Popular Documentary Movies on Kanopy - Page 82

We Are As Gods

2022

We Are As Gods

2022
6.5
“We are as gods and might as well get good at it.” This is the audacious opening line of the Whole Earth Catalog, a compendium of wonderful tools compiled by counterculture legend Stewart Brand. A psychedelic experimenter, cyberspace pioneer, and environmentalist, he is now urging humanity to use our god-like powers to reframe our relationship with time and life itself. Today, Stewart is using biotech to resurrect extinct species. He and a team of scientists travel to Siberia to collect ancient DNA in an effort to make a hybrid Woolly Mammoth. Former allies in the environmental movement vow to stand in his way, but Stewart forges ahead in his life-long mission to conserve the whole earth.
Reset

2016

Reset

2016
7.8
In early 2013, it was announced that choreographer and dancer Benjamin Millepied, known as the man behind the ballet of Black Swan, would take over as director of the Paris Opera Ballet. Reset finds Millepied on the eve of his first gala with the Opera, designing and refining his inaugural choreography for the esteemed institution. As a film, Reset possesses of the same artistic assuredness as its subject as he blocks out the preliminary steps for his choreography. It explores various concepts of space simultaneously: the digital space, the space of the opera house (each scene opens with a declaration of which studio it’s in) and the space of the stage, the distance from stage right to stage left. It’s a portrait of a watershed moment for one of the ballet's oldest institutions and one of its brightest new stars, both on the cusp of great transition.
The Music of Strangers: Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble

2016

The Music of Strangers: Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble

2016
7
Follow several talented members of the ensemble as they gather in locations across the world, exploring the ways art can both preserve traditions and shape cultural evolution.
Harry Benson: Shoot First

2016

Harry Benson: Shoot First

2016
6.6
What we know today about many famous musicians, politicians, and actresses is due to the famous work of photographer Harry Benson. He captured vibrant and intimate photos of the most famous band in history;The Beatles. His extensive portfolio grew to include iconic photos of Muhammad Ali, Michael Jackson, and Dr. Martin Luther King. His wide-ranging work has appeared in publications including Life, Vanity Fair and The New Yorker. Benson, now 86, is still taking photos and has no intentions of stopping.
Familie Brasch

2018

Familie Brasch

2018
6.2
Director Annekatrin Hendel delivers a portrait of three generations of Brasches as a microcosm of societal tensions being carried out on a large scale — between East and West, art and politics, communism and religion, love and betrayal, utopia and self-destruction.
The Meaning of Vanlife

2019

The Meaning of Vanlife

2019
5.5
The Meaning of Vanlife is an adventurous, revealing look into the Vanlife community through the eyes of nomads who have chosen to live a life of freedom on the road. A movement that exemplifies a deeper societal trend towards minimalism and authentic community building.
Limelight

2011

Limelight

2011
5.8
A film about Peter Gatien, the owner of legendary New York nightclubs like Limelight, The Tunnel and the Palladium. The film documents his rise and fall from the 1980s through the 1990s.
Once Upon a Time in Iraq

2020

Once Upon a Time in Iraq

2020
Civilians, journalists and soldiers from both sides of the conflict explain their experience during the Iraq War, from the 2003 invasion through the 17 years that followed. Edited version from "Once Upon a Time in Iraq" (2020)
Beyond The Visible - Hilma af Klint

2019

Beyond The Visible - Hilma af Klint

2019
7.2
How can an artist discover abstraction by the beginning of the 20th century and nobody is noticing? A woman, misjudged and concealed, rocks the art world with her mind-blowing oeuvre. Hilma af Klint was a pioneer creating her first abstract painting in 1906, four years before Vassily Kandinsky. But why was she ignored? Why are her paintings not available on the market? This first film on her is about her life and work, the role of women in art history and the discovery of an art scandal. Her quest for meaning in life and a boundless thinking led into a timeless, outstanding oeuvre.
The Gig Is Up

