Top Rated Documentary Movies on Kanopy - Page 294

Duane Michals (1939-1997)

1978

Duane Michals (1939-1997)

1978
A look at photographer Duane Michal's sequential photo narratives, with voiceover by Michals himself.
What Happened to Her

2016

What Happened to Her

2016
A biting, beautifully gruesome exploration of female corpses, as portrayed nude on screen.
Iraq War: Insurgency and Counter-Insurgency

2005

Iraq War: Insurgency and Counter-Insurgency

2005
Years after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, a loosely organized insurgency continues to target American and Coalition soldiers, as well as Iraqi security forces and civilians, with devastating results. In this sobering account of the ongoing violence, Ahmed Hashim, a specialist on Middle Eastern strategic issues and on irregular warfare, reveals the insurgents behind the widespread revolt, their motives, and their tactics. The insurgency, he shows, is not a united movement directed by a leadership with a single ideological vision. Instead, it involves former regime loyalists, Iraqis resentful of foreign occupation, foreign and domestic Islamist extremists, and elements of organized crime. These groups have cooperated with one another in the past and coordinated their attacks; but the alliance between nationalist Iraqi insurgents on the one hand and religious extremists has frayed considerably.
Art House

2016

Art House

2016
The film reveals the inventiveness derived from the dialogue between each artist's practice and the construction of their handmade homes. The results range from the romantic (Hudson River School painter Frederic Church's Olana, framing views of the Catskills to echo his paintings), to the futuristic (Urbanist Paolo Soleri's silt-casted structure Cosanti growing out of experiments in bell making in the Arizona desert). Commentary from cultural critic Alastair Gordon and an original score by Jamie Rudolph help to evoke the spiritual dimension of the locations and argue the case that the intuitive vision of artists can create great architecture.
DIY Country

2016

DIY Country

2016
Over a 2-year period, “DIY Country” captures the origins and evolution of the Donetsk People’s Republic in East Ukraine from hopeful and naive beginnings, to hate, destruction and infighting. In the first part we follow the sinister and at times comical mechanics of how our heroes make a Revolution that will immediately eat them up. In the second part we will see them trying to find a role to play in the new State, as power is once again taken away from the people.
Ghosts and Numbers

2009

Ghosts and Numbers

2009
Set in the aftermath of the devastating financial crash of the Thai baht and the Asian monetary crisis, Ghosts and Numbers is a fantastic meditation on Thai encounters with the spirit world and the world of numbers, as these intersect in unexpected ways.
A Man Called "Bee"

1974

A Man Called "Bee"

1974
One of the few ethnographic films in which the anthropologist appears as one of the subjects - a lively introduction to the nature of fieldwork. Napoleon Chagnon, who lived among the Yanomamo for 36 months over a period of eight years, is shown in various roles as "fieldworker": entering a village armed with arrows and adorned with feathers; sharing coffee with the shaman Dedeheiwa who recounts the myth of fire; dispensing eyedrops to a baby and accepting in turn a shaman's cure for his own illness; collecting voluminous genealogies; making tapes, maps, Polaroid photos; and attempting to analyze such patterns as Yąnomamö village fission, migration, and aggression.
Precious Knowledge

2012

Precious Knowledge

2012
Disenfranchised high school seniors become academic warriors and community leaders in Tucson, Arizona's embattled Ethnic Studies classes while state lawmakers attempt to eliminate the program.
All the Difference

2016

All the Difference

2016
Filmed over five and a half years, ALL THE DIFFERENCE (83 min.) weaves together the stories of two tough, yet promising young black men, Robert and Krishaun, as they navigate their lives through their high school senior year and all four years of college. They come from broken homes and low-income, high-risk communities in Chicago where barely 50% of young black men graduate from high school and of those that do graduate less than half go on to college and even fewer will graduate within 4 to 6 years. The film explores the factors in their lives (education, parents and grandparents, teachers, role models, personal drive and community support) that made all the difference in helping them be the first in their families to most likely escape poverty and secure a place in the middle class.
Once Around the Sun

2012

Once Around the Sun

2012
AT LAST, the long-lost film inspired by Australia's first rock festival - The Pilgrimage For Pop Festival - at Ourimbah, near Sydney in 1970.
Silent Shakespeare

