In 2001, Lenny Cooke was the most hyped high school basketball player in the country, ranked above future greats LeBron James, Amar’e Stoudemire, and Carmelo Anthony. A decade later, Lenny has never played a minute in the NBA. In this quintessentially American documentary, filmmaking brothers Joshua and Benny Safdie track the unfulfilled destiny of a man for whom superstardom was only just out of reach.
Bahman Mohassess was a celebrated artist at the time of the Shah. Trained in Italy, he created sculptures and paintings in his homeland. But audiences often took offence at the pronounced phalli on his mostly naked bronze figures and his work was regularly censored. All traces of him were lost after the revolution. It was said he destroyed his remaining paintings and disappeared.
For 35 years Clint Eastwood has called Warner Bros. home. In The Eastwood Factor, film historian Richard Schickel ventures beyond Eastwood’s tough, iconic screen personas to reveal the easygoing and thoughtful man behind the magic. Morgan Freeman narrates this insightful profile that features memorable film clips and visits to movie locations, the Warner Bros. lot and Eastwood’s hometown Carmel where, with humor, candor and intelligence, Eastwood illuminates the craft behind his legendary work on both sides of the camera to create a rare experience that is pure, unadulterated Clint.
FOREIGNERS OUT! SCHLINGENSIEFS CONTAINER is a thrilling, insightful, funny chronicle and reflection of one of he biggest public pranks and acts of art terrorism ever committed. Austria 2000: Right after the FPÖ under Jörg Haider had become part of the government, the first time an extreme right wing party became state officials after WW2, infamous German shock director Christoph Schlingensief showed a very unique form of protest. Realising public xenophobia and the new hate politics in the most drastic ways possible, he installed a public concentration camp right in the middle of Vienna's touristic heart, right beside the picturesque opera where hundreds of tourists and locals pass by daily. And it was no concentration camp you had ever feared to return from the old times, but one that cynically reflected our new multimedia culture. Satirising reality TV shows, "Big Brother" especially, a dozen asylum seekers were surveilled by a multitude of cameras, could be fed and watched by.
The Fruit Hunters explores the little known subculture and history of rare fruit hunters who travel the globe in an obsessive search for the exotic, in this stylish and sometimes erotic documentary.
Venus and Serena takes an honest and unfiltered look into the remarkable lives of sisters and tennis legends Serena and Venus Williams. Through the prism of one year in their lives, the film tells the untold story of how these two great stars came to be and how they struggle to stay on top.
The story of the credit bubble that caused the financial crash. Through interviews with some of the world's leading economists, including housing expert Robert Shiller, Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz, and economic historian Louis Hyman, as well as Wall Street insiders and victims of the crash including Ed Andrews - a former economics correspondent for The New York Times who found himself facing foreclosure - and Andrew Luan, once a bond trader at Deutsche Bank now running his own Wall Street tour guide business, the film presents an original and compelling account of the toxic combination of forces that nearly destroyed the world economy.
A rare and welcome insight into Phil Collins' prodigious musical talent and the fascinating story of his first solo record. Collins first enjoyed international success as the drummer of Genesis and then as lead singer after Peter Gabriel left the band. In 1981, however, Face Value launched him as a solo artist and remains, in many ways, his most exciting and unusual music offering. Face Value was immediately a worldwide hit, entering the British charts at Number 1, spending almost six years in the Top 75, and selling in excess of 12 million copies. The album went on to make the U.S. Top 10, earning a gold record. This documentary includes several previously unseen performances, as well as rare home movies, unique photographs and documents from Phil's own private archives, and insights into the music from an eclectic range of musicians who worked on the album.
It is the largest movement the world has ever seen, it may also be the most important - in terms of what's at stake. Yet it's not east being green. Environmentalists have been reviled as much as revered, for being killjoys and Cassandras. Every battle begins as a lost cause and even the victories have to be fought for again and again. Still, environmentalism is one of the great social innovations of the twentieth century, and one of the keys to the twenty-first. It has arisen at a key juncture in history, when humans have come to rival nature as a power determining the fate of the earth.
