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Popular Documentary Movies
Maestro
Maestro follows Grammy award-winning conductor Paavo Järvi and an array of brilliant musicians as they perform to sold-out music halls across the world.
Love Between the Covers
A glimpse into the world of the women who create and consume romance novels.
The Champions
All odds were stacked against the pit-bulls rescued from quarterback Michael Vick's dogfighting ring. Forced to fight for their lives, they were considered so dangerous many wanted them euthanized. But no one could have predicted how the dogs would change the lives of those who risked everything to save them. -IMDB
Omo Child: The River and the Bush
For many generations people in the Omo Valley (tribal southwest Ethiopia) believed some children are cursed and that these 'cursed' children bring disease, drought and death to the tribe. The curse is called 'mingi' and mingi children are killed. Lale Labuko, a young educated man from the Kara tribe was 15 years old when he saw a child in his village killed and also learned that he had 2 older sisters he never knew who had been killed. He decided one day he would stop this horrific practice. Filmed over a five year period we follow Lale's journey along with the people of his tribe as they attempt to change an ancient practice.
The Forgotten Plague
Tuberculosis is the deadliest killer in human history, responsible for one in four deaths for almost two centuries. While it shaped medical pursuits, social habits, economic development and public policy, TB and its impact are poorly understood.
Subotika: Land of Wonders
Subotika, a little-known island on the other side of the globe. An enchanting country with extraordinary sights, grand visions and a couple of minor problems.
Symphony of the Wild
Lesley Hammond - This dazzling wildlife spectacle propels us into the very private world of some of our most endearing critters. Set across a global stage, a parade of four legged talent struts its stuff against the backdrop of some great classical works. A live action 'Fantasia' features mighty whales breaching, charging elephants, the big cats, and dozens of favourites performing with the symphony orchestra. A highly original event which will thrill everyone, particularly those who share a growing concern for the health of the planet. - Pamela Rabe
Dukale's Dream
In 2009, actors Hugh Jackman and his wife, Deborra-lee Furness, traveled to Ethiopia as ambassadors for World Vision Australia, one of the world's largest humanitarian aid organizations. As longtime donors, the Jackmans wanted to visit a World Vision community development project to see how rural communities were being empowered to eradicate poverty. While in the Yirgacheffe region, Hugh met a 27 year-old coffee farmer named Dukale, working to lift his family out of poverty. Spending time on Dukale's farm, Hugh learned first-hand about the value of fair trade coffee and clean cookstove technology. (C) Official Site
Fear No Fruit
A chronicle of Frieda Caplan's rise from being the first woman entrepreneur on the L.A. Wholesale Produce Market in the 1960s, to transforming American cuisine by introducing over 200 exotic fruits and vegetables to U.S. supermarkets. Still an inspiration at 91, Frieda's daughters and granddaughter carry on the business legacy.
Frackman
Frackman tells the story of accidental activist Dayne Pratzky and his struggle against international gas companies. Australia will soon become the world's biggest gas exporter as more than 30,000 'fracked' wells are sunk in the state of Queensland where Dayne lives. He and his neighbours have unwittingly become the centre of a massive industrial landscape and they have no legal right to stop mining on their land. Dayne embarks on a journey that transforms him from conservative pig-shooter to sophisticated global activist as the Frackman. He meets the people drawn into a battle that is crossing the ideological divide, bringing together a peculiar alliance of farmers, activists and political conservatives. Along the way Dayne encounters love, tragedy and triumph.
Message From Hiroshima
This documentary provides an inside look at the devastating effects of the first atomic bomb dropped, as depicted in testimonials from survivors, and computer-generated recreations of the city and way of life that were lost.