2021

The Gig Is Up

2021
7.2
A very human tech doc, uncovers the real costs of the platform economy through the lives of workers from around the world for companies including Uber, Amazon and Deliveroo. From delivering food and driving ride shares to tagging images for AI, millions of people around the world are finding work task by task online. The gig economy is worth over 5 trillion USD globally, and growing. And yet the stories of the workers behind this tech revolution have gone largely neglected. Who are the people in this shadow workforce? It brings their stories into the light. Lured by the promise of flexible work hours, independence, and control over time and money, workers from around the world have found a very different reality. Work conditions are often dangerous, pay often changes without notice, and workers can effectively be fired through deactivation or a bad rating. Through an engaging global cast of characters, it reveals how the magic of technology we are being sold might not be magic at all.
New World Order

2009

New World Order

2009
5.5
A behind-the-scenes look at anti-conspiracy activists and the growing underground anti-globalist movement.
Chinese Portrait

2018

Chinese Portrait

2018
6.9
Shot over the course of ten years on both film and video, the film consists of a series of carefully composed tableaux of people and environments. Pedestrians shuffle across a bustling Beijing street, steelworkers linger outside a deserted factory, tourists laugh and scamper across a crowded beach, worshippers kneel to pray in a remote village. With a painterly eye for composition, Wang captures China as he sees it, calling to a temporary halt a land in a constant state of change.
The Soviet Story

2008

The Soviet Story

2008
7.2
“The Soviet Story” is a story of an Allied power, which helped the Nazis to fight Jews and which slaughtered its own people on an industrial scale. Assisted by the West, this power triumphed on May 9th, 1945. Its crimes were made taboo, and the complete story of Europe’s most murderous regime has never been told. Until now...
Michel Gondry: Do It Yourself

2023

Michel Gondry: Do It Yourself

2023
7.9
A portrait of French filmmaker Michel Gondry, creator, for three decades, of an imperfect, astonishing, fascinating, damaged and poetic work.
Addicted to Porn: Chasing the Cardboard Butterfly

2017

Addicted to Porn: Chasing the Cardboard Butterfly

2017
5.1
Like it or not, porn is here and it is harmful. In this controversial film, award-winning filmmaker Justin Hunt dissects the impact of pornography on societies around the globe, from how it affects the brain of the individual, to how modern technology leads to greater exposure to youth, to watching it literally tear a family apart. In what may well be one of the most devastating issues in modern culture, this film will break down the damage that porn is doing to us a human race and leave you thinking that it's clearly time that we start taking porn addiction a bit more seriously.
My Beautiful Stutter

2019

My Beautiful Stutter

2019
10
Follows five kids who stutter, ages 9 to 18, from all over the United States, who after experiencing a lifetime of bullying and stigmatization, meet other children who stutter at an interactive arts-based program, The Stuttering Association for the Young, based in New York City. Their journey to SAY find some close to suicide, others withdrawn and fearful, exhausted and defeated from failed fluency training, societal pressures to not stutter or the decision to remain silent. Over the course of a year we witness first hand the incredible transformation that happens when these young people of wildly different backgrounds experience for the first time the revolutionary idea at the heart of SAY: that it's okay to stutter.
Tiny Tim: King for a Day

2020

Tiny Tim: King for a Day

2020
6.1
The story of Tiny Tim’s improbable rise to stardom is the ultimate fairytale - and so is that of his downfall. For a brief time, the shy and truly unusual outsider artist was the biggest star in the world.
The Last Tourist

2021

The Last Tourist

2021
6.2
Travel is at a tipping point. From Carribean beaches to remote villages in Kenya, forgotten voices reveal the real conditions and consequences of one of the largest industries in the world. The role of the modern tourist is on trial.
Blind Ambition

2022

Blind Ambition

2022
7
The inspiring story of four Zimbabwean men who form their country’s first Wine Tasting Olympics team and the mission that drives them to compete.
Relative

2022

Relative

2022
8
A filmmaker unearths a pervasive history of multigenerational trauma in her Italian-American family. As decades of secrets, home movies, and long-avoided conversations surface, a family once bound by tradition forges a new path forward.