The Khmer Rouge slaughtered nearly two million people in the late 1970s. Yet the Killing Fields of Cambodia remain unexplained. Until now. Enter Thet Sambath, an unassuming, yet cunning, investigative journalist who spends a decade of his life gaining the trust of the men and women who perpetrated the massacres. From the foot soldiers who slit throats to Pol Pot's right-hand man, the notorious Brother Number Two, Sambath records shocking testimony never before seen or heard. Having neglected his own family for years, Sambath's work comes at a price. But his is a personal mission. He lost his parents and his siblings in the Killing Fields. Amidst his journey to discover why his family died, we come to understand for the first time the real story of Cambodia's tragedy.
A colorful portrait of Miami's pot smuggling scene of the 1970s, populated with redneck pirates, a ganja-smoking church, and the longest serving marijuana prisoner in American history.
"El Rati Horror Show" is a documentary that portrays the dramatic story of Fernando Ariel Carrera, the case of an ordinary man wrongly sentenced to thirty years in prison - not by mistake but deliberately - through the manipulation of a judicial case in Argentina. The film takes as its central point the way in which Fernando Carrera's case was fabricated: the manipulation and alteration of evidence at the scene of the crime; the manipulation of all national media by Rubén Maugeri, key witness to the events and president of the Association of Friends of Commissary 34. On the other hand, it shows how Fernando Carrera leads his daily life in prison.
Starsuckers is the most controversial documentary of the year, and was released in British cinemas in November 2009 to critical acclaim. It's a darkly humourous and shocking exposé of the celebrity obsessed media, that uncovers the real reasons behind our addiction to fame and blows the lid on the corporations and individuals who profit from it.
The Sex Pistols album Never Mind The Bollocks Here's The Sex Pistols is unquestionably one of the most important musical statements in the history of British music. It was in 1977, at a time when the nation was crippled by class division and unemployment that four working class teenagers with supposedly non-existent futures recorded an album that to this day remains as one of the greatest and most influential bodies of work ever recorded. This documentary features exclusive interview's with all four of the original members of the Sex Pistols as they take you on a track by track look at the making of the album. Featuring Steve Jones and Glen Matlock demonstrating selected riffs and licks off the album and explaining the development of the song writing. Candid interviews with Malcolm McLaren, Chris Thomas and Bill Price set the record straight about the recording session. Intertwining additional rare home video, live footage and early demo's make this release a compelling must see.
Record high oil prices, global warming, and an insatiable demand for energy: these issues define our generation. The film exposes shocking connections between the auto industry, the oil industry, and the government, while exploring alternative energies such as solar, wind, electricity, and non-food-based biofuels.
Amid the failing counteroffensive, a journalist follows a Ukrainian platoon on their mission to traverse one mile of heavily fortified forest and liberate a strategic village from Russian occupation. But the farther they advance through their destroyed homeland, the more they realize that this war may never end.
For over thirty years, between Paris and Rome, Chloé Barreau has been filming her love life. While in a relationship, she would already build its memory by filming, taking pictures, writing about it… but what do her exes remember? What is their side of the story? This film traces a woman's life, based exclusively on the interviews of people who loved her. Intimate testimonies and private items reveal the universal paths of the feeling of love.
Chronicles the career of the titular Grammy Award-winning folk-pop singer-songwriter. The documentary also follows Simon’s journey creating his new album, Seven Psalms. The track on the record pose questions about faith and mortality, particularly during the pandemic, and also feature him contending with his hearing loss. Gibney and Simon also journey through a dreamlike world of storytelling that transcends both time and space, as it moves freely between present and past. The movie also offers a unique peek into Simon’s entire career, from Tom & Jerry to Simon & Garfunkel and the triumphs of Graceland and Rhythm of the Saints.