In Limbo
IN LIMBO s a documentary essay that questions the world of memory that we are all building, through the everyday digitization of our lives and our environment. The voice of a mysterious spirit (embodied by Nancy Huston) wakes up in the maze of data centers which makes up the global network. As though there were nothing left on Earth but this huge machine, still running. Diving into her memory, she is fascinated by the strange life that lies within, inhabited by ghostly characters (the Internet's founding fathers, Google CEOs, digital librarians, etc). Enchanted by the promises of this world, she abandons herself into it. Pure soul, she wanders through this after-life, attempting to once more experience the essence of nostalgia.
Tierra Caliente
TIERRA CALIENTE is the story of an ordinary family in the state of Guerrero, Mexico. As they go about their normal lives, they are caught in the crossfire between the Narco drug cartels and the military. The screenplay is an edited transcript of conversations from the family recorded over a period of two years. Actors play the members of the family to protect their identity, but we are able to hear the actual recordings throughout the film, to remind the audience that these people are real.
California High
California has been arguing over whether or not marijuana should be legal for over 100 years. Now there's a new judge in this trial - you.
The Rise of the Houthis
A gripping doc by a brave female journalist operating in a harsh testosterone riddled region. In Yemen, the Houthis have seized control but still face formidable opposition from groups linked to Al Qa'ida and Islamic State. The reporter fearlessly crosses the front-lines seeking to understand this complex proxy conflict. The doc reveals Yemen's remarkable turn around, from Saudi backed Sunni rule, to Iran supported Shia dominance.
Call for Help
In the chaos of post earthquake Haiti, members of a guerrilla style relief team resort to 'the ends justify the means' approach to bringing relief. Their temporary sense of control enables them to grapple with the issues that propelled them from the US to this disaster zone. Call for Help explores the tension between pure altruism and a helper's high and the impact of their combination.
Wrestling with Iowa
The documentary follows two high school seniors as they attempt to win the State Wrestling Championship in their final season and join the elite list of Iowa's four-time wrestling champions.
The Missing Ingredient
Desperate to save his failing business, a Manhattan restaurateur ruffles more than a few feathers when he makes the controversial decision to put up the iconic zebra wallpaper made world famous by the now shuttered Upper East Side institution Gino's.
City of Trees
During the Great Recession, joblessness exceeds 20 percent east of the Anacostia River in Washington, DC. City of Trees follows the intimate stories of Charles, Michael and James, three long-term unemployed residents struggling to gain employment through 'shovel ready' green projects. When stimulus dollars run out, short term idealism clashes with day-to-day survival in the struggle to find a sense of purpose and place in a recovering economy. (IMDB)
Searching for Home: Coming Back from War
"Searching for Home, Coming Back From War' is an emotional and unflinching look at returning veterans and their search for the 'home' they left behind, physically, mentally and spiritually. From World War II, Korea and Vietnam to the modern day conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, 'Searching for Home' is a multi-generational chronicle of the men and women who have left home only to return to new and difficult challenges as profoundly changed people.
Out & Around
Inspired to seek out stories of hope, a lesbian couple decides to leave behind their successful careers and life in San Francisco to embark on a year-long journey to find the international leaders of the Gay Right's Movement in 15 countries. Their poignant personal story is reflected in the global issues they encounter on their journey.
Rock the Box
Seeking to storm the man-fortress of the DJ booth, a 29-year-old university grad is forced to deal with an old feminist dilemma: use your sexuality and get noticed, or refuse to and linger in the shadows.
The Rider & the Wolf
In 2009, Mountain Bike Hall of Fame inductee Mike “The Bike” Rust went missing from his off-the-grid property in Colorado's San Luis Valley. His disappearance—which received almost no press—remains unsolved. An innovator in his sport, Rust custom-built bikes for Colorado’s mountain passes, starting a fat-tire revolution and designing gear that transformed the industry. Salida native Nathan Ward, himself an intrepid mountain biker, set out to tell Rust’s story, tracking the pioneer’s subject through the infancy of the sport to his role in the thriving community that surrounds it today. Ward brings the riveting documentary to life with a unique local perspective and access. By combining interviews, re-enactments, home movies, and archival footage—and even consulting a psychic to communicate with Rust’s sprit—the director/cinematographer attempts to find answers to this mystery full of loose ends and cold trails. -Denver Film Society
City Slickers Can't Stay with Me: The Coach Bob Larsen Story
The story of legendary Hall of Fame Coach Bob Larsen, his career, success and influence at every coaching level.
