Our Dear Sisters
1975 · 14m · Documentary
Alanis Obomsawin, a North American Indian who earns her living by singing and making films, is the mother of an adopted child. She talks about her life, her people, and her responsibilities as a single parent. Her observations shake some of our cultural assumptions.
More Like This
Motherland
2009
Six American mothers, each grieving the death of a child, journey to South Africa to volunteer with impoverished children. The strength of the people they meet and the reality of the poverty they witness deeply affects them. They ultimately discover hope and healing as a result of serving others, and through the unexpected friendships they form with each other.
More info →
Election Day
2007
Forget the pie charts, color-coded maps and hyperventilating pundits. What's the street-level experience of voters in today's America? In a triumph of documentary storytelling, ELECTION DAY combines eleven stories--all shot simultaneously on November 2, 2004, from dawn until long past midnight--into one. Factory workers, ex-felons, harried moms, Native American activists and diligent poll watchers, from South Dakota to Florida, take the process of democracy into their own hands. The result: an entertaining, inspiring and sometimes unsettling tapestry of citizens determined on one fateful day to make their votes count.
More info →My Neighbor, My Killer
2009 · ★ 6.5
The people of Rwanda attempt to reconcile after the genocide through an open process of admission and forgiveness.
More info →
Songs From the North
2015 · ★ 7
Interweaving footage from the director’s three visits to North Korea with songs, spectacle, popular cinema and archival footage, Songs from the North takes a different look at this enigmatic country typically seen through the distorted lens of jingoistic propaganda and derisive satire. Challenging the meaning of freedom, love, patriotism and ultimately the human condition, it tries to understand, on their own terms, the psychology and popular imaginary of the North Korean people and the political ideology of absolute love which continues to drive the nation towards its uncertain future.
More info →
Jimi Plays Monterey
1987 · ★ 7.5
Jimi Hendrix's debut American set at 1967's Monterey Pop Festival is generally considered one of the most radical and legendary live shows ever. Virtually unknown to American audiences at the time, even though he was already an established entity in the UK, Hendrix and his two-piece Experience explode on stage, ripping through blues classics "Rock Me Baby" and Howlin' Wolf's "Killing Floor," interpreting and electrifying Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone," debuting songs from his yet-to-be-released first album and closing with the now historic sacrificing/burning of his guitar during an unhinged version of "Wild Thing" that even its writer Chip Taylor would never have imagined. Hendrix uses feedback and distortion to enhance the songs in whisper-to-scream intensity, blazing territory that had not been previously explored with as much soul-frazzled power.
More info →
Lorena: Light-Footed Woman
2019 · ★ 6.6
A young woman of the Tarahumara, well-known for their extraordinary long distance running abilities, wins ultramarathons seemingly out of nowhere despite running in sandals.
More info →
Sister Aimee
2007 · ★ 10
At the peak of her immense popularity in the 1920s, evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson was drawing larger crowds to her revivals than those of P.T. Barnum or Harry Houdini. This chapter of "American Experience" paints a vivid portrait of the controversial and charismatic religious figure. Credited with mainstreaming religion in American culture, Sister Aimee created one of the country's first Christian radio stations, among other accomplishments.
More info →
Contrary Warriors: A Film of the Crow Tribe
1985 · ★ 7
Examines the impact a century of struggling for survival has on a native people. It weaves the Crow tribe's turbulent past with modern-day accounts from Robert Yellow-tail, a 97-year-old Crow leader and a major reason for the tribe's survival. Poverty and isolation combine with outside pressures to undermine the tribe, but they resist defeat as "Contrary Warriors," defying the odds.
More info →
ABBA in Concert
1980 · ★ 7.5
ABBA's 1979 tour of North America and Europe, with emphasis on performances at Wembley Arena, London.
More info →
Waiting for Hockney
2008 · ★ 5
A young working class Baltimore man spends 10 years on a single portrait, believing it is his means to fame and fortune. But he also believes that only one man can lead him there---the famous artist David Hockney. What happens when you finally meet the god of your own making?
More info →