Archive for the ‘Documentary’ Category

Divorce Corp

Friday, January 10th, 2014

Genre: Documentary

Release Year: 2014

Runtime: 125

Language: English

Director: Joseph Sorge

Plot: More money flows through the family courts, and into the hands of courthouse insiders, than in all other court systems in America combined – over $50 billion a year and growing. Through extensive research and interviews with the nation’s top divorce lawyers, mediators, judges, politicians, litigants and journalists, DIVORCE CORP. uncovers how children are torn from their homes, unlicensed custody evaluators extort money, and abusive judges play god with people’s lives while enriching their friends. This explosive documentary reveals the family courts as unregulated, extra-constitutional fiefdoms. Rather than assist victims of domestic crimes, these courts often precipitate them. And rather than help parents and children move on, as they are mandated to do, these courts – and their associates – drag out cases for years, sometimes decades, ultimately resulting in a rash of social ills, including home foreclosure, bankruptcy, suicide and violence. Solutions to the crisis are sought out in countries where divorce is handled in a more holistic manner.

 

Believe

Wednesday, December 25th, 2013

Genre: Documentary

Release Year: 2013

Runtime: 144

Language: English

Director: Jon M. Chu

Plot: Behind the headlines, beyond the spotlight — there’s more to his story. Directed by Jon M. Chu (Never Say Never, G.I. Joe: Retaliation) JUSTIN BIEBER’S BELIEVE captures 19-year-old Justin Bieber unfiltered and brutally honest. In brand new interviews with Bieber, the movie reveals long-awaited answers to questions about his passion to make music, relationships and coming of age in the spotlight — as well as never-before-seen concert footage, unprecedented behind-the-scenes access and special appearances from manager Scooter Braun, Patti Mallette, Usher, Ludacris and many more.

 

A Winter of Cyclists

Sunday, December 8th, 2013

Genre: Documentary

Release Year: 2013

Runtime: 77

Language: English

Director: Michael Prendergast

Plot: The documentary A Winter of Cyclists (64 min) captures the inaugural Icy Bike Winter Commuting Challenge. The film follows twelve cyclists as they attempt to bicycle commute during the winter months. Watch as they challenge each other during the cold, dark and snowy Colorado winter and experience the surprising comradery that forms as nearly 200 like-minded riders from across the USA, Canada, and other countries join in the Challenge. For those who cycle in the winter now, this film is a tribute to you. And for those who are considering it, catch a memorable glimpse of what could await you.

 

Bettie Page Reveals All

Friday, November 22nd, 2013

Genre: Documentary

Release Year: 2013

Runtime: 137

Language:

Director: Mark Mori

Plot: Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Mark Mori’s BETTIE PAGE REVEALS ALL is an intimate look at one of the world’s most recognized sex symbols, told in her own words for the first time.

In Mori’s alluring documentary, the real Bettie Page emerges from the veil of myth and rumor via audio interviews taped a decade prior to her death in 2008. With earthy, razor sharp wit, Bettie tells her life story — from humble beginnings as one of six children in an impoverished southern family, to high school salutatorian, to scandalous 50s pin-up model, to shocking retirement in 1957 at the peak of her modeling career. Sharing rare details about her short-lived first marriage and many torrid affairs, this keen insider’s glimpse follows Bettie through decades of broken marriages, born-again Christianity, and bouts of mental illness, before her ultimate return to the public eye in the early 90’s, unaware of her cult status. Ranked by Forbes in 2012 as one of the top ten posthumous celebrity earners, Bettie and her enduring legacy continue to flourish.

With a stunning array of gorgeous photographs, unusual archival material, and playful movie footage, BETTIE PAGE REVEALS ALL shows how Bettie’s unabashed sexual expression and provocative poses set the stage for the sexual revolution and ushered in a modern era in fashion. For stars like Katy Perry and Beyonce, as well as new generations of adoring fans around the world, Bettie remains an irresistible style icon and an empowering role model.

 

IT’S BETTER TO JUMP

Friday, November 22nd, 2013

Genre: Documentary

Release Year: 2013

Runtime: 126

Language: English

Director: Patrick A. Stewart

Plot: “It’s Better to Jump” is a feature-length documentary film that gives voice to Arab inhabitants of the ancient walled city of Akka (located on Israel’s northern coast) as both the people and their town face a very uncertain future.

As Akka undergoes harsh economic pressures, vast social change and on-going problems among its Arab populace, the present-day situation is causing Palestinian families to leave the places where they have grown roots for dozens of generations and shaped a rich culture for over a thousand years.

