Popular Documentary Movies on Kanopy - Page 306

War on the EPA

2017

War on the EPA

2017
Investigates how Scott Pruit, a former state senator and minor league baseball team owner, went from fighting the Environmental Protection Agency to running it, rolling back years of policy. FRONTLINE tells the inside story of how the major reversal of the Clean Power Plan and other environmental policy rollbacks happened; how President Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency administrator, Scott Pruitt, went from fighting the federal agency to running it; and how the anti-regulatory and anti-climate change science movements in America reached a moment of triumph.
The Nuclear Requiem: The Nuclear World Project

2016

The Nuclear Requiem: The Nuclear World Project

2016
For over seven decades the nuclear bomb has been a presence in our lives. The Nuclear Requiem is a meditation, based on a journey taken during the 70th anniversary, with voices representing different views on the continuing struggle of dealing with the most lethal weapon ever created, the nuclear weapon.
It's A Long Road Back

1981

It's A Long Road Back

1981
Made by Oomera (Coral) Edwards on Super 8mm film as a training exercise at the (then) Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies in Canberra. The film surveys the New South Wales policy of taking Aboriginal children from their families and putting them in institutions run by the Aborigines Welfare Board. From 1883 to 1969, this policy deprived generations of children of their Aboriginal identity. Oomera was one of these children, and she discusses her own struggle to regain her Aboriginality.
Ngat is Dead: Studying Mortuary Traditions

2007

Ngat is Dead: Studying Mortuary Traditions

2007
What do anthropologists mean when they claim to study the cultural traditions of others by participating in them? This film follows the Dutch anthropologist Ton Otto, who has been adopted by a family on Baluan Island in Papua New Guinea. Due to the death of his adoptive father, he has to take part in mortuary ceremonies, whose form and content are passionately contested by different groups of relatives. Through prolonged negotiations, Ton learns how Baluan people perform and transform their traditions and not least what role he plays himself. The film is part of long-term field research, in which filmmaking has become integrated in the ongoing dialogue and exchange between the islanders and the anthropologist.
Birds & People - Ganz verrückt auf Vögel

2015

Birds & People - Ganz verrückt auf Vögel

2015
Qudad, Re-Inventing a Tradition

2004

Qudad, Re-Inventing a Tradition

2004
This documentary follows a group of Yemeni masons as they restore the 16th century Amiriya Madrasa using ancient—and uniquely Yemeni—techniques. Through this project they not only renovate and protect a revered landmark, but also ensure that their rare craft will not be lost.
Love in the Time of Corona

2021

Love in the Time of Corona

2021
After the pandemic separates them, an international couple writes long-distance letters to each other while they face uncertainty and wait to be reunited.
Dear Lisa: A Letter to My Sister

1991

Dear Lisa: A Letter to My Sister

1991
8
The filmmaker questions her sister, herself and others about the dreams and hopes they had growing up as girls in contrast to the reality they face as women.
(un)veiled

2007

(un)veiled

2007
(UN)VEILED introduces the audience to ten Muslim women from various backgrounds who now live in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown

1987

Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown

1987
Driven by their mutual admiration of classical architecture, Robert Venturi and Denise Scott-Brown have worked together to create a space of unique post-Modernist construction. Filmed during the design and realization of the Sainsbury extension to the National Gallery in London, the husband and wife team discuss their past work and the shared principles that led to their precise, historically inspired approach to modern architecture.
A Hard Life

1996

A Hard Life

1996
Kalliopi Kalogerou has spent her whole life in the Greek village of Ano Ravenia where she was born in 1900. Simple witness of the century, she lived through Turkish domination and successive occupations linked to different wars. Most of her family stays elsewhere, in Greece or abroad (USA, Canada, Germany, Bulgaria); her shattered family world is representative of the Greek diaspora. The film is exclusively devoted to her life story, told to a young Epirot friend, Eleni Pangratiou-Alexakis, and to her daughter, Evguenia, both of whom have settled in the States. The result is a rich, yet austere film where nothing distracts the viewer from the dialogue and the face of the storyteller. It also constitutes an ordinary yet important testimony on this long and painful page of Greek history (1900-1983).
Moon Wars (el nuevo campo de batalla)

2019

Moon Wars (el nuevo campo de batalla)