Gays in Prison
Gays in Prison is a documentary that puts Latrice Royale, popular star of RuPaul's Drag Race, front and center, as host, narrator and interviewer as she reveals her own experiences in jail and explores the stories of gay men in and out of prison. The film develops themes of redemption, lessons learned and, yes, even humor and love. The documentary also reveals gay prison pen pals and those on the outside finding love behind bars.
Ninth Floor
In her first feature-length documentary, director Mina Shum (Double Happiness) takes a penetrating look at the Sir George Williams University riot of February 1969, when a protest against institutional racism snowballed into a 14-day student occupation at the Montreal university.
Emptying the Skies
If you want to impress your dining companions in Cyprus, it's not caviar that you order, but ambelopoulia: a tiny songbird. But as this gripping doc reveals, the cost to bring such delicacies to the table is enormous. Bestselling novelist Jonathan Franzen takes a break from the world of fiction to guide us through an all too horrifying reality: tens of millions of protected migratory songbirds are illegally killed every year. Franzen, a longtime bird lover, accompanies young staffers of the Committee Against Bird Slaughter on their expeditions. With police enforcement in Southern Europe practically non-existent, they risk their lives to rescue trapped birds, and confront hostile poachers. It's a topic that proves a cultural flashpoint -- the Cypriot landowners cannot understand why a bunch of Italians can tell them what to do on their land.
Transfixed
Transfixed tells the story of highly unconventional romance: Martine Stonehouse and John Gelmone are middle-aged underdogs, living with Asperger Syndrome - an autism spectrum disorder that makes communication with others extremely difficult. Despite their social limitations, both dream of getting married, but straight identifying John refuses to tie the knot until transsexual Martine gets a real vagina. The only problem: no doctor in Canada will perform operation because Martine's obesity makes her too great of a surgical risk. Will Martine and John find the happiness together that they deserve? Transfixed is a deeply human story about love, freedom, and self-actualization.
Adina Howard 20: A Story of Sexual Liberation
In 1995, Adina Howard made waves in the world of music with her hit song “Freak Like Me.” Never before had a solo R&B female artist made such a bold and controlling stance sexually through song. Along with becoming one of the highest selling singles and most played music videos on MTV and BET in 1995, Adina Howard’s performance allowed young women of color and future recording artist to express their sexuality without shame.
“Adina Howard 20: A Story of Sexual Liberation” shares Adina’s story through her own words as well as the impact that she made during the 1990s and thereafter.
Adina speaks on her relationship with Tupac Shakur, the banning of her music video from BET, landing a cameo role in the movie “Waiting to Exhale,” her encounter with legendary vocalist Nancy Wilson, working with Hollywood giants Jackie Chan and Jamie Foxx and the sudden halt to her stardom due to her comments about record exec Sylvia Rhone.
Breakfast at Ina's
Famous for its Heavenly Hots (pancakes topped with fruit compote), Ina’s was a Chicago breakfast institution. Every customer received a warm welcome from proprietor and chef Ina Pinkney, the “Breakfast Queen.” After 33 years in the restaurant business, Pinkney retired in 2013. Following the restaurant’s final month, Breakfast at Ina’s celebrates a beloved Chicago eatery and a woman who achieved her dream against the odds.
In Between
Once there was an age of ice but it is disappearing. This is a lyrical and thought-provoking film about the death of an era and a moment in time. A time when stoic creatures are caught in between what once was and what will inevitably come.
The Quiet Zone
Otherworldly frequencies and textured, fluctuating images beautifully visualize the distress of people who suffer from electromagnetic hypersensitivity, and who must live in exile from cities in order to find solitude from the noise.
