American Vagabond is a documentary film about runaway queer youth living in the shadows of the promised city.
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The story of what happens when "The Mighty Cheetahs," an undefeated all-girls soccer team, competes in the boys division. With humor and candor this documentary gets at the heart of the boy-girl issues and explores what "Kick Like A Girl" really means on and off the playing field. Kick Like A Girl reminds us all of the lessons learned in competitive athletics and how sports has been one of the most effective instruments of social change in our lifetime.
Three teenagers — Amelio, Blake and Kira — each begin their gender transition, supported in different ways by their families. This deeply sensitive documentary follows them between ages 15 and 17 as they navigate the emotional and physical challenges of being transgender. For them, puberty brings intense distress, as their developing bodies do not align with their true gender identity. The film explores the difficult questions faced by parents and doctors: whether to medically delay puberty, start hormonal treatment, or wait and risk worsening the teens’ suffering. Through moments of doubt, upheaval and hope, the documentary offers an intimate look at three young people who want only one thing — for the outside world to see them as they know themselves to be.
It's a tale of two shocks. 1992, Les Nuits fauves hits theaters. 1993, Cyril Collard dies of AIDS. The artist and his film caused a scandal in 90s France, which suddenly realized the violence of the epidemic and the upheaval it would bring for its children... Collard's work still resonates today, through its depiction of the rage of life and sexual freedom, and the courage it takes to face up to the inevitability of the virus. This documentary is supported by powerful archive footage, allowing us to rediscover the destiny of a striking artist. It is also based on the testimonies of those who knew him and agreed to talk about who he was, the driving forces behind his rebellion and his way of creating. The film is also punctuated by readings from some of the thousands of letters sent to Cyril Collard, revealing what it was about his work that struck a chord with viewers, especially younger ones.
Like a road movie, the film accompanies a water delivery truck through the Brazilian landscapes of the Sertão region, plagued by drought. Between fiction and documentary, the driver’s trip bears witness to a determined population endeavouring to live out their daily lives, while the sterile words of politicians seem to soar over the arid lands. A collective portrait that respects the right distance.
Agnes Varda's documentary of the celebrations arising from the 25th anniversary of her husband Jacques Demy's film The Young Girls of Rochefort.
China is the first country in the world to classify Internet addiction as a clinical disorder. Caught in the Net features a Beijing treatment center where Chinese teenagers are being "deprogrammed," and follows the story of three boys from the day they arrive at the center, to their three-month treatment period, and their long awaited return home. The film provides a microcosm of modern Chinese life and investigates one of the symptoms of the Internet age. It examines inter-generational pressures and the disregard of the human rights of minors who get caught in the net.
A story from the lost town of Koza - a silver paradise.
AFTER THE STORM is a feature-length documentary film that follows a group of New York Broadway actors who were inspired to help the youth of New Orleans. They stage a musical theater production of the Broadway play "Once on this Island" with local teenagers at the St. Marks Community Center located at the edge of the French Quarter. The film follows the crew and the kids from auditions through performances and also includes the story of each young actor's life in the wake of Katrina.' The story of the musical reflects very much so the life in New Orleans post Katrina.
A contrast between two kinds of attitudes to gay liberation in Adelaide.
Documentary about the winner of the Eurovision Song Contest 2014 Conchita Wurst – on the day before the live transmission of the Eurovision Song Contest 2015 from the Wiener Stadthalle.
The documentary blends fiction and non-fiction to tell the story of a young woman whose encounter with the intense natural beauty of Iceland inspires her to examine her comfortable notions of sanity and creativity. The island's intensity reminds Andrea of her schizophrenic brother Jacob, a young man who isn’t bound by the conventional standards. “Delusional” thought and “erratic” behavior seem not so different from Andrea’s untamed surroundings in which the wind rants, the clouds are grandiose and the seasons bi-polar.
Agnès Varda's documentary portrait of her late husband, Jacques Demy. A companion piece to her Jacquot de Nantes.
In the 1980s and 1990s a wave of murders bloodied the idyllic coastline of Sydney’s eastern suburbs. The victims: young gay men. Disturbing gang assaults were being carried out on coastal cliffs around Sydney, and mysterious deaths officially recorded as "suicide", "disappearance" and "misadventure". Individual stories are woven together by first person interviews and detailed re-enactments, piecing together the facts of these unsolved cases, decades later.
A prescient portrait of late-1970s Washington, D.C., that chronicles the city's creeping gentrification, the systematic expulsion of poor Black residents, and the community response in the form of the Seaton Street Project, in which tenants banded together to purchase buildings.
Narrative of the process of building an identity as a trans illustrator who uses monstrous images to communicate his feelings.
Juan Luis Recio tells the story of what his life was like belonging to the LGBT community through his three great loves, Javier, Miguel, and Jorge, where, through his own poems, he explores what it was like to be homosexual in a time and environment where being one was not well-seen.
