural community who leads a rebellion against the Maoists; Mandira, a human rights lawyer; and Ram Kumari, a young student activist shaping the protests to reclaim democracy. The Sari Soldiers intimately delves into the extraordinary journey of these women on opposing sides of the conflict, through the democratic revolution that reshapes the country’s future.
Chewing gum sculptures, a wealthy gallerist, a notorious murder case, and the segregated south - it's all part of Nellie Mae Rowe's boundless universe. This World Is Not My Own reimagines this self-taught artist's world and her life spanning the 20th century.
An exploration – from Jean-Michel Basquiat to Grace Jones – of how black artists use the sci-fi genre to examine black history and imagine new, alternative futures.
A man suffers a minor car accident, and a week later constructs a new identity, claiming he can't "remember" being a father. Nearly twenty years later, his amnesia persists, yet no brain damage or physical cause are ever found. Enthralling and thought-provoking, "Forgetting Dad" offers an award-winning case study of dissociation, parental abandonment, and family enmenshment in mental illness.
In a community where silence is seen as necessary for survival, undocumented immigrant activist Angy Rivera joins a generation of Dreamers in a quest to come out of the shadows and claim her place in the only home she's ever known.
In a small Oregon community, a high school soccer team struggles to overcome class and racial divide in a quest for both individual and team success. While Domingo deals with the deportation of his father to Mexico, and Eric painfully learns how to become a captain and command the respect of his Mexican-American teammates, Coach Riviera struggles to keep the team together amidst the pressure of academics and athletics. This coming-of-age feature documentary focuses on the friendship and maturation of three characters and is set against the backdrop of a segregated American town. Will Domingo graduate? Will Eric become a leader? Will the Eagles win a state championship?
Just over the border in Mexico is an area peppered with maquiladoras: massive sweatshops often owned by the world's largest multinational corporations. Carmen and Lourdes work at maquiladoras in Tijuana, and it is there that they try to balance the struggle for survival with their own radicalization in this documentary.
“You gotta build your whole life in a room,” says one of the protagonists of this memorable documentary focused on residents of San Francisco SROs or single room occupancy housing. Available to people with lower incomes or those trying to get off the streets, the buildings are frequently cramped, often noisy, and sometimes riddled with vermin. The film tellingly reveals inhabitants who are diverse and complicated and have a wide variety of needs that these residences and their staffs are often unable to meet. From a single mother trying to find her missing daughter to an elderly woman who is going blind and facing eviction, to the two ex-addicts co-parenting their son, the film gives voice to the broad range of people struggling to keep a roof over their heads in one of the wealthiest cities in the country.