Within their current dilemma, jumping from the ancient sea wall into the rocky waters below becomes not only an expression of extreme exhilaration, but also a matter of self-determination. “It’s Better to Jump” weaves together a magical story of an historic place, its people and the hopes they hold beyond all limitation to make giant leaps of faith in life.

 

Lion Ark

Friday, November 15th, 2013

Genre: Documentary

Release Year: 2013

Runtime: 146

Language: English

Director: Tim Phillips

Plot: Lion Ark is a vivid behind the scenes account of probably the most ambitious animal rescue ever undertaken, the finale of which sees 25 lions rescued from illegal traveling circuses across Bolivia being flown to safety in the USA.

A shocking undercover investigation leads to a ban on animal circuses in Bolivia. But the circuses defy the law. The team behind the investigation return, track down the illegal circuses and save every animal. We follow the confrontations, heartache and risks the team face, before an emotional finale sees 25 lions airlifted 5,000 miles to freedom in Colorado.

 

Dear Mr. Watterson

Friday, November 15th, 2013

Genre: Documentary

Release Year: 2013

Runtime: 135

Language: English

Director: Joel Allen Schroeder

Plot: The impact of the newspaper comic strip Calvin & Hobbes, created by Bill Watterson.

 

People of a Feather

Friday, November 8th, 2013

Genre: Documentary

Release Year: 2013

Runtime: 150

Language: Inuktitut

Director: Joel Heath

Plot: Featuring stunning footage from seven winters in the Arctic, People of a Feather takes you through time into the world of the Inuit on the Belcher Islands in Canada’s Hudson Bay. Connecting past, present and future is a unique relationship with the eider duck. Eider down, the warmest feather in the world, allows both Inuit and bird to survive harsh Arctic winters.

Traditional life is juxtaposed with modern challenges as both Inuit and eiders confront changing sea ice and ocean currents disrupted by the massive hydroelectric dams powering New York and eastern North America. Inspired by Inuit ingenuity and the technology of a simple feather, the film is a call to action to implement energy solutions that work with nature.

 

Birth Of The Living Dead

Wednesday, November 6th, 2013

Genre: Documentary

Release Year: 2013

Runtime: 119

Language: English

Director: Rob Kuhns

Plot: In 1968 a young college drop-out named George A. Romero directed “Night of the Living Dead,” a low budget horror film that shocked the world, became an icon of the counterculture, and spawned a zombie industry worth billions of dollars that continues to this day.

“Birth of the Living Dead,” a new documentary, shows how Romero gathered an unlikely team of Pittsburghers — policemen, iron workers, teachers, ad-men, housewives and a roller-rink owner — to shoot, with a revolutionary guerrilla, run-and-gun style, his seminal film. During that process Romero and his team created an entirely new and horribly chilling monster – one that was undead and feasted upon human flesh.

This new documentary also immerses audiences into the singular time in which “Night” was shot. Archival footage of the horrors of Vietnam and racial violence at home combined with iconic music from the 60s invites viewers to experience how Romero’s tumultuous film reflected this period in American history. “Birth of the Living Dead” shows us how this young filmmaker created a world-renowned horror film that was also a profound insight into how our society really works.

 

Why We Ride

Friday, November 1st, 2013

Genre: Documentary

Release Year: 2013

Runtime: 152

Language: English

Director: Bryan H. Carroll

Plot: Why We Ride is a story about who we are. Individuals with a desire to dream, discover and explore. Seeking a life outside our daily confinements and sharing those moments together. It’s a story about the journey, not the destination. Motorcycles represent the milestones of our lives. From a kid’s dream come true, to a retiree’s return to freedom. From a family riding together on the sand dunes, to hundreds of choppers carving through the canyons – the bond is the same. It’s about the passion of the riders and the soul of their machines. Your senses will heighten as the world rushes in, your heart will beat to the pulse of the engine, your mind will race and set you free. Once you let a motorcycle into your life, it will change you forever.

 

THE PERVERT’S GUIDE TO IDEOLOGY

Friday, November 1st, 2013

Genre: Documentary

Release Year: 2013

Runtime: 97

Language: English

Director: Sophie Fiennes

Plot: Cultural theorist superstar Slavoj Žižek re-teams with director Sophie Fiennes (The Pervert’s Guide to Cinema) for another wildly entertaining romp through the crossroads of cinema and philosophy. With infectious zeal and a voracious appetite for popular culture, Žižek literally goes inside some truly epochal movies, all the better to explore and expose how they reinforce prevailing ideologies. As the ideology that undergirds our cinematic fantasies is revealed, striking associations emerge: What hidden Catholic teachings lurk at the heart of The Sound of Music? What are the fascist political dimensions of Jaws? Taxi Driver, Zabriskie Point, The Searchers, The Dark Knight, John Carpenter’s They Live (“one of the forgotten masterpieces of the Hollywood Left”), Titanic, Kinder Eggs, verité news footage, Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” and propaganda epics from Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia all inform Žižek’s stimulating, provocative and often hilarious psychoanalytic-cinematic rant.

