Documentary Movies

Comrade Couture

This film undertakes a journey into the amazing parallel universe of East Berlin’s fashion designers and experts in the art of survival. For, in the midst of the constraints of life in the GDR, there existed a fantasy world where it was possible to dance to another tune, be individual and even provocative. The most important characteristic of this bohemian scene was one’s per- sonal style. But this certainly wasn’t something that could be bought off the peg in the GDR. In this parallel universe it was up to you to create your own individual image – with your own hands. This film tells the story of the desires, the passion and the dreams that were tried and tested, lived and performed in the shadow of the Berlin Wall.

Cesar's Bark Canoe

"This documentary depicts a canoe being built in the traditional manner. Cesar Newashish, a 67-year-old Attikamek of the Manawan Reserve North of Montréal, uses only birchbark, cedar splints, spruce roots, and gum. With a sure hand he works methodically to fashion a craft unsurpassed in function or beauty of design. Building a canoe solely from the materials that the forest provides may become a lost art, even among the Native Peoples whose traditional craft it is. The film is free of spoken commentary but text appears on the screen in Cree, French, and English." - Anthology Film Archives

Jorgenrique

Documentary about ecuadorian writer Jorge Enrique Adoum.

Northbound: Skateboarding on Frozen Sand

Ice, driftwood, foamy waves and … skateboards? Four skaters head north to the cold Norwegian coast, applying their urban skills to a wild canvas of beach flotsam, frozen sand and pastel skies. The result is a beautiful mashup — biting winds and short days, ollies and a frozen miniramp.

Caleta Palace

Eight foreign characters recall their exploits and fears in Malaga, a paradise city that starts a revolution on July 18th 1936, as the military coup is stopped by popular rebellion, until February 9th 1937, when Mussolini troops take Malaga and put it under the rule of Franco. Seven months that shape the stark tale of a besieged city, the first capital to be conquered in Spanish Civil War and a prelude of WW2.

Moving Day 2

In 1970 the director Lyudmila Stanukinas made the documentary film Moving Day, which that same year won one of the biggest prizes at the Krakow Film Festival. The film was a montage of footage shot in the course of a single day, which was a revelation for the documentary cinema of the time. In February 1999, Stanukinas (every one called her Lyalya) left her apartment in Jerusalem following the death of her husband and constant co-author, the director Pavel Kogan. The filmmaker Felix Yacubson, who at the time was living nearby, captured this moment for his video archive. When Lyalya herself passed away in July 2020, he edited the 25 minutes of footage to create a 10-minute film.

Iels

IELS is a documentary which highlights the journeys of two non-binary drag artists: Drag Couenne, a Belgian queen, and Miroslav, a French king. Through their testimonies and a dreamlike staging, the film explores gender transition and the impact of drag on their identity, while questioning society's binary norms.

Ballet

First documentary film by Jose Carlos Huayhuaca.

The Shimmering Beast

A documentary film about a group of hunters who gather annually to hunt moose near Maniwaki, Quebec.

Beyond the Cure - Europe

A short and touching documentary about the lives of 5 women who had cancer. Part of a bigger project set to interview women around the world.

Daughters

In hopes of building a closer relationship, a girl sits down with her mother, seeking to hear her experiences and aspirations growing up. What starts as a revisit of her mother’s past turns into a revelation about love and the weight of unspoken needs.

Overseas

In the Philippines, women get deployed abroad to work as domestic workers or nannies. In one of the many training centers dedicated to domestic work, a group of trainees are getting ready to face both homesickness and the possible abuses lying ahead during a series of role-playing exercises.

Helga und die Männer - Die sexuelle Revolution

Aaron Carter: The Little Prince of Pop

Famous by age 9, struggling by age 20 and dead at ripe age of 34, this documentary dives deep into the life of pop singer Aaron Carter. He became a mainstay of the early 2000s pop scene, touring the world as a child solo artist with chart-topping hits like “I Want Candy” and earning the title “The Little Prince of Pop” from Michael Jackson. Just a few years after his rise to fame, Carter began a cycle of mental health struggles, experienced family turmoil, and grappled with addiction ― culminating in his untimely death in November 2022.

Reserve

The wolf no longer inhabits the land that once formed part of its territory, and only through its outlines can we get closer to it; remnants of wolf traps, predator urine imported from the US, a dung-hill used to feed scavenger birds and archers that shoot at replicas of animals. Reserve constructs a story about the fragile balance of a territory after the disappearance of the predator, where the complex co-existence between humans and non-humans presents a distinctly marked anthropogenic ecosystem.

Alcools

Nanook Revisited

Filmmakers revisit Inukjuak, the Inuit village where Robert J. Flaherty filmed Nanook of the North in the early twentieth century, and examine the realities behind the ground-breaking documentary.

Wicked Women

When erotic magazine Wicked Women hit the stands, it turned lesbian Australia upside down and liberated lesbian sex for generations to come.

Jodorowsky's Dune

In 1974, Chilean-French director Alejandro Jodorowsky embarked on the quixotic project of adapting Frank Herbert's influential novel Dune (1969) for the big screen. After investing two years, and millions of dollars, the gigantic project ended in failure; but the artists Jodorowsky brought together to carry it out continued to work together, and ended up laying the foundations for modern science fiction cinema.

Häxan

Grave robbing, torture, possessed nuns, and a satanic Sabbath: Benjamin Christensen's legendary film uses a series of dramatic vignettes to explore the scientific hypothesis that the witches of the Middle Ages suffered the same hysteria as turn-of-the-century psychiatric patients. But the film itself is far from serious-- instead it's a witches' brew of the scary, gross, and darkly humorous.