Popular Documentary Movies on Kanopy - Page 253

A Death in St. Augustine

2013

A Death in St. Augustine

2013
6
On the night she broke up with her boyfriend, a Florida deputy sheriff, Michelle O'Connell was found dead from a gunshot in the mouth. Next to her was her boyfriend's semi-automatic service pistol. The sheriff's office called it suicide, but was it? FRONTLINE and The New York Times investigate this death of a young, single mother, and what can go wrong when the police are faced with domestic violence allegations within their own ranks.
Answering the Call

2016

Answering the Call

2016
The bloody attacks on protesters in Selma in 1965 led to the historic protection of all Americans' right to vote. The film explores a cherished family story of Selma and the current state of voter suppression in America.
Sons of Namatjira

1975

Sons of Namatjira

1975
9
One of Curtis Levy’s finest documentaries, Sons of Namatjira, follows Keith and his wife, Isabel, and other relatives, in their interactions with the wider world including art galleries in town and bus-loads of middle-aged tourists from the big cities. The film highlights communication difficulties between black and white, and in Levy’s terms, becomes “a parable of black-white relations in Australia”.
Intimate Stranger

1991

Intimate Stranger

1991
6.2
A documentary about the director's maternal grandfather.
What Is Democracy?

2018

What Is Democracy?

2018
6
A vast, timely, and often chilling investigation into the idea and practice of democracy, ranging from Ancient Greece and Renaissance Europe to civil rights, fears of voter fraud, and the spectre of authoritarianism.
Julie Mehretu: Palimpsest

2021

Julie Mehretu: Palimpsest

2021
The film traces Ethiopian abstract artist Julie Mehretu’s preparations for her 20 year career retrospective, leading up to the installation and realization of the survey at LACMA in 2019. The artist offers extensive commentary on her work, her process, and the chronology of her career, from her graduate work at RISD (1996–97) to her current expansive multi-layered canvases.
Homo Sapiens 1900

1998

Homo Sapiens 1900

1998
6.9
Homo Sapiens 1900 is a 1998 documentary directed by Peter Cohen, about various eugenics methods that were in practice in Europe during the first part of the 20th century. Eugenics is to be the scientific credo of the 20th century. The man credited with its invention, Francis Galton, says it is based on the concept that the evolution of man is crippled by the ill-conceived - those unfit to breed. The study of eugenics thus would concern itself with distinguishing the weed from the good flowers.
Children in Crisis: The Story of CHIP

2024

Children in Crisis: The Story of CHIP

2024
In the midst of a catastrophic steel industry collapse, a remarkable grassroots community effort leads to a national healthcare program that helps more than 200 million children...and counting.
Secrets in Our DNA

2021

Secrets in Our DNA

2021
Some 30 million Americans have sent their DNA to be analyzed by companies like 23andMe and AncestryDNA, hoping to obtain clues to family origins and forecasts of their future health. Some users have found family members and discovered lurking genetic risks. But what happens once the sample is in the hands of testing companies? What are they looking at and how accurate are their results?
A Boy Named Sue

2000

A Boy Named Sue

2000
2.3
A Boy Named Sue chronicles the transformation of a transsexual named Theo from a woman to a man over the course of six years. Following Theo's physiological and psychological changes during the process, as well as their effects on his lesbian lover and community of close friends, A Boy Named Sue tells a story about gender identity, relationships, and how even things that seem permanent can change.
Root Hog or Die

1978

Root Hog or Die

1978
Root Hog or Die is a portrait of a living remnant of this once pervasive but rapidly vanishing way of life. Filmed in 1973 in hilltowns across Western Massachusetts and Southern Vermont, it follows the cycle of the farming year from spring to winter. In its course we visit with an array of elders, who reflect on farming's deep natural patterns, share their family histories and personal memories, and ponder the inevitable forces of technological and social change they have endured. The bittersweet nature of their challenges is manifest, as is the quiet pride they take in their lives as farmers.
Fenceline

2002

Fenceline

2002
African-American residents in Norco, Louisiana, who believe that increasing pollution is negatively impacting their health, demand to be relocated from under the shadow of a Shell oil refinery.
Viracocha