 

FOLLOWING THE NINTH: IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF BEETHOVEN’S FINAL SYMPHONY

Friday, November 1st, 2013

Genre: Documentary

Release Year: 2013

Runtime: 463

Language: English

Director: Kerry Candaele

Plot: Filmed on 5 continents and in 12 countries, ‘Following The Ninth’ is the story of four people whose lives have been transformed and repaired by Beethoven’s message in his Ninth Symphony: Alle Menschen werden Bruder (All Men Will Be Brothers). At Tienanmen Square in 1989, students played the Ninth over loudspeakers as the army came in to crush their struggle for freedom. In Chile, women living under the Pinochet dictatorship sang the Ninth at torture prisons, where men inside took hope when they heard their voices. In Japan each December, the Ninth is performed hundreds of times, often with 10,000 people in the chorus. And now, with a concert for the victims of the earthquake and Tsunami. The Berlin Wall, symbol of division and oppression, comes down in December, 1989, as Leonard Bernstein performs Beethoven’s Ninth as an “Ode To Freedom”.

Part road trip, part adventure story, ‘Following The Ninth’ is an inspirational film about Beethoven’s Ninth, the power it has to liberate us, to shield us against suffering, and to provide hope and resilience for us in dark times.

 

When I Walk

Friday, October 25th, 2013

Genre: Documentary

Release Year: 2013

Runtime: 145

Language: English

Director: Jason DaSilva

Plot: In 2006, 25-year-old Jason DaSilva was on vacation at the beach with family when, suddenly, he fell down. He couldn’t get back up. His legs had stopped working his disease could no longer be ignored. Just a few months earlier doctors had told him that he had multiple sclerosis, which could lead to loss of vision and muscle control, as well as a myriad of other complications. Jason tried exercise to help cope, but the problem only worsened. After his dispiriting fall on the beach, he turned to his Mom, who reminded him that, despite his disease, he was still a fortunate kid who had the opportunity to pursue the things he loved most: art and filmmaking. Jason picked up the camera, turned it on his declining body, and set out on a worldwide journey in search of healing, self-discovery, and love.
An emotional documentary filled with unexpected moments of humor and joy, WHEN I WALK is a life-affirming film driven by a young man’s determination to survive—and to make sense of a devastating disease through the art of cinema.

 

Not Yet Begun To Fight

Friday, October 25th, 2013

Genre: Documentary

Release Year: 2013

Runtime: 64

Language: English

Director: Shasta Grenier

Plot: A Vietnam veteran brings men who have been severely injured in Iraq and Afghanistan to the rivers of Montana. He teaches them to fish. And to hope. A frank, sometimes hilarious, and sometimes heartbreaking look at the impacts of war and the journey to recovery.

Directed by Shasta Grenier and Sabrina Lee.

 

River Changes Course

Friday, October 11th, 2013

Genre: Documentary

Release Year: 2013

Runtime: 86

Language: English

Director: Kalyanee Mam

Plot: “We’ve worked so hard on this land,” says Sav Samourn. “And now they’ve come to destroy it all. Sooner or later it will all be gone.“ In her directorial debut, award-winning filmmaker Kalyanee Mam intimately captures the stories of three families living in Cambodia as they strive to maintain their traditional ways of life amid rapid development and environmental degradation.

Deep in the jungle, Sav Samourn struggles as large companies encroach and “progress” claims the life-giving forests. She discovers there’s little room for wild animals, ghosts – and the home she has always known. In a fishing hamlet, Sari Math must quit school to help support his family. But as the fish catch dwindles, Sari and his family find their livelihood threatened.

In a village, Khieu Mok must leave to seek work in a Phnom Penh factory to help pay her family’s debts. But city life proves no better, and Khieu struggles between her need to send money home and her duty to be with her loved ones. From Cambodia’s forests to its rivers, from its idyllic rice fields to the capital’s pulsing heart, forces of radical change are transforming the landscape of the country – and the dreams of its people.