Between the Devil and the Deep
An abalone poacher, a dead son, and a broken love story are all bound together by a single theme: the curse of the abalone - an endangered marine snail prized as an aphrodisiac in China, but illegal harvesting has disastrous effects on the traditional fishing community near Cape Town, South Africa.
Surviving Skokie
Surviving Skokie, an intensely personal documentary, explores the effects of a late 1970s threatened neo-Nazi march in Skokie, IL on its large Holocaust survivor population. Thousands of survivors comprised 10 percent of this Chicago suburb, including Jack, the father of co-producer, Eli Adler. The relationship between father and son deepens as they return to Poland, where Eli learns more about the extended family that perished during the Shoah. Together they retrace the painful and debilitating journey through two ghettos and two concentration camps. Included are poignant commentaries and archival footage of the historical events spanning 70 years and two continents.
Wide Open Sky
Wide Open Sky follows the heart-warming story of an outback Australian children's choir. Chronicling their journey from auditions to end-of-year concert, the trials of trying to run a children's choir in a remote and disadvantaged region are revealed. Here, sport is king and music education is non-existent. Despite this, choir mistress Michelle has high expectations. She wants to teach the children contemporary, original, demanding music. It becomes clear for the children to believe in themselves, they all need someone who believes in them. Set against a landscape of devastating beauty, Wide Open Sky is a moving portrait of the fragile world of possibility that is childhood and reminds us why no child, anywhere, should grow up without music.
Madina's Dream
An unflinching and poetic glimpse into a forgotten war, Madina’s Dream tells the story of rebels
and refugees fighting to survive in Sudan’s Nuba Mountains. After decades of civil war, South Sudan achieved its independence from Sudan in 2011. But inside Sudan, the conflict continues. Sudan’s government employs aerial bombings and starvation warfare against the inhabitants of the Nuba Mountains. Hundreds of thousands of civilians have fled to refugee camps in South Sudan or remain trapped in the war zone. Eleven- year -old Madina and countless others dream of a brighter future for the Nuban people.
Barge
A towboat drifts down the Mississippi River, due for the port of New Orleans. The water, the banks, the bright lights of a port ahead; the lure of a coming paycheck and a home-cooked meal. This is the world of BARGE. A green deckhand following his father into the family business. A former convict working his way upward job by job, in the hopes of being First Mate. A thirty-eight year veteran engineer in no hurry to retire. An ancient waterway pulling a double shift as the backbone of a national economy; a tangle of thick steel cables, tied together just right. As long as the boat’s moving, they’re making money. An intimate portrait of the machinery of American ambitions.
Stink!
"Stink!" opens with a foul smell and a pair of kids pajamas. And a single father trying to find out what that smell could possibly be. But instead of getting a straight answer, director Jon Whelan stumbles on an even bigger issue in America, which is that some products on our store shelves are not safe -- by design. Entertaining, enlightening, and at times almost absurd, "Stink!" takes you on a madcap journey from the retailer to the laboratory, through corporate boardrooms, down back alleys, and into the halls of Congress. Follow Whelan as he clashes with political and corporate operatives all trying to protect the darkest secrets of the chemical industry. You won't like what you smell.
Monster Madness: The Gothic Revival of Horror
With sex, gore, and the Dracula/Frankenstein combo, Hammer's House of Horror changed the genre forever in the 1950s. With marquee actors like Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing, Hammer ruled the horror world for a decade. See the legendary tale of blood, babes, and vampire bats here.
Bounce: How the Ball Taught the World to Play
From Brazilian favelas to dusty Congolese villages, from a neolithic Scottish island and Mayan royal courts to modern English soccer pitches, “Bounce” explores the little-known origins of our favorite sports across the centuries, and traces how a simple invention like the ball has come to stake an unrivaled claim on our passions, our gaming consoles, our money, and our lives. Equal parts science, history and visual essay, “Bounce” removes us from the scandals and commercialism of today's sports world to uncover the true reasons we play ball, helping us reclaim our universal connection to the ball games we love.