1974

Viracocha

1974
Viracocha features mestizos and campesinos in the Andean highlands interacting within a near-subsistance economic system. Market days and fiestas provide opportunities for Spanish-speaking mestizos, alternately benign and abusive, to assert their traditional social dominance over the Aymara and Quechua campesinos.
Rosalie's Journey

2003

Rosalie's Journey

2003
In 1955, filmmaker Chauvel debuted Jedda. His star was a young Arrernte woman from Alice Springs named Ngarla Kunoth, or Rosalie. Her story, the story of what happened before and after Chauvel's film, is told in Rosalie's Journey.
Alvaro Siza: Transforming Reality

2003

Alvaro Siza: Transforming Reality

2003
In Alvaro Siza: Transforming Reality Portugal's renowned architect reviews his work with architectural historian, Kenneth Frampton. While touring his projects Siza discusses his approach to architecture, explaining that it is centered around the idea that setting is integral to design and that a structure should be reinforced by surroundings that both enhance and highlight its potential.
Descending the Mountain

2021

Descending the Mountain

2021
7
What happens if you give magic mushrooms (psilocibine) to experienced Zen practitioners who have never used drugs? What does that teach us about the mystical experience of oneness with nature? Based on these questions, psychiatrist Franz Vollenweider and Zen master Vanja Palmers set up a legal science experiment in a monastery at the top of Mount Rigi in Switzerland. Exactly 50 years after the magic mushrooms were officially banned, a new story begins in what is now called the “psychedelic renaissance”. While in 2021 most studies with psychedelics mainly focus on their promising medical applications, Frans and Vanja are already going a step further. Can the combination of meditation and psilocibin help humanity get out of the mess we have created on ourselves and the planet with our neo-liberal society?
Global Homophobia: The Roots of Hatred

2019

Global Homophobia: The Roots of Hatred

2019
This hard-hitting documentary reveals the abuse suffered by the gay community all over the world. France, despite having legalized gay marriage in 2013, has seen a rise in homophobic violence in recent years. In Tunisia, gay people can be sentenced to three years in prison, simply for their sexual orientation. When arrested by the police, they are subject to an “anal examination”, a humiliating procedure of no scientific value. Uganda is one of the 27 sub-Saharan countries in which homosexuality is repressed, with active state-encouragement of homophobia, and where homosexuality is punishable by lifetime imprisonment. In the United States, more progressive laws have not translated into progressive attitudes. 700,000 Americans, in a desperate attempt to change their sexual orientation, have gone to see therapists who claim to be able to “transform any homosexual into a heterosexual.”
A Game of Three Halves: Where the F%*ck Is Hamish?

2021

A Game of Three Halves: Where the F%*ck Is Hamish?

2021
Guts and glory are at stake in the Saturday recreational soccer league. This hilarious animation perfectly captures the highs and lows of coaxing together a motley crew to show up on time and game ready every week, but at the end of the day it's all worth it for the beautiful game.
The Painter Came From a Foreign Land

1989

The Painter Came From a Foreign Land

1989
In this film, Dammbeck explores his own decision to relocate to Hamburg, West Germany, and tries to sort out his past as an artist. In the process, he interviews artists Cornelia Schleime, Hans-Hendrik Grimmling, and Hans Scheib, who had been core members of the alternative art scene in East Germany. They had all worked together in the 8mm scene and organized or planned multimedia and crossover exhibitions, including Tangents I in 1976-77 and the First Leipzig Autumn Salon in 1984. Each left for West Germany in the mid-1980s. What has become of their former artistic strategies and positions? How do they deal with their past? What is the force behind their art now? And how do they cope with the western art market?
The Secrets of the Dead Sea Scrolls

1999

The Secrets of the Dead Sea Scrolls

1999
Even as scientists work diligently to authenticate the Dead Sea Scrolls, a historical and momentous find for archaeologists, questions surface about their true origin. Who wrote them? Did they truly know Jesus? And what do the scrolls mean for modern-day Christianity? This riveting documentary aims to find the answers to these and many other questions and shares new information about this important archaeological artifact.