Leonard Peltier, one of the surviving leaders of the American Indian Movement, has been in prison for 50 years following a contentious conviction. A new generation of Native activists is committed to winning his freedom before he dies.
Leonard Peltier
An intimate exploration of the circumstances surrounding the incarceration of Native American activist Leonard Peltier, convicted of murder in 1977, with commentary from those involved, including Peltier himself.
Outlawed in Pakistan tells the story of Kainat Soomro as she takes her rape case to Pakistan's deeply flawed court system in hopes of getting justice. The 13-year-old Kainat accuses four men of gang rape and shortly after is ordered to be killed by her village elders. Spanning over five years, the story is told through the perspective of Kainat and the four men accused of her rape.
This feature-length documentary chronicles the Sundance ceremony brought to Eastern Canada by William Nevin of the Elsipogtog First Nation of the Mi'kmaq. Nevin learned from Elder Keith Chiefmoon of the Blackfoot Confederacy in Alberta. Under the July sky, participants in the Sundance ceremony go four days without food or water. Then they will pierce the flesh of their chests in an offering to the Creator. This event marks a transmission of culture and a link to the warrior traditions of the past.
The film is a portrait of Annie Mae — what she lived for and ultimately died for — a personal perspective of recent Native American history also emerges. The film, winner of several awards, focuses on the long-standing and pervasive problems of Native Americans and was written, produced and directed by Lan Brookes Ritz.
In 2008, during the last month of summer before high school begins, an impressionable 13-year-old Taiwanese American boy learns what his family can't teach him: how to skate, how to flirt, and how to love your mom.
Paradise Man searches for meaning in an unknowable universe.
Baratometrajes 2.0 is a feature length documentary on low-budget films made in Spain and dives deep and directly in the guts of most independent films, their characteristics and their reasons for being. More than forty interviews with directors, producers, journalists, cultural managers and distributors are shaping a broad mosaic of opinions and adventures of different creators to get their films and turn them into a reality, allowing the cameras to talk through their methodology work and the secrets that lie behind the making of these productions. Movies like "El mundo es nuestro," "Mi Loco Erasmus" or "The Cosmonaut" are part of the object of study of this essential documentary that brings us to the reality of New Spanish Cinema Lowcost.
The last representatives of Mixteco culture inhabit a village in the Sierra Madre. Deprived of their identity by modern civilization, they are facing an even bigger threat: a landslide that may destroy the village during the next torrential rains. The mayor tries to prevent the disaster. He wants to invite a geologist, so that the approaching danger can be officially confirmed. But no help is coming and the inhabitants must simply wait for the disaster.
From Mont Blanc to Mount Elbrus, experience the peaks from the breathtaking perspective of skyrunner Kilian Jornet and his friends.
Some people consider them the best part of the movie going experience - the Movie Trailer. Take a look at the evolution of the "coming attractions" from simple silent film splices, through the template style of the Golden Age of Hollywood, through Auteurs and finally into the Blockbuster era.
This haunting film comprises of footage shot during WWI from opposite sides of the conflict: Czarist Russia and the Austro-Hungarian empire. The filmmakers tinted the material with sensual colors from sepia to red, blue, and purple and slowed the footage to analyze the material. The total absence of commentary renders the material eloquent and disturbing. - MoMA
In 1926 the remains of two ships built by the Emperor Caligula were found at the bottom of Lake Nemi, near Rome. Mussolini had the lake drained and established a museum as a celebration of the imperial origins of Fascism, but the museum and ships were destroyed by fleeing Nazis in 1944. The film commemorates these events. - MoMA
Crowds is a feature documentary that records popular events of Uruguay where thousands of people gather spontaneously, called by faith, passion, celebration and memory. What happens when we set aside our individuality to act collectively? This documentary observes the passions that draw thousands of people close in order to join in a choral character. It discovers the crowd while it transgresses and experiences catharsis, while it seeks miracles and hopes; in continuous movement it splits and rejoins... until they dissipate and individuals re-emerge in their own solitude.
'Coffea arábiga' was sponsored as a propaganda documentary to show how to sow coffee around Havana. In fact, Guillén Landrián made a film critical of Castro, exhibited but banned as soon as the coffee plan collapsed.
Documentary film that takes a visual and anthropological journey through man's spirit across the thin line dividing excessive faith in religious believes and the passion with which he devotes himself to worldly pleasures in a city that coexists in harmony with its double standards. Religion, faith, politics, violence and death are intimately bound in this social portrait.
Legendary rumba musician Alberto Zayas serves as a guide for this vibrant journey through Cuban musical history and culture. The short features interviews, footage of impromptu street performances, and studio recordings.
This black-and-white film is a loving portrait of Santiago de Cuba and its people. It provides a view of Cuba as a picturesque country, the product of an earthy mix of black and criollo cultures. The film uses historical images which portray the end of the eighteenth century when Haitian slave owners fled with their slaves to Cuba after the Haitian Revolution.
A short film that sets up an opposition between functional forms of industrial age and decorative ones from Indian tradition.
A closer look at a taboo subject in India: menstruation and how it is embedded in Hindu rituals and beliefs, dating back to ancient times. A short docu-fiction in the enigmatic, associative narrative style typical for this award winning South Indian director. This film by Tiger Award winner (in the category short film) contemplates in a very exciting visual manner on one of the taboo subjects in India - female menstruation and its connection with Hindu rites and beliefs. While in Brahmin Orthodox culture the period of menstruation is considered to be impure and women are not supposed to cook or touch any food prepared for other family members, the main character in this film evokes old menstrual rituals and places them in ancient Indian culture.
Right alongside Jerusalem, in a Russian Orthodox Convent in the Mount of Olives, in the middle of the Arab quarter, lives the 82-year-old Estonian nun Mother Ksenya.