Field recordings of religious services in a South Carolina Gullah community. Commandment Keeper Church, Beaufort South Carolina, May 1940 is a 1940 short documentary film which shows religious services taking place in a South Carolina Gullah community. In 2005, Commandment Keeper Church was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
Once a vibrant part of American culture, drive-ins reached their peak in the late 1950s with almost 5,000 dotting the nation. Although drive-ins are experiencing a resurgence, today less than 400 remain. In a nation that loves cars and movies, why haven't they survived? April Wright's lovingly made documentary, filled with archival images of hundreds of open and closed drive-in theaters, interviews with theater owners, operators and cinema luminaries attempts to answer that question.
Director Susanne Ullerich had often asked herself, “How will I earn money [as an artist]?” Because she couldn’t easily answer this and many other questions, she decided to interview other like-minded people. The interviews all take place in a studio, where the goal was to place the interviewees in a sort of job interview situation. The interviewees have many different nationalities and backgrounds and were subjected to a litany of questions covering the themes of work, art, satisfaction, wishes, creativity, study and their personal life situations. The goal was not to build a personal profile of each individual, but rather to present a forum to discuss each of the questions.
A documentary about the people of Cape Polonio, a vacation resort, and what these people do once the tourist season ends.
In a warehouse in the heart of Los Angeles, a dwindling handful of devoted craftspeople maintain more than 80,000 student musical instruments, the largest remaining workshop in America of its kind. Meet four unforgettable characters whose broken-and-repaired lives have been dedicated to bringing so much more than music to the schoolchildren of this city.
An investigation of how Hollywood's fabled stories have deeply influenced how Americans feel about transgender people, and how transgender people have been taught to feel about themselves.
Just two years away from turning 30, participants in Michael Apted's documentary series are facing serious questions of identity and purpose, wondering whether they've found their place in the world.
14-year-old Laura Dekker sets out on a two-year voyage in pursuit of her dream to become the youngest person ever to sail around the world alone.
In an intimate and joyful story of love in the face of loss, celebrated poets Andrea Gibson and Megan Falley find strength—and unexpected hilarity—in what might be their final year together.
Captured during Billie Eilish's sold-out world tour, a concert experience from one of the most celebrated and successful artists of her generation, presented in immersive 3D.
Home movies, photographs, and recited poetry illustrate the life of Tupac Shakur, one of the most beloved, revolutionary, and volatile hip-hop MCs of all time.
A documentary on seniors at a high school in a small Indiana town and their various cliques.
The incomparable Bruce Springsteen performs his critically acclaimed latest album and muses on life, rock, and the American dream, in this intimate and personal concert film co-directed by Thom Zimny and Springsteen himself.
As a visually radical memoir, CAMERAPERSON draws on the remarkable footage that filmmaker Kirsten Johnson has shot and reframes it in ways that illuminate moments and situations that have personally affected her. What emerges is an elegant meditation on the relationship between truth and the camera frame, as Johnson transforms scenes that have been presented on Festival screens as one kind of truth into another kind of story—one about personal journey, craft, and direct human connection.
Musician and performance artist Laurie Anderson reflects on the deaths of her husband Lou Reed, her mother and her beloved dog.
An inside look at one of the most anticipated movie sequels ever with James Cameron and cast.
When a feminist filmmaker sets out to document the mysterious and polarizing world of the Men’s Rights Movement, she begins to question her own beliefs. Chronicling Cassie Jaye’s journey exploring an alternate perspective on gender equality, power and privilege.
Through deeply personal interviews with her siblings and an examination of the photographs, letters, and belongings left behind, Mariska assembles a new portrait of her mother Jayne Mansfield, an extraordinary and complex woman.
Alternately hilarious and horrifying, Overnight chronicles one man's misadventures of making a Hollywood movie. It starts out as a rags to riches story as Troy Duffy, a Boston-bred bartender, sells his first screenplay for The Boondock Saints.
Unravel the case of Utah therapist Jodi Hildebrandt, whose child abuse arrest with parenting YouTuber Ruby Franke exposed a twisted tale of manipulation.
An IMAX 3D camera chronicles the effort of 7 astronauts aboard the Space Shuttle Atlantis to repair the Hubble Space Telescope.
A string of threatening emails escalates into a revenge plot involving a newly married US marshal and his ex-girlfriend.
Using the book 'Fragments', which collects Marilyn Monroe's poems, notes and letters, and with participation from the Arthur Miller and Truman Capote estates who have contributed more material, each of the actresses will embody the legend at various stages in her life.
After years in the limelight, Selena Gomez achieves unimaginable stardom. But just as she reaches a new peak, an unexpected turn pulls her into darkness. This uniquely raw and intimate documentary spans her six-year journey into a new light.