Fall 2016

Fall 2016

MY VOICE, MY LIFE
MY VOICE, MY LIFE
Academy Award winning filmmaker Ruby Yang’s My Voice, My Life follows a group of students from underprivileged families who are cast in a musical theater performance. A moving story about the importance of art education in our schools.
WILD PLANTS
WILD PLANTS
From urban farms in Detroit to Native-owned agriculture projects across the midwest to guerrilla gardens in Zurich, Wild Plants is a kaleidoscopic portrait of activists around the world who are creating their own botanic utopias.
EL REMOLINO (THE SWIRL)
EL REMOLINO (THE SWIRL)
In recent years, the town of El Remolino in Chiapas, Mexico has suffered from some of the country's worst flooding. This lyrical documentary surveys the social and ecological impact, from schools that can't open to farms that can no longer operate.
KIVALINA
KIVALINA
This tender portrait of an Inupiaq Eskimo community who are living on an island that is disappearing into the sea is both an elegy to the indigenous cultures of the Arctic and a harrowing vision of climate change in America.
SCRAP VESSEL
SCRAP VESSEL
Using found snapshots, diary entries and 16mm Chinese melodramas, filmmaker Jason Byrne resurrects the ghosts of a decommissioned cargo ship - once used to carry coal along the Yangtze - as it crosses the Indian Ocean to be salvaged for scrap.
BE LIKE AN ANT
BE LIKE AN ANT
After returning from Vietnam, Paul bought a mobile home for his family. Unhappy with its construction, he decided to build his own house around it. 38 years, 4 floors and 100 windows later, Paul is nearly finished.
MIMOSAS
MIMOSAS
Winner of the Critics Week Grand Prize at the Cannes Film Festival, Oliver Laxe’s stunning new film, Mimosas, is a breathtakingly-shot Western that follows a mysterious caravan transporting a dying sheikh into the Moroccan Atlas Mountains.
FENGMING
FENGMING
Often cited as one of the great documentary achievements, Wang Bing's dazzling tour-de-force — a gripping monologue recounting five decades in the life of a once-ardent socialist in the new China — is a testament to the power of oral history and the strength of one extraordinary woman. Never before available.
A MAGICAL SUBSTANCE FLOWS INTO ME
A MAGICAL SUBSTANCE FLOWS INTO ME
Drawing on the work of German-Jewish ethnomusicologist Robert Lachmann (1892-1939), filmmaker Jumana Manna sets out in search of the musical diversity of historical Palestine in this magical documentary.
LIVING WITH GIANTS
LIVING WITH GIANTS
In a remote arctic village, a young Inuk boy's transition into adulthood becomes a quiet and devastating portrait of the issues facing the entire Inuit community in the outstanding documentary Living with Giants
THE ILLINOIS PARABLES
THE ILLINOIS PARABLES
Filmmaker Deborah Stratman recounts eleven episodes in American history — from the violent eviction of the Cherokee to the invention of the nuclear reactor to the murder of Black Panther leader Fred Hampton — to consider how societies are shaped by belief and ideology.
HONG KONG TRILOGY
HONG KONG TRILOGY
Renowned cinematographer and artist Christopher Doyle celebrates Hong Kong and its people with this vibrant documentary that focuses on the city's residents in their childhood, youth, and old age.
KATE PLAYS CHRISTINE
KATE PLAYS CHRISTINE
Winner of a Special Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, Robert Greene's incisive documentary exploring the story of a newswoman who committed a shocking act on live TV in the 1970s is an inquiry into our culture, media, the role of women in society and the workforce.
BEHEMOTH
BEHEMOTH
Beginning with a mining explosion in Mongolia and ending in a ghost city west of Beijing, political documentarian Zhao Liang's visionary new film details the social and ecological devastation behind an economic miracle that may yet prove illusory.
THE RIDE
THE RIDE
This intimate, moving documentary follows young Lakota riders on a 300-mile trek on horseback through the South Dakota badlands, as they retrace the fateful journey of their ancestors that culminated at Wounded Knee.
JUKE
JUKE
A remarkable record of black life in the 1940s, as found in the films of Spencer Williams, the pioneering African American filmmaker. A new essay by Thom Andersen, director of Los Angeles Plays Itself.
A TRAIN ARRIVES AT THE STATION
A TRAIN ARRIVES AT THE STATION
Beginning with Ozu's 1936 The Only Son, Thom Andersen's latest cinematic treat, a documentary short, is an anthology of train arrivals, comprising 26 scenes from movies, 1904-2015.