 

DESIGN IS ONE: LELLA & MASSIMO VIGNELLI

Friday, October 11th, 2013

Genre: Documentary

Release Year: 2013

Runtime: 160

Language: English

Director: Kathy Brew

Plot: Italian-born Massimo and Lella Vignelli are among the world’s most influential designers. Throughout their long career, their motto has been, ‘If you can’t find it, design it’ The work covers such a broad spectrum that one could say the Vignellis are known by everybody, even those who don’t know their names. From graphics to interiors to products and corporate identities, the film brings us into the work and everyday moments of the Vignellis’ world, capturing their intelligence and creativity, as well as their humanity, warmth, and humor.

 

American Promise

Tuesday, October 8th, 2013

Genre: Documentary

Release Year: 2013

Runtime: 153

Language: English

Director: Joe Brewster

Plot: Impact Partners presents the U.S. theatrical premiere of AMERICAN PROMISE, by Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson, spanning 13 formative years in the lives of two young black boys, their son Idris and his best friend Seun, as they navigate an elite, performance-driven, ivy league New York City prep school in a universe still largely segregated by race, class and culture. Filmmakers Brewster and Stephenson, a Harvard and Stanford-trained psychiatrist and Columbia Law School graduate, respectively, are middle class African-American parents from the Fort Greene neighborhood of Brooklyn, N.Y. When they open their cameras onto the world of five-year-olds Idris and Seun, two talented boys both accepted into the prestigious Dalton School in kindergarten as part of the institution’s commitment to diversity, a sprawling and epic vérité essay on the education of young black males in America unfolds. While Idris grafts easily into social structure of his new school, Seun struggles to find his place in the scheme of things, and by high school ultimately transfers to the mostly black Benjamin Banneker Academy, a public high school in Brooklyn. Both boys face the challenges of their unique situation amidst the normal formidable pressures of growing up, including discipline from their parents, a mother’s diagnosis of cancer and the tragic death of a sibling. Chronicling the boys’ poignantly divergent — yet essentially interconnected — paths through high school graduation, this provocative and profoundly warm documentary presents complicated truths about societal coming of age on issues of race, class and opportunity in America today.

 

The Prime Ministers: The Pioneers

Tuesday, October 8th, 2013

Genre: Documentary

Release Year: 2013

Runtime: 90

Language: English

Director: Richard Trank

Plot: The Prime Ministers: The Pioneers, is the 13th release by Moriah Films, the Academy Award winning documentary filmmaking division of the Simon Wiesenthal Center. Based on the best selling book by Ambassador Yehuda Avner. The Prime Ministers: The Pioneers, takes the audience inside the offices of Israel’s Prime Ministers, through the eyes of an insider, Yehuda Avner, who served as a chief aide, English language note-taker and speechwriter to Levi Eshkol, Golda Meir, Yitzhak Rabin, Menachem Begin, and Shimon Peres. Behind the scene stories are brought to life involving Presidents Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter. Personalities ranging from Henry Kissinger, Margaret Thatcher and Moshe Dayan to Harry Truman, Anwar Sadat, and Princess Diana appear in The Prime Ministers: The Pioneers. The first of two parts, the documentary focuses on Ambassador Avner’s years working with Prime Ministers Levi Eshkol and Golda Meir and then US Ambassador Yitzhak Rabin and reveals new details about the 6 Day War, the development of Israel’s close strategic relationship with the United States, the fight against terrorism, the Yom Kippur War and its aftermath.

 

The Summit

Friday, October 4th, 2013

Genre: Documentary

Release Year: 2013

Runtime: 141

Language: English

Director: Nick Ryan

Plot: K2 is commonly known as “Savage Mountain” and with good reason. With an unprecedented fatality rate of one in four climbers, it has rightfully earned the title of the second most murderous mountain in the world. THE SUMMIT tells a frightening story of K2 earning its name – in August 2008 when 22 climbers from several international expeditions converged on High Camp of K2. 48 hours later, 11 were killed or simply vanished into thin air. Like a horror movie come to life, it was as if the mountain began stealing lives, one climber at a time.

 

The Institute

Friday, October 4th, 2013

Genre: Documentary

Release Year: 2013

Runtime: 128

Language: English

Director: Spencer McCall

Plot: “To those dark horses with the spirit to look up and see… a recondite family awaits.” Welcome to the Jejune Institute, a mind-bending San Francisco phenomenon where 10,000 people became “inducted” without ever quite realizing what they’d signed up for. Was it a cult? Was it an elaborate game? Told from the participants’ perspectives, the film looks over the precipice at an emergent new art form where real world and fictional narratives collide, creating unforeseen and often unsettling consequences. Fusing elements of counter-culture, new religious movements and street art, THE INSTITUTE invites viewers into a secret underground world teeming just beneath the surface of everyday life.