By the Balls
★ 5.5 · 2019 · 87m · Documentary
Sport and politics most definitely do mix in this gripping look back at a brutal and turbulent time for New Zealand rugby, told from the point of view of the players themselves including David Kirk and Buck Shelford.
More Like This
Slaying the Badger
2014 · ★ 6.8
Before Lance Armstrong, there was Greg LeMond, who is now the first and only American to win the Tour de France. In this engrossing documentary, LeMond looks back at the pivotal 1986 Tour, and his increasingly vicious rivalry with friend, teammate, and mentor Bernard Hinault. The reigning Tour champion and brutal competitor known as “The Badger,” Hinault ‘promised’ to help LeMond to his first victory, in return for LeMond supporting him in the previous year. But in a sport that purports to reward teamwork, it’s really every man for himself.
More info →
Sports
1932
The film is about a protest provoked when the university decided to restrict access to sports facilities to athletes, cutting out all other students. This is, strictly speaking, not a Prokino film. It was produced by the Waseda University Film Circle, which was organized by Kawazoe Shiro. Feature film directors Yamamoto Satsuo and Taniguchi Senkichi were apparently students at Waseda at the time and participated in the production.
More info →
Karun – The Longest River of Iran
2024 · ★ 8
On September 22, 1998, the Iranian poet Hamid Hajizadeh and his nine-year-old son Karun, whose name symbolically refers to Iran's longest river, were brutally murdered in their home in Kerman. The documentary film, based on the statements of the survivors, tries to sensitively reconstruct one of the many terrible motivated events that took place in Iran at the end of the previous century and draws us into the fateful day with the help of detailed shots of the objects in Hamid's study.
More info →
HEAVEN
2021
HEAVEN tells the story of a trailblazing high school wrestler named Heaven Fitch. In 2020, as a junior, Fitch became the first female athlete to win a boy’s state wrestling championship in North Carolina, claiming the top spot in the 106-pound weight class. The film documents her inspiring journey up the ranks and the challenges she faced along the way, from proving doubters wrong to defying the odds and making history.
More info →
State Funeral
2019 · ★ 6.6
The enigma of the personality cult is revealed in the grand spectacle of Stalin’s funeral. The film is based on unique archive footage, shot in the USSR on March 5 - 9, 1953, when the country mourned and buried Joseph Stalin.
More info →It's All in Lebanon
2012 · ★ 5.2
Wissam Charaf traces the recent history and identity of Lebanon through its political campaigns, PR imagery and pop videos.
More info →
Black Magic - The Team New Zealand Story
2021
In this epic story of humble heroes and Kiwi ingenuity, relive the glory and the magic of the America's Cup 1995, when Sir Peter Blake carved out New Zealand's identity as innovators and world class sailors.
More info →
Lobanov
2021
The 2021 Duma elections made Mikhail Lobanov a recognizable Moscow politician. The 37-year-old mathematician, lecturer at the Moscow State University, has long been involved in social activities: ten years ago he opposed political agitation at the university, participated in the creation of an independent association of university employees to protect their rights, and was almost fired for his activism. In 2021 elections, Lobanov ran for the Communist Party (he is not a member of the party, calls himself a democratic socialist) and waged a powerful grassroots campaign against the pro-government candidate, TV presenter Yevgeny Popov.
More info →