2000

Silent Shakespeare

2000
A BFI collection of 7 short films from the USA, England and Italy scored for Piano, Guitar and String Quartet.
Motorkite Dreaming

2016

Motorkite Dreaming

2016
Motorbike Dreaming is an extreme cultural adventure following two young Aussie adventurers and their fiancées giving wings to their crazy idea to be the first to fly microlights 5,000 km across Australia, with an award-winning filmmaker trying to keep up.
On Richard's Side

2016

On Richard's Side

2016
Director-producer Andrew Wiseman began filming Richard and his family in 1989, making the documentaries Driving with Richard (1992) and Wonder Boy (2001) before On Richard's Side - the culmination of his 27-year project. Richard was born with a complex disability. He needs 24-hour care, seven days a week. Now in her early sixties, his mother Deirdre is apprehensive about her son's future. She is determined to build a circle of friends and carers for Richard, and to find him sustainable long-term accommodation. Wiseman's intimate documentary, enriched by Deirdre's impassioned voice, reveals just what it means to care for someone who needs care for life.
David Hockney: Joiner Photographs

1983

David Hockney: Joiner Photographs

1983
David Hockney is unquestionably one of the most passionate and versatile experimental artists on the contemporary scene. In the late 1970s the British artist developed a pioneering concept which also changed his perspective on painting – his “joiners”. In this film, the artist himself talks about this photographic approach, a kind of Cubism-inspired photocollage which explores the space-time continuum. Hockney allows the viewer to share in the creative “joiner” process and leads us step by step into the universe of his artistic creativity.
Curiosity, Adventure and Love

2016

Curiosity, Adventure and Love

2016
One woman’s journey through a century of love, war and discovery. Curiosity, Adventure & Love is a the story of a woman raised by fate to go boldly where few young women of her time and upbringing would go, into the arms of chance and life. A young American woman leaves her country and all security behind, to begin an adventure in the Philippines that would witness the birth of a nation, a cruel war and Occupation and reconstruction. Jessie is a striking personality, somewhere between Scarlett O’Hara and Amelia Earhart, who knew no boundaries and flew far ahead of her times, without regard to sex or society. Her story of a century well-lived is both rich and one that should restore our faith in our own humanity.
The White Coup

1975

The White Coup

1975
At the parliamentary elections that the Unidad Popular won, there were activities to overthrow Salvador Allende. By a white, supposedly clean coup, the rightwing powers of Chile tried unsuccessfully to gain a two thirds majority in the national congress. Months later, the armed, violent coup took place.
Night Parrot Stories

2016

Night Parrot Stories

2016
In the remote deserts of Australia lives an elusive nocturnal bird called the Night Parrot. Virtually nothing is known of its ecology. It disappeared at the end of the 19th Century. Searching for evidence of its existence became a preoccupation. Night Parrot Stories was filmed in all the locations where Night Parrots once lived, during a time when stories of extinction were everywhere.
The Feast

1970

The Feast

1970
Yanomamo feasts are ceremonial, social, economic, and political events. They are occasions for men to adorn their bodies with paint and feathers, to display their strength in dance and ritualized aggression; for trading partnerships to be established or affirmed; and for the creation or testing of alliances. In the feast filmed in 1968, the Patanowa-teri had invited the Mahekodo-teri to their village. The two groups had been allies until a few years before this event, when they had fought over the abduction of a woman. They now hoped to renew their broken alliance, which they did successfully. Soon after the filmed feast, the two villages together raided a common enemy. A detailed discussion of this feast, and of the significance of feasting among the Yanomamo, is found in chapter 4 of Chagnon's Yanomamo: The Fierce People. The film's graphic representation of reciprocity and exchange may enrich (and be enriched by) a reading of Marcel Mauss' The Gift.
Invitation to Dance

2014

Invitation to Dance

2014
At age 23, Simi Linton was injured while hitchhiking to Washington to protest the war in Vietnam. Suddenly a young disabled college student, she confronted discrimination she couldn't have imagined before. Simi emerges as a resourceful activist, and in time realizes that love, sexuality, and dance can once again be central to her life.
The Way We Talk

2015

The Way We Talk

2015
The Way We Talk is a personal documentary intimately centered around a support group for people who stutter on their journey toward self-acceptance.