Popular Documentary Movies on Kanopy - Page 297

The Last Village

2013

The Last Village

2013
In Gansu Province, the Minquin community struggles with the affects of desertification. Surrounded by the Tengri and Badanjilin deserts, the villages of the region are beginning to be engulfed underneath sand dunes. Many villagers decide to leave their homeland. However, several elders have chosen to stay. They prefer instead to remain close to their roots and try to fight against desertification by planting trees. Following the story of these peoples, we are immersed in one of the worldwide ecological battles of the 21st Century. Desertification is a problem that largely overwhelms the Chinese frontiers. But on a broader scale, many environmental specialists claim that one third of the earth's surfaces are threatened by this phenomenon. It is a story we should all heed.
Gustav Stickley: American Craftsman

2021

Gustav Stickley: American Craftsman

2021
The dramatic story of American furniture designer, architect and early lifestyle entrepreneur Gustav Stickley and his rise, fall and eventual resurrection as an icon and founder of the first true "American style".
Plastic Wars

2020

Plastic Wars

2020
With the plastic industry expanding like never before and the crisis of ocean pollution growing, FRONTLINE and NPR investigate the fight over the future of plastics.
Past Life (January - June)

2019

Past Life (January - June)

2019
An abstract narrative, diary film and travelogue reminiscing on the quotidian. My day to day routines and deviations from it are captured as 6 months pass on the screen in a blur. Musique concrète accompanies the visuals taken from vocal samples of myself as a child and repurposed. Ruminations on nostalgia, film as material and 16mm as a particularly evocative medium with a long history of home movies and nonprofessional filmmaking. The film acts as a document, archiving time and place, as a way for me to recount where and what I did at this point in my life-a point where I still feel an existential drifting and listlessness. Something to look back at and only make sense of after the fact.
Terror and Hope: The Science of Resilience

2020

Terror and Hope: The Science of Resilience

2020
A close examination of the effect of toxic stress on children living in war zones.
Battleground

2020

Battleground

2020
Battleground is an intimate look at our current political divide, as seen through the eyes of two grassroots activists in the pivot counties of the Lehigh Valley, PA. Tom Carroll is a Trump delegate, and a Tea Party Chairman. Greg Edwards is a Black pastor, and a progressive leader supported by Bernie Sanders. When their paths collide, we realize that they have much more in common than meets the eye.
Breach of Trust

2020

Breach of Trust

2020
In 2018 it came to light that Dr. George Tyndall, the gynecologist at the University of Southern California's student health center, had been engaging in sexual assault for decades. With hundreds of accusations, how had he escaped punishment? A story of abuse and institutional enablement told from the point of view of the women advocating for change.
Crossing Midnight

2009

Crossing Midnight

2009
One million on the run in the jungles of Eastern Burma. One visionary community fighting to save their own. The award winning documentary, Crossing Midnight, is set on the border of Thailand and Eastern Burma. Crossing Midnight tells the story of a remarkable community of refugees from Burma working against incredible odds to help their own.
Colobane Express

1999

Colobane Express

1999
8
Public vans provide the traditional and sole means of city transportation in Dakar, Senegal. In a frenzy of activity, from the outskirts to downtown, people from all walks of life as well as fruits, vegetables, chickens, etc. are transported daily in these public vans.
My Land

2009

My Land

2009
Raised in a small farming village in the mountains of southern Peru, Feliciano works as a porter on the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu in hopes of some day taking his son to live in the city. Framed by the seasons, Mi Chacra chronicles one year in Feliciano’s life, from the planting season in his community to the harvest, and through a season of work on the Inca Trail. The film paints a vivid picture of this man’s world, of the conflict between his love of the land and the work he has learned from his father, and the desire to see his son living what he sees as a better life in the city.
Mixed Messages

1990

Mixed Messages

1990
An experimental video collage that incorporates found footage, performance, interviews with young girls, documentary, animation, images from advertising and television, and a dream narrative in a work that examines gender-stereotyping in popular culture, concluding with a post-modern version of the Pandora myth.
Occupation: Native