IN SEARCH OF PERFECT CONSONANCE
IN SEARCH OF PERFECT CONSONANCE
An inspirational new documentary from Oscar-winner Ruby Yang (The Blood of Yingzhou District), a profile of the renowned Asian Youth Orchestra, founded 25 years ago with the aim of connecting the region’s young people through music.
LOST AND BEAUTIFUL
LOST AND BEAUTIFUL
Conceived as a documentary, director Pietro Marcello (Martin Eden) had to change course when his lead, a humble shepherd turned local hero, passed away during production. The resulting film is a beautiful and fantastical ode to his memory and their beloved country.
DEAD SLOW AHEAD
DEAD SLOW AHEAD
An enormous shipping freighter drifts endlessly across the Atlantic Ocean; its' crew toiling tirelessly below. At times resembling a dystopian science-fiction film, this is trenchant commentary on global trade, labor and capitalism.
THE 100 YEARS SHOW
THE 100 YEARS SHOW
From Alison Klayman, director of The Brink and Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry, the remarkable story of Cuban-American artist Carmen Herrera, a pioneering abstract painter in the '40s and '50s who only found recognition as she approached her 100th birthday.
HALF-LIFE IN FUKUSHIMA
HALF-LIFE IN FUKUSHIMA
In the aftermath of the Fukushima disaster, a farmer ekes out a solitary existence within the radiation zone. This astonishing documentary reveals the surreal scope and devastation of the nuclear tragedy, and the stubborn signs of life.
BOONE
BOONE
The final year in the life of a small farm in Southern Oregon is vividly captured in this study of a way of life quickly disappearing due to strict government regulations and competition from corporate farms.
FRAGMENT 53
FRAGMENT 53
Candid, haunted and often shocking interviews with warlords from Liberia’s First Civil War form the core of this transfixing inquiry into Africa’s modern history and the nature and essence of war itself.
FROM WHAT IS BEFORE
FROM WHAT IS BEFORE
Lav Diaz' follow up to his acclaimed Norte, the End of History, is an extraordinary epic examining the conditions that led to the rise of the Marcos regime in 1970s Philippines.
THE PRISON IN TWELVE LANDSCAPES
THE PRISON IN TWELVE LANDSCAPES
In this remarkable documentary, filmmaker Brett Story excavates the often unseen links and connections that prisons – and our system of mass incarceration – have on communities and industries all around us. Widely acclaimed, The Prison in Twelve Landscapes is an essential documentary, a portrait of our criminal justice system in which we never see a penitentiary.
PORTRAIT OF A GARDEN
PORTRAIT OF A GARDEN
Capturing one year in the life of a historic garden, this magnificent documentary is an ode to nature and the delicate, interdependent relationship between man and the natural world.
FORT BUCHANAN
FORT BUCHANAN
A bracingly original debut, filmmaker Benjamin Crotty uses the tragicomic plight of a frail young man stranded at a military outpost amid a lascivious band of army wives to craft a queer soap opera for the ages.
DREAMING AGAINST THE WORLD
DREAMING AGAINST THE WORLD
This beautiful, evocative documentary captures the life, work and struggle of one of the most original yet under-recognized artists of the 20th century – the writer and visual artist Mu Xin.
THE ACADEMY OF MUSES
THE ACADEMY OF MUSES
A university professor espouses the role of muses in art and literature as a means of romancing his students in this breathtaking new film from the acclaimed director of In the City of Sylvia.
SYNESTHESIA
SYNESTHESIA
Can one taste a color or see a sound? This fascinating short documentary explores the brain and a neuro-cognitive phenomenon known as synesthesia where multiples senses are blended together.
DON'T BLINK - ROBERT FRANK
DON'T BLINK - ROBERT FRANK
One of the most influential artists of the 20th century, a documentary about Robert Frank, the legendary photographer and filmmaker behind the seminal book “The Americans” and landmark films like Pull My Daisy.
THE DAY BEFORE THE END
THE DAY BEFORE THE END
A haunting, apocalyptic vision rendered in vivid black & white tableaux, a striking short film from the long-form master, Lav Diaz.
IMPRESSION OF A WAR
IMPRESSION OF A WAR
An artful meditation on Colombia's 70-year civil war--and the culture of violence that pervaded every aspect of society--through the marks, traces and images it left behind.