Cinema Guild (Firm)
Language
English
Description
The first Mardi Gras in America was celebrated in Mobile, Alabama in 1703. In 2008, it is still racially segregated. A fascinating investigation into our nation's history and traditions, this acclaimed, award-winning documentary illuminates the complexities of race relations in 21st century America. Winner of the Truer Than Fiction Award at the **Film Independent Spirit Awards**. Nominated for the Documentary Grand Jury Prize at the **Sundance Film...
3) Maidan
Language
Ukrainian
Description
Directed by acclaimed filmmaker Sergei Loznitsa, MAIDAN chronicles the civil uprising that toppled the government of Ukrainian president Victor Yanukovich and has since developed into an international crisis between Russia and the West. Filmed in stunning long takes, sans commentary, MAIDAN is a record of a momentous historical event and an extraordinary study of the popular uprising as a social, cultural and philosophical phenomenon. Official Selection...
4) Counting
Language
English
Description
In fifteen linked chapters shot in locations ranging from Moscow to New York to Istanbul, COUNTING merges city symphony, diary film, and personal/political essay to create a vivid portrait of contemporary life. COUNTING measures street life, light and time, noting not only surveillance and overdevelopment but resistance and its phantoms as manifested in music, animals and everyday magic Winner of Best Cinematographer at **DOC LA**. Official Selection...
Language
English
Description
Recorded over six years, RAISING BERTIE delivers an authentic and tender portrait of the lives of three young boys as they face a precarious coming of age within Bertie County, a rural African-American community in North Carolina. Another harrowing work from the acclaimed documentary powerhouse Kartemquin Films, the film shows the process of growing up in a place afflicted by generations of economic and educational segregation.
Language
English
Description
A meditative exploration of our relationship with silence, sound and the impact of noise on our lives. Patrick Shen gathers experts, audiologists, and academics to examine not only the cognitive effects of constant noise, but also what we lose culturally when we have less silence. Official Selection at the **SXSW Film Festival**. Nominated for Best Documentary at the **Atlanta Film Festival** and at the **Cleveland International Film Festival.** *"A...
8) Cousin Jules
Language
English
Description
A lost masterpiece, now exquisitely restored, Dominique Benicheti's COUSIN JULES is a beautiful, immersive documentary portrait of a farmer living with his wife in the French countryside. One of the earliest documentaries to be shot in CinemaScope with stereo sound, it is a record of a time and a way of life that has long ago vanished. "*Four Stars! A genuinely extraordinary work of art.*" - ***Time Out NY***
Language
Persian
Description
A stark testimonial of the previously unseen and unheard, this documentary plunges us into the lives of young teenage girls sharing temporary quarters at a rehabilitation and correction center on the outskirts of Tehran. STARLESS DREAMS is an unforgettable cinematic portrayal of restored innocence and humanity. Winner of the Amnesty International Film Prize at the **Berlin International Film Festival.** Winner of the Best Documentary Award at the...
10) Sunless Shadows
Language
Persian
Description
Mehrdad Oskouei’s follow-up to the critically acclaimed Starless Dreams (2016), SUNLESS SHADOWS takes another look at the lives of teenage girls in an Iranian juvenile detention center. But this time the focus is narrowed: each of the film’s principal subjects is serving time for the murder of a male family member. One by one, Oskouei invites them to go into a room alone, push the red button on the camera and address their accomplices or their...
Language
English
Description
After renouncing his long-held Christian beliefs and walking away from his critically-acclaimed band, Pedro the Lion, musician David Bazan retreated into a solitary life of touring solo, struggling to rebuild his worldview and career from the ground-up, and to support his family of four. STRANGE NEGOTIATIONS finds David a decade into his journey, during which he has become a sort of reluctant prophet to Americans reeling from their country’s own...
Language
English
Description
THE ISSUE OF MR. O'DELL examines the lifelong work of a pioneering civil rights organizer Jack O’Dell, who was a close colleague and advisor of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in the years before the March on Washington. But after President John F. Kennedy named him the number five Communist in America, O’Dell was eventually forced out of King’s organization. In soft-spoken interviews, O’Dell discusses systemic racism, past and present, and dissects...
13) Chinese Portrait
Language
English
Description
China in all its diversity. Shot over the course of ten years on both film and video, the film consists of a series of carefully composed tableaus of people and environments, each one more extraordinary than the last.
14) Cane Fire
Language
English
Description
The Hawaiian island of Kauaʻi is seen as a paradise of leisure and pristine natural beauty, but these escapist fantasies obscure the colonial displacement, hyper-exploitation of workers and destructive environmental extraction that have actually shaped life on the island for the last 250 years. CANE FIRE critically examines the island’s history — and the various strategies by which Hollywood has represented it—through four generations of director...
Language
עברית
Description
A gripping and revelatory investigation into the military legal system put in place by Israel over four decades ago to govern the occupied Palestinian territories - the repercussions of which are felt to this day by both sides. Winner of the Documentary Grand Jury Prize at the **Sundance Film Festival**. Winner of a **Peabody Award**. "*Superb. Fascinating. A brilliantly complex film.*" - ***The Los Angeles Times***
16) I'm Leaving Now
Language
Español
Description
Felipe, an undocumented Mexican immigrant, has reached a crossroad. After living 16 years in Brooklyn, working three-paying jobs, and sending the bulk of his earnings to his wife and children in Mexico, he's decided to return home to the family he hasn't seen in almost two decades. But when he informs them of his plans, he discovers that they've squandered the money, are deeply in debt and don’t want him to return. They need him to stay in the U.S....
Language
English
Description
PENNY SLINGER: OUT OF THE SHADOWS is the untold story of the British artist Penny Slinger and the traumatic events that led to the creation of her masterpiece, the 1977 photo-romance, An Exorcism. A product of the post-war austerity and the subsequent explosion of color that characterized the 1960s counterculture, Slinger embraced her generation’s quest for personal freedom and sexual liberation, and channelled these desires into her ground-breaking...
18) Two Years at Sea
Language
English
Description
Using 16mm cameras, artist Ben Rivers documents the solitary existence of Jake, a man who lives in isolation in the middle of a remote forest. The film follows his unconventional life, capturing moments of profound beauty. Jake is seen in all seasons, surviving frugally, passing the time with strange projects, living the radical dream he had as a younger man, a dream he spent two years working at sea to realize. FIPRESCI Prize winner at the **Venice...
Language
Hindi
Description
A university student in India writes letters to her estranged lover while he is away. Through these letters, we get a glimpse into the drastic changes taking place around her. Merging reality with fiction, dreams, memories, fantasies and anxieties, an amorphous narrative unfolds.
Language
English
Description
A fascinating investigation into the work of photographer and cinema pioneer Eadweard Muybridge, Thom Andersen’s (*Los Angeles Plays Itself*) much-lauded documentary incorporates a biographical overview of its subject with a re-animation of his historic sequential photographs as well as concise and innovative analysis. “*A brilliant, innovative film. Manages to be both a film about history and a genuine work of art.*“– ***The New York Times***...