Documentary Movies

Pobeda

About the non-stop flight of three Soviet pilots around the globe on the stratoplane "Pobeda-1".

The City at Sunrise

A documentary look into life in Saigon, very soon after April 30, 1975.

Inbound

Documenting the shared trajectory between Canada’s rise as a global basketball powerhouse and the circumstances that helped shape the country’s multicultural identity.

Dari Qatar

Throughout 2016, people across our great nation submitted video clips for the Dari Qatar project, and we at the Doha Film Institute wove them together to create a tapestry of daily life in Qatar.

Mountain Flesh

In a Swiss mountain village, hikers head out, a fountain splashes reassuringly and a churchwarden prepares a mass. Debut director Valentina Shasivari evokes the calm of this serene landscape with tightly framed shots in contrast-rich black-and-white.

Saturday Night

With unprecedented access to the behind the scenes process of the writers, actors and producers, Franco and his crew document what it takes to create one full episode of Saturday Night Live.

Cameraman: The Life and Work of Jack Cardiff

In 2001 Jack Cardiff (1914-2009) became the first director of photography in the history of the Academy Awards to win an Honorary Oscar. But the first time he clasped the famous statuette in his hand was a half-century earlier when his Technicolor camerawork was awarded for Powell and Pressburger's Black Narcissus. Beyond John Huston's The African Queen and King Vidor's War and Peace, the films of the British-Hungarian creative duo (The Red Shoes and A Matter of Life and Death too) guaranteed immortality for the renowned cameraman whose career spanned seventy years.

Few Words

Few Words is the story of a modern skiing pioneer, who became one of the most successful and talented freestyle skiers in the world, Candide Thovex.

Dreamers

Carlos’ American dream is trapped in the labyrinth of the U.S. administration which refuses to legally recognise him. He arrived from Mexico as a child, yet he has been living in Chicago for 29 years.

A Secret Love

Amid shifting times, two women kept their decades-long love a secret. But coming out later in life comes with its own set of challenges.

Lumière, Le Cinéma!

In one of those wonderful coincidences of history, lumière, the French word for “light,” was also the last name of brothers Auguste and Louis, whose brilliant invention, the cinematograph, helped to inaugurate the most beloved art form of the last 130 years. Institute Lumière director Thierry Frémaux uses Lumière, Le Cinema! to guide the viewer through over a hundred shorts—some famous, some forgotten, some never before seen—directed by Lumière and company. In the process, Frémaux illuminates how the brothers employed the camera as a creative instrument as they (and their operators) mastered framing, staging, and subject selection for quotidian and exotic microdocumentaries as well as the first ever fictional motion pictures. The result is not only a glorious re(telling) of the genesis of cinema but a profound meditation on the beautiful world captured—and the mysterious world imagined—by the Lumières.

The Lie

Reconstruction of the political drama around Ayaan Hirsi Ali that heralded the fall of the Dutch cabinet. A musical documentary on a subject close to all Dutch people: truth and lies in politics. The film exposes the motives surrounding the drama in which feminist activist and politician Ayaan Hirsi Ali was accused of lying about her identity. In this political story we are also told the personal tale of the young girl Sadaf, who sought asylum years ago. THE LIE demonstrates the human side of Dutch politics, while revealing how Holland deals with the thorny immigration issue.

Nos chairs

Motoboys RJ

Day to day life of motorcycle couriers from the Quitungo community in Brás de Pina.

Fire Lines

In northern California, climate change and 150 years of forest mismanagement have led to some of the most catastrophic wildfires in the state’s history—including the Dixie Fire, which in 2021 devastated the Lost Sierra’s already struggling communities. In the face of that destruction, one group turned to trails for hope and to the past for a better future.

Biggest Heist Ever

Their crimes earned them the nickname Bitcoin Bonnie and Clyde — and the story only gets weirder in this documentary about the most lucrative heist ever.

Queen of Hearts

The story of ten trans girls who form a co-op theatre to be able to stop working as prostitutes. The protagonists tell us their dreams, show their daily struggles and share their experiences and realities to be accepted and belong to society as well.

Ordinaire

Riding a Train of Thoughts

A documentary directed by Julien Lecat.

Haus Tugendhat

Relates the history of the Tugendhat House and family from the perspectives of the Tugendhat children.