Psychology

2018 Academy Award Winner for Best Documentary Short Subject, Heaven is an extraordinary documentary, a portrait of artist Mindy Alper, whose astonishing body of work – drawings and sculptures of powerful psychological clarity – reveals a lifetime of struggle with debilitating mental illness.

A new documentary from the groundbreaking filmmakers behind Leviathan, Véréna Paravel and Lucien Castaing-Taylor’s Caniba reflects on the discomfiting significance of cannibalistic desire in human existence through the prism of one Japanese man, Issei Sagawa, and his mysterious relationship with his brother, Jun Sagawa.

“In our culture, almost everyone fears death,” says Ram Dass, the noted spiritual guru and author, and one of the subjects in this extraordinary documentary. Directed by John Bruce and Paweł Wojtasik, who underwent training as doulas in order to accompany people nearing death, End of Life is a deeply moving, revelatory work that captures the last years of five individuals in the process of dying.

Embodying the spirit of his poems, the new film from Billy Woodberry, director of Bless Their Little Hearts, is a vivid appreciation of Bob Kaufman, the legendary Beat figure, featuring interviews with his contemporaries, readings, rare photos and footage, and a soundtrack with the likes of Billie Holiday and Ornette Coleman.

One day, Lucie decides to write a letter to the man who abused her when she was a young girl. She then takes her camera, her car, and resolves to bring it to him in person. This award-winning short doc was started by Lucie, but finished by her son, Loic, when he discovered the video tape of her journey ten years later.

From the directors of Marwencol, Spettacolo tells the story of a small town in Tuscany that came up with a remarkable way to confront their issues – they turned their lives into a play. Every summer for the past 50 years, their piazza has become their stage and residents of all ages play a part – the role of themselves.

From director Andrew Rossi (Page One: Inside the New York Times, Ivory Tower) comes an electrifying portrait of writer and performer Okwui Okpokwasili and her acclaimed one-woman show "Bronx Gothic," a story about two 12-year-old black girls coming of age in the 1980s.

With intimate access to the lives of women veterans, After Fire is an observational documentary that throws a spotlight on the human toll of military service - including military sexual trauma, combat injuries and bureaucratic dysfunction - examining the challenges faced by the fastest-growing group of American veterans: women

A film about ghosts and madness that is itself a kind of ghost, this short from master Bertrand Bonello (Nocturama, Saint Laurent) tells the story of Sarah Winchester, heiress to the Winchester rifle fortune who was driven to insanity by unseen forces.

A powerfully moving tale of mismatched marriage, immigration, and mental illness, Unbroken Glass is filmmaker Dinesh Das Sabu's attempt to uncover a silenced family history, to understand the circumstances that led to the sudden death of his parents twenty years ago.

Assembled from over 100 hours of home movies shot by an unknown man of his family over a period of 7 years and uploaded to Youtube, Fraud is a daringly innovative work – a found footage thriller – that reveals one family’s struggle for the American Dream and the nature of truth in the internet age.

What impact does sound have on our lives? From classical music to a hummingbird flapping its wings to the Earth’s natural hum, this is a fantastic exploration of the psychology, sociology and economics of sound.

The tormented romance between celebrated poets Paul Celan and Ingeborg Bachmann – a Holocaust survivor and a daughter of a Nazi party member – is the subject of this innovative documentary in which two actors read from their nearly two decades worth of correspondence.

One family's efforts to secure freedom for their father, a political dissident serving a life sentence in China, is a story of international intrigue, diplomatic maneuvering and immense personal sacrifice.

Sailing ships, angels and executioners, this classic documentary chronicles the vanishing practice and language of Russian criminal tattoos. Recalling the prison writings of Solzhenitsyn or Dostoevsky, Lambert's harrowingly beautiful and penetrating study served as inspiration for Cronenberg's Eastern Promises.

Employing stunning camerawork and sound, Uzu immerses us in Japan's Dogo Autumn Festival, one of the most violent religious festivals in the world, a mystic ritual as fascinating as it is terrifying.

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.

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

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.

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.

An essential documentary, this is an incisive and wide-ranging examination of the prison and its place – social, economic and psychological – in American society.

Does the Internet dream with our electric memories? What happens to all those photos and videos we upload? A poetic exploration of time, memory and technology.

A revelatory documentary exploring the physical act of looking; from the work of an eye surgeon to a NASA explorer to a human rights lawyer.

2016 Academy Award nominee for Best Documentary Short Subject, an extraordinary, animated documentary exploring some of the most pressing social issues of our day - racial bias, veteran’s care, mental health and criminal justice.