2017

Occupation: Native

2017
9
The Aboriginal story has been buried deep beneath the 247-year-old accepted Australian narrative. In OCCUPATION: NATIVE, Aboriginal filmmaker Trisha Morton-Thomas, bites back at Australian history.
Liberdade é uma Palavra

2020

Liberdade é uma Palavra

2020
Vespasiano, in the interior of Minas Gerais, is home to one of the few national penitentiaries specifically for pregnant women and mothers with young children. Guided by these women, we entered fragments of the daily life of the prison unit: evangelical services, conversations, confessions, doodles, vanity, fear, censorship, punishment, longing, memory and the constant struggle for the experience of motherhood.
Perfect Compost: a Master Class with Peter Proctor

2012

Perfect Compost: a Master Class with Peter Proctor

2012
Peter Proctor is New Zealand's father of biodynamic agriculture. Peter has been gardening and making compost for over 65 years. "Biodymanics makes organics work." Compost is the fundamental element in all gardening & farming. This master class takes you through the biodynamic compost making process from gathering and assembling your materials to creating the perfect compost heap. Rudolf Steiner believed biodynamic compoast was the foundation of humanity and the vital link between the cosmos and the earth. In Perfect Compost, Peter Proctor walks you through every step to building perfect compost.
John Szarkowski on Ansel Adams: Speaking of Art

2004

John Szarkowski on Ansel Adams: Speaking of Art

2004
During his nearly three-decade tenure as Director of the Department of Photography (1962-1991) at The Museum of Modern Art in New York, John Szarkowski recast the world's thinking about the art of photography. In this lecture on Ansel Adams, Szarkowski tackles the deeper significance of Adams' work beyond his enduring popularity as an environmental pioneer and rhapsodist of the American West.
Sex Trafficking in America

2019

Sex Trafficking in America

2019
10
Exposing the hidden reality of sex trafficking, inside a police unit and a victim s harrowing story. Filmed over three years, a look at how victims are groomed and sold and innovative ways undercover police target traffickers and buyers.
Fidelandia: Behind the Curtain of Cuban's Revolution

2017

Fidelandia: Behind the Curtain of Cuban's Revolution

2017
6
There was a historical reason for the Cuban revolution. After all these years, there might be some who still think it a great thing, but it doesn't work for everyone. This film is the story of those people who it doesn't work for. The youth fights for an opportunity to experience "Western freedom", the elderly express their sadness, anger, frustrations, and hopes of a Cuba they fear will never come.
Hamtramck, USA

2020

Hamtramck, USA

2020
Once known as a Polish Catholic town, Hamtramck, MI is now home to America’s first Muslim-majority city. As election season approaches, candidates set out to win hearts, minds and votes in this rapidly changing city. Going behind the scenes of small-town politics, HAMTRAMCK, USA explores the beauty and challenges that come with multiculturalism.
Riders of the Purple Sage: The Making of a Western Opera

2020

Riders of the Purple Sage: The Making of a Western Opera

2020
Follow a classically trained composer as he adapts a dime novel masterpiece into a grand opera. In 1912, Zane Grey's Riders of the Purple Sage flew off bookshelves around the world and today is considered iconic. A century later, Craig Bohmler and a team of musicians, singers, and painters translate cowboy culture and the beauty of the west into the realm of Puccini and Verdi.
Opeka

2020

Opeka

2020
7
Pedro Opeka declined an opportunity to play professional soccer in his native Buenos Aires and realize his childhood dream. He chose instead to become a missionary and live in one of the poorest countries in the world. The son of a bricklayer, he convinced destitute families living in Madagascar’s largest landfill that he could teach them how to build their own houses and, in the process, build their dignity. After 30 years of construction, fighting increasing poverty and political instability, Father Pedro has created a highly functional city within this dysfunctional island nation. His mission is to prepare the children he saves to one day save their own country.