An intimate look at Israel Adesanya, the Nigerian born New Zealand based MMA champion, which goes beyond the ring and delves deep into an unlikely fighter's journey. Exploring themes of masculinity, bullying and even the healing power of dance, this documentary is a poignant examination of the complex, exciting and sometimes controversial person known as 'The Last Stylebender.'
Located at the intersection of disability and queerness, this documentary enriches, implicates, and breaks open the conversation around sexual life in the disabled community. This film does not shy away from the complexities and challenges of queer life, but rather embraces them and in doing so, illuminates how they impact one another and bring new dimensionality to the position of the body within them. Resisting a normative lens, this filmmaker uses the observational power of the camera to document the raw sexuality, fantasies, and erotic expressions of a wide array of subjects with rare candor and vulnerability. Embodied sexual explorations are balanced against interviews that in their frankness and insightfulness criticize and deepen the lacking conversation around this intersection in the wider discourse.
The Dogmatics might very well be the most emblematic Boston band of this half-century, that too-few people know about. They gained notoriety with a loyal following in the Boston music scene, and beyond. The quartet was no different than any other talentless, self-deprecating, beer-swilling, girl-chasing lunkheads with guitars. It wasn't about money. Catching a girl's eye, a free round of drinks, or simply completing a song in unison were their rewards. Fans and fellow bands in Massachusetts look fondly on the decades of positive ripple effects their presence (still to this day) has on the local music scene. This documentary is a labor of love by family and friends, crafted as a tribute to the Dogmatics' late co-founder and bassist Paul O'Halloran. See how the band came into being in the early 1980s, rising out of a pocket of musical talent in the South Shore area near Boston. At its core, this is a story of brothers - by both blood and bond.
Zambia's Luangwa river hippos are living the easy life, or so it seems. Their life fluctuates between the serenity of sunbathing to the terrible brutality of dominance and aggression.
The emotional story of a mother giraffe, Mama Twiga, and the struggles of young giraffes and gazelles as they take on the risks of growing in the wilds of Swahili.
If the Palace thought that 2023 would be a quieter year after the drama and tragedy of 2022 then the release of Prince Harry's autobiography Spare has just about destroyed all hope. The book has caused international frenzy amongst the media and the public. Opinion is now more divided than ever on whether Prince Harry should retain his royal titles. Though Harry and Meghan fled the royal family for a second chance at the private life they always wanted, the world refused to let them go quietly. Despite their escape, the media's continued attention cased a barrage of headlines, flaring up rumour after scandalous rumour about the couple and the royal family. In order to set the record straight, they decided to tell their own side of the story, giving a tell-all series of interviews, podcasts and Netflix documentary series. But eclipsing all of the revelations shared previously, in January 2023 Harry released his controversial and much-anticipated autobiography, Spare.
After a break-in, a mother calls 911 seeking help for her disabled daughter, Cynara. Hours later, Cynara is dead, and her mother is the prime suspect in this gripping story of Canada's justice system on trial.
Samuel lives in Ponta Negra, a small village on the coast of Paraty, Brazil. At first the idyllic daily life following the rhythm of nature and the development of the kid's identity set the tone of the film. We go along with the boy and his family for six years. Little by little emerges a more complex reality and its contradictions, between modernity and tradition, nature and technology. The arrival of electricity and tourism in the village crystallizes the deconstruction of an idealized paradise, drawing a portrait of contemporary Brazil.
The Neiger family was living a peaceful life in the Jewish community in Krakow when the arrival of World War II changed their lives forever. When Nazi soldiers forced the family from their home into the harsh life of the Ghetto, they made a vow to escape as a family. But when circumstances forced the family to separate from older brother Ben, their will to survive was put to the test. They Survived Together" is the incredible, true story of one family as they desperately tried to stay alive... and together as a family with four small children, attempted to escape certain death at the hands of the Nazis. They are believed to be one of the only families to escape and survive as a family.
A true story about one community, one high school, and one coach; how he produced a winning football season and hit record numbers of first-generation students attending university.
Chemical engineer and inventor Maria Telkes worked for nearly 50 years to harness the power of the sun, designing and building the world's first successful solar-heated modern residence and identifying a new chemical that could store solar heat like a battery. Telkes was undercut and thwarted by her (male) boss and colleagues at MIT, but she persevered. Upon her death in 1995 Telkes held more than 20 patents, and now she is recognized as a visionary pioneer in the field of sustainable energy whose work continues to shape how we power our lives today.
The Cherokee language is deeply tied to Cherokee identity; yet generations of assimilation efforts by the U.S. government and anti-Indigenous stigmas have forced the Tri-Council of Cherokee tribes to declare a State of Emergency for the language in 2019. While there are 430,000 Cherokee citizens in the three federally recognized tribes, fewer than an estimated 2,000 fluent speakers remain—the majority of whom are elderly. The covid pandemic has unfortunately hastened the course. Language activists, artists, and the youth must now lead the charge of urgent radical revitalization efforts to help save the language from the brink of extinction.
For most of America's history, sacred buildings represented our greatest feats of innovative engineering and artistic design. Unlock the elements of design that make these structures so fascinating and unveil the meaning in religious architecture, ranging from grand cathedrals and simple country churches to synagogues and mosques.
“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.
In 1959 New York City announced a "slum clearance plan" by Robert Moses that would displace 2,400 working class and immigrant families, and dozens of businesses, from the Cooper Square section of Manhattan's Lower East Side. Guided by the belief that urban renewal should benefit - not displace - residents, Frances Goldin and her neighbors formed the Cooper Square Committee and launched a campaign to save the neighborhood. Over five decades they fought politicians, developers, white flight, government abandonment, blight, violence, arson, drugs, and gentrification - cyclical forces that have destroyed so many working class neighborhoods across the US. Through tenacious organizing and hundreds of community meetings, they not only held their ground but also developed a vision of community control. Fifty three years later, they established the state's first community land trust - a diverse, permanently affordable neighborhood in the heart of the "real estate capital of the world."
About five years after her film, Hana, dul, sed ... (2009), filmmaker Brigitte Weich returns to North Korea to ask four women on the national football team how their lives have evolved. In a friendly and congenial cooperation between the filmmaker and her protagonists, a work arises that not only tells about the concrete life of a professional athlete in North Korea, but also poses the question of the images that we all make of ourselves to give meaning to our lives and the world.
Being a black filmmaker and creating films with a mostly black cast in an industry that rarely supports such work comes with challenges. This compelling documentary follows Sean Reid and Brian White as they