Top Rated Documentary Movies on Kanopy - Page 278

The Coolbaroo Club

1996

The Coolbaroo Club

1996
Documentary about "The Coolbaroo Club", which was the only Aboriginal-run dance club in a city which practiced unofficial apartheid. During its lifetime, the Club attracted Black musicians and celebrities from all over Australia and occasionally from overseas. Although best-remembered for the hugely popular Coolbaroo dances attended by hundreds of Aborigines and their white supporters, the "Coolbaroo League", founded by Club members, ran a newspaper and became an effective political organization, speaking out on issues of the day affecting Aboriginal people.
Incidents of Travel in Chichen Itza

1997

Incidents of Travel in Chichen Itza

1997
Depicts how New Agers, the Mexican state, tourists, and 1920s archaeologists all contend to “clear” the site of the antique Maya city of Chichen Itza in order to produce their own idealized and unobstructed visions of “Maya” while the local Maya themselves struggle to occupy the site as vendors and artisans.
Gimme a Faith

2018

Gimme a Faith

2018
Evangelical Christians in the Bible Belt try to convert newly arrived Chinese international students.
Alternative Facts; The Lies of Executive Order 9066

2018

Alternative Facts; The Lies of Executive Order 9066

2018
Alternative Facts: The Lies of Executive Order 9066 is a documentary feature film about the false information and political influences which led to the World War II incarceration of Japanese Americans. Alternative Facts sheds light on the people and politics that influenced the signing of the infamous Executive Order 9066 which authorized the mass incarceration of nearly 120,000 Japanese Americans. The film will expose the lies used to justify the decision and the cover-up that went all the way to the United States Supreme Court. Alternative Facts will also examine the parallels to the current climate of fear, attitudes towards immigrant communities, and similar attempts to abuse the powers of the government.
Tongues of Heaven

2013

Tongues of Heaven

2013
Set in Taiwan and Hawaiʻi, territories where languages of the Austronesian family are spoken, this documentary focuses on the questions, desires and challenges of young indigenous peoples to learn the languages of their forebears— languages that are endangered or facing extinction.
The Secret History of The White House

2019

The Secret History of The White House

2019
Piecing together information from secret sources and a two-hundred-year evolution of the White House, investigative journalists and government insiders weigh in on the mystery of an unusual white box and a top-secret construction project dubbed the "Big Dig" that took place outside of the West Wing from 2007-2012. Using little known images, previously classified material and detailed graphics, the search for truth reveals not only what secrets might lay below the White House, but how their existence could affect democracy as we know it.
We Buy, Who Pays?

2002

We Buy, Who Pays?

2002
A short documentary about sweatshops and their working conditions in India.
Digitalkarma

2019

Digitalkarma

2019
A film about the four-year journey of a girl named Rupa. It is the story of her dream and her endeavor to escape from a predetermined destiny. The tea gardens lost in the misty hills of northeastern Bangladesh are the background to Rupa’s struggle. She fights against a life of hardships and against the perspective of an arranged marriage. Will she search independence or give in to the pressure of this ancient land?
This Changed Everything

2016

This Changed Everything

2016
This Changed Everything: 500 Years of the Reformation celebrates the fruits of the Reformation while exploring difficult questions about the cost of division: Could schism have been avoided? Is there hope for reunification? What did Jesus really mean when He prayed for His followers to be "one"?
One Shot. One Life

2013

One Shot. One Life

2013
In traditional martial arts, mastery of the art is not acquired through technical skill alone. In following ‘The Way’ one must look beyond technique. In Japanese archery or Kyudo, hitting the target is not enough. In order to shoot correctly we are told to “Shoot from the Heart”. As Takeuchi sensei says “As a national team member I had to hit the target no matter what. Eventually all that technique became obsolete in exchange to express myself through the bow”. This is One Shot. One Life. Zen of Japanese Archery.
Father Roy: Inside the School of Assassins

1996

Father Roy: Inside the School of Assassins

1996
The struggle by a Vietnam war hero turned priest to find and reveal the truth about secret CIA torture training at a US military base.
Ten Years in an Open Necked Shirt

