Louis Ortiz, a down on his luck 40-something Puerto Rican resident of the Bronx, looks in the mirror one day and believes he’s found gold—he’s a dead ringer for Barack Obama. With visions of finally living the American Dream, the charismatic Ortiz launches a complete makeover. He dons Obama’s trademark suit, adopts his mannerisms, mimics his voice and steps out onto the street as a presidential impersonator. Taken on by a casting agent, Ortiz and a gang of other political impersonators, including a Bill Clinton and a Mitt Romney, hit the road during the run-up to the 2012 presidential election to perform satirical debates for mostly Republican conventions, throwing Ortiz into conflict with his personal political beliefs. As Ortiz struggles to make ends meet, the distance between the White House and the Bronx becomes increasingly acute. The life of a president isn’t always as easy as it looks.
MAD AS HELL follows Cenk Uygur's transformation from unknown talk show host on local Public Access TV to an internet sensation with his online news show "The Young Turks," which has amassed over one billion views on YouTube. Once Cenk ventures from the internet into national television and lands the 6 PM time slot on MSNBC, his uncensored brand of journalism is compromised and Cenk becomes the nexus in the battle between new and old media.
Paper Dolls follows the lives of transgender migrant workers from the Philippines who work as health care providers for elderly Orthodox Jewish men and perform as drag queens during their spare time. It also delves into the lives of societal outcasts who search for freedom and acceptance.
Documentary examining the life and career of producer/director Roger Corman. Clips from his films and interviews with actors and crew members who have worked with him are featured.
Khalo Matabane spent two years making the film, interviewing those who knew and loved Mandela, and also those who criticised him. Global thinkers, politicians and artists including the Dalai Lama, Henry Kissinger and Ariel Dorfman talk about the effect of his policies and his decision making. Their thoughts are weighed equally with ordinary South Africans like Charity Kondile, who refuses to forgive her son's apartheid operative murderer. Through these interviews, completed in the last months of Mandela's life, Matabane interrogates for himself the meaning of freedom, reconciliation and forgiveness. By doing so he challenges Mandela's enduring impact in today's world of conflict and inequality. Thought-provoking and reflective, Mandela, the Myth and Me is a moving film which frames Mandela from a fresh, deeply personal perspective. (Storyville)
A locomotive journey traversing the North to the South of the German Democratic Republic on the eve of its dissolution. Labourers, punks, mothers, intellectuals, young and old are implored to reflect on their life choices, the sacrifices they've made, and their place in the world. Despite everything, hope persists.
Tongpan is a 1977 Thai 16 mm black-and-white docudrama that re-creates a seminar that took place in Northeast Thailand in 1975 to discuss the proposed Pa-Mong Dam on the Mekong. Interwoven are sequences depicting a poor farmer, Tongpan, who had lost his land to another dam some years before, and his struggles to make ends meet.
The Colours of My Father: A Portrait of Sam Borenstein is a 1992 short animated documentary directed by Joyce Borenstein about her father, the Canadian painter Sam Borenstein. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Short. In Canada, it was named best short documentary at the 12th Genie Awards.
This 1991 Academy Award®-winning documentary uncovers the disastrous health and environmental side effects caused by the production of nuclear materials by the General Electric Corporation.
On March 25, 1911, a catastrophic fire broke out at the Triangle Waist Company in New York City. Trapped inside the upper floors of a ten-story building, 146 workers - mostly young immigrant women and teenage girls - were burned alive or forced to jump to their deaths to escape an inferno that consumed the factory in just 18 minutes. It was the worst disaster at a workplace in New York State until 9/11. The tragedy changed the course of history, paving the way for government to represent working people, not just business, for the first time, and helped an emerging American middle class to live the American Dream.
This is the story of a rational, skeptical woman, a mother and wife, who does not remember her dreams. Except once, when she dreamed her horse was dying. She woke so scared she went outside in the night. She found him dead. The next dream told her she would die herself, when she was 48.
Crafting A Nation is a feature length documentary and new media project about how the American craft brewers are rebuilding the economy one craft beer at a time.
Chronicles the true story behind Argo’s Hollywood embellishments by looking at the efforts of the venerable Ken Taylor, Canada’s former ambassador to Iran, who personally sheltered six American diplomats in the operation that became known as "the Canadian Caper."
A journey inside the world of a legend of modern art and an icon of feminism. Onscreen, the nonagenarian Louise Bourgeois is magnetic, mercurial and emotionally raw-an uncompromising artist whose life and work are imbued with her ongoing obsession with the mysteries of childhood. Her process is on full display in this intimate documentary, which features the artist in her studio and with her installations, shedding light on her intentions and inspirations. Louise Bourgeois has for six decades been at the forefront of successive new developments, but always on her own powerfully inventive and disquieting terms. In 1982, at the age of 71, she became the first woman to be honored with a major retrospective at New York's Museum of Modern Art. In the decades since, she has created her most powerful and persuasive work, including her series of massive spider structures that have been installed around the world.
Breathing is about the thin space between life and death. 34-year-old Neil Platt plans his own funeral, muses about the meaning of life and the impossibility of terminating a mobile phone contract. With 5 months left to live, and paralyzed from the neck down by Motor Neurone Disease, he ponders how to communicate about his life in a letter for his baby son. How can he anticipate what he might want to know about his father in a future he can only imagine?
This feature film looks at five individuals who made a decisive change later in life-to come out as lesbian, gay, or trans gender, after the age of 55. Why did they wait until their 50's, 60's, or 70's to come out? And what was the turning point that caused each of these people finally to openly declare their sexuality? From Canada to Florida, to Kansas, we find out what ultimately led these dynamic individuals to make the liberating choice to pursue fully integrated lives.