2019
The New Shelter

2012

The New Shelter

2012
A terrible flood destroys the home of the AH family in a small village in China's Southern Guangdong province. Life was already a constant struggle for them, but this disaster turns their existence into a nightmare. Over a period of 12-months the filmmaker follows the family during the challenging period of building a new shelter. During this time they will have to confront many obstacles, material and emotional as well as those associated with local and regional governments, which in the end profoundly changes them forever.
The Final Migration

2012

The Final Migration

2012
In this documentary, we follow the twenty-three families strong nomadic Guoshan tribe, a sub-group of Yaos. They follow a thousand year old tradition of selecting a new temporary home every two or three generations, usually distancing themselves from their previous temp-home by several hundreds of miles. Provided now with a substantial piece of land for them to build their own permanent village and farm their own land, the tribe's leader as well as thirty members decide to precede the tribe's move. Although they have a strong sense of community they are used to operating individually for their survival. In this instance, as they learn to become farmers, it has been decided between them to operate under a collective scheme, just as in the early days of China's communist revolution.
Piano Dream

2013

Piano Dream

2013
Yin Hong and her husband were born in the 50's. The Cultural Revolution dramatically impacted their youth; there was no place for any artistic expression. Yet they loved music and they have a gifted son, Lu Nan, who today is 15 year's old. "Piano Dream" is a story about parents investing everything they have for their only child's success. It is a dream journey binding two generations. The film brings attention to a woman's choice and fate, probing the impact of her dream on her son's maturation and their relationship. It shows the son's bitterness to a point where one asks oneself if the mother's dream is not becoming her son's nightmare. Filmed over a period of nearly three years, this documentary keeps faithful to real life, but maintains a poetic feel.
Of Mothers and Daughters

2012

Of Mothers and Daughters

2012
There are more than 2,500 pensioners living in a large private retirement home located in a suburb of Canton (Guangzhou), China. As we discover the daily lives of these people, the film focuses on the lives of two elderly ladies: Ms. Kuang and Ms Xie. The documentary reveals how today's urban China can be reflected by the story of these two women, who find themselves away from their families, in a retirement home. Here, in the wake of serious health considerations, they have to build new relationships, define a new rhythm to their daily life and invent new ways to be with others.
Flavor And Affinity

2012

Flavor And Affinity

2012
The Jin Cheng restaurant in China's Chao region has a reputation for excellence due to its "Chao" specialties. To guarantee the authenticity of "Chao" flavors, the supplying of fish, shellfish and tofu, among others, must come from the original source…where the skills of this ethnic group are still applied in accordance with the ancestral rules and where the quality and freshness of the products is indisputable. Nothing can be properly done if the traditions are not respected. A fascinating documentary on Chinese culture, traditional skills and ethnic belonging.
Unmarked

2020

Unmarked

2020
African-American gravesites and burial grounds for enslaved persons have been lost or are disappearing throughout the South, through neglect and nature reclaiming the solemn tombstones and markers. Restoration and preservation of these forgotten sites by those with a personal connection or appreciation of their historical significance is on the rise, but much work remains to be done.
Hollywood Harems

1999

Hollywood Harems

1999
A documentary taking critical aim at Hollywood's abiding fascination with and fantasies about all things eastern. Juxtaposing film clips from the 20s through the 80s, HOLLYWOOD HAREMS explores the organization of gender, race, and sexuality in Hollywood's portrayal of the exotic east an indiscriminate fusion of things Arab, Persian, Chinese and Indian. In abridging cultural plurality and difference, these technicolor fantasies have worked both to shape and reinforce often derogative assumptions about peoples of the east while at the same time reinscribing the moral, spiritual, and cultural supremacy of the Anglo-European west.
Jasper Johns: Take an Object

1990

Jasper Johns: Take an Object

1990
1
A portrait of the artist at work. The film begins in 1972 with Johns repainting Air Ocean World based on Buckminster Fuller's dymaxion map. Johns work is traced over the next eighteen years. His Untitled, 1973, with its cross-hatching, flagstones, and anatomical parts become recurrent motifs, as Johns begins to imbed skulls and severed arms in them. The paintings become more personal as Johns gradually "drops the reserve" in his recent series, "The Seasons." The film culminates with Johns working on the final state of the etching based on "The Seasons."