1984

Ten Years in an Open Necked Shirt

1984
A portrait of Salford-born poet, storyteller and comic, John Cooper-Clarke. His poems, a satirical blend of humour and social comment, are delivered at a fast pace, often with musical backing. His style, and that of his contemporary Linton Kwesi Johnson, have influenced a generation of younger poets involved in a revival of popular poetry in Britain.
She

1970

She

1970
A consciously modern depiction of working women in East Germany – labourers and managers in a garment factory talk about relationships and family planning, raising children and career qualifications, women’s rights and equality in the socialist (meritocratic) society. In conversations with a doctor, the women also have a chance to voice their personal concerns, as well as their feelings about the birth control pill, a subject that caused a stir at the time.
Afterward

2020

Afterward

2020
In this timely and fearless personal documentary, director Ofra Bloch engages with the people she was raised to hate and dismiss. Seen as a victim in one context and a perpetrator in the next, the film points towards a future – an “afterward” – that attempts to live with the truths of history in order to make sense of the present.
Zydeco

1984

Zydeco

1984
Shot on location in rural Southwestern Louisiana, Zydeco combines cinema verite style footage, interviews and musical performance to present a colorful, joyful portrait of the zydeco musicians in their culture. Featuring Dolon Carriere, Armand Ardoin, and Alphonse "Bois Sec" Ardoin. A film by Nicholas R. Spitzer. Color, 57 minutes.
Advertising at the Edge of the Apocalypse

2018

Advertising at the Edge of the Apocalypse

2018
In this highly anticipated sequel to his groundbreaking, ADVERTISING AND THE END OF THE WORLD, media scholar Sut Jhally explores the devastating personal and environmental fallout from advertising, commercial culture, and rampant American consumerism. Ranging from the emergence of the modern advertising industry in the early 20th century to the full-scale commercialization of the culture today, Jhally identifies one consistent message running throughout all of advertising: the idea that corporate brands and consumer goods are the keys to human happiness. He then shows how this powerful narrative, backed by billions of dollars a year and propagated by the best creative minds, has blinded us to the catastrophic costs of ever-accelerating rates of consumption.
The Navigators: Pathfinders of the Pacific

1983

The Navigators: Pathfinders of the Pacific

1983
In hand-built, double-hulled canoes sixty feet long, the ancestors of today's Polynesians sailed vast distances using only the waves, the stars, and the flights of birds to navigate. Anthropologist Sanford Low visits the Caroline Islands of Micronesia to meet Mau Piailug, the last navigator initiated on his island and one of few men still practicing this once-essential art. He demonstrates his skill by sailing a replica canoe 2500 miles from Hawaii to Tahiti with no modern navigational instruments.
My Nose

2007

My Nose

2007
This personal documentary reveals the complexities of a single woman living in a beauty-obsessed world with her original yet imperfect nose. It's a tale that anyone who has ever obsessed over their own "imperfection" will easily relate to MY NOSE explores filmmaker Gayle Kirschenbaum's mother's preoccupation with her nose, the intricacies of the mother/daughter relationship, and asks what drives people into the plastic surgeon's office. Will she live happily ever after with the nose I was born with? Will she end up having a nose job? And how will her decision affect their relationship? Official Selection at dozens of festivals including the Miami Jewish Film Festival and the UK Jewish Film Festival.
Monday's Girls

1993

Monday's Girls

1993
"Monday's Girls" explores the conflict between modern individualism and traditional communities in today's Africa through the eyes of two young Waikiriki women from the Niger delta. Although both come from leading families in the same large island town, Florence looks at the iria women's initiation ceremony as an honor, while Azikiwe, who has lived in the city for ten years, sees it as an indignity.
Who Owns the Past?

2000

Who Owns the Past?

2000
This documentary, narrated by Academy Award winner Linda Hunt and directed by Jed Riffe, tells the story of how the discovery of a 9,000-year-old skeleton on the banks of the Columbia River near Kennewick, Washington, reignited the conflict between anthropologists and Native peoples over the control of human remains found on ancestral Indigenous lands.