Afghan Star
★ 6.3 · 2008 · 87m · Documentary · Music
This documentary on the effect the talent competition "Afghan Star" has on the incredibly diverse inhabitants of Afghanistan affords a glimpse into a country rarely seen. Contestants risk their lives to appear on the television show that is a raging success with the public and also monitored closely by the government.
More Like This
Olympia Part Two: Festival of Beauty
1938 · ★ 6.7
Part two of Leni Riefenstahl's monumental examination of the 1938 Olympic Games, the cameras leave the main stadium and venture into the many halls and fields deployed for such sports as fencing, polo, cycling, and the modern pentathlon, which was won by American Glenn Morris.
More info →
A Portrait of Us
2022
A short documentary that follows Korean grandparents as they share their modern-day reckoning of their immigration story and grandparenthood.
More info →
John Ford & Monument Valley
2013 · ★ 1
John Wayne, Henry Fonda and James Stewart discuss working with John Ford
More info →
Vera Klement: Blunt Edge
2010
As her 80th birthday is approaching, Vera Klement, an oil painter in Chicago, adamantly starts yet another new figure painting: a portrait of an artist under oppression, an homage to Russian composer, Dmitri Shostakovitch.
More info →
A Documentary on the Making of 'Gore Vidal's Caligula'
1981 · ★ 4.3
A Documentary on the Making of 'Gore Vidal's Caligula'
More info →
Cycling the Frame
1988 · ★ 6.7
In 1988, Tilda Swinton toured round the Berlin Wall on a bicycle - starting and ending at the Brandenburg Gate - accompanied by filmmaker Cynthia Beatt. As Swinton travels through fields and historic neighborhoods, past lakes and massive concrete apartment buildings, the Wall is a constant presence.
More info →
Olympia Part One: Festival of the Nations
1938 · ★ 6.9
Starting with a long and lyrical overture, evoking the origins of the Olympic Games in ancient Greece, Riefenstahl covers twenty-one athletic events in the first half of this two-part love letter to the human body and spirit, culminating with the marathon, where Jesse Owens became the first track and field athlete to win four gold medals in a single Olympics.
More info →
Boulevard's End
2014
This short documentary focuses on the very end of Washington Boulevard, where the city of Los Angeles meets the ocean and the Venice Pier begins. The rough and simplistic concrete pier braves pacific storms and provides stillness and stability. People come to walk, to fish and ease their minds. The film takes a closer look at the diverse people all around the pier. Among them the filmmakers find two citizens, both immigrants, who take us on their personal journey through history.
More info →
I Am or How Jack Became Black
2017
After his son is denied enrollment by the local elementary school for not identifying his "primary race," a multiracial father journeys through America's maze of Identity Politics to better understand our relentless preoccupation with race.
More info →
Kurosawa's Way
2011 · ★ 5.8
Eleven major film makers from Europe, America and Asia talk about Akira Kurosawa and discover surprising influences on their own work.
More info →Warrior of Light
2001 · ★ 10
A feature-length documentary on Yvonne Bezerra de Mello, award-winning artist and human-rights activist who has gained international recognition for her work with street children in Rio. The film recounts how a woman turned her back on a wealthy lifestyle, driven into action by the execution of 8 streetkids by military police in 1993. In subsequent years Yvonne's struggle to better the lives of endangered and abandoned children has led her to found "Projeto Uere" ("Children of Light") a radical project committed to protection and education of kids who live in the streets and slums of Rio which has brought her into conflict with Brazil's wealthy elite.
More info →
The Good Son
2012 · ★ 2.6
The unbelievable story of 22 year old Or, who secretly finances his sex change operation in Thailand by lying to his conservative parents and then returns home as a woman to face her new life, her family and the cost of living her dream
More info →