Mental Health

While serving life sentences in a dangerously overcrowded and drug-saturated prison system, 50 men embark on a radical journey to become some of the first incarcerated Substance Abuse Counselors in the country. The 50 is a powerful study on trauma and repair, a universal look at the long and winding road to heal, and an exploration into how the most discounted among us built one of the most powerful models of rehabilitation we have.  

How to portray a murderer? For many years filmmakers of this documentary were in intensive contact with Stefan S., who murdered a colleague 15 years ago. Now it’s his last year in jail, and he is being prepared for his return to society. This includes undergoing various types of therapy, including group sessions on “Masculinity and Identity.” An intriguing study on the elusiveness of truth and one of the most progressive programs for the treatment of violent criminals.

A powerfuly moving and urgent documentary film, Each and Every Day speaks with nine young people who recount what led them to attempt suicide or have suicidal ideation, and how they worked to reclaim their will to live. Shot during COVID-19, the film provides a message of hope and resilience.

An urgent and vital documentary, Bulletproof explores the complexities of violence in our schools by looking at the ways we try to prevent it. The film travels across the United States, observing the longstanding rituals that take place in and around schools: homecoming parades, basketball practice, morning announcements. Unfolding alongside these scenes are a collection of newer traditions: lockdown drills, teacher firearms training, metal detector screenings, and school safety trade shows.

Forget Me Not follows three unwed mothers staying at a shelter in the countryside on Jeju Island-in South Korea. Each one has to decide if she wants to keep the baby or give it up for adoption. Engelstoft’s sensitive portrait brings us close to a forbidden world and through her own experience as a Korean adoptee, she gives a deeply personal and extraordinary insight into a culture in which women can't choose their own fate.

Just how far is it acceptable to push actors in the name of cinema? And at what point do you cross the boundary where acting becomes sexual assault? These are the questions raised by the testimony of six young women who were manipulated and sexually abused during an audition. They are currently fighting a legal battle and have banded together to tell their story on camera, in a sort of antidote to the toxic audition. 

In 1900, Sigmund Freud began treating a 17-year old girl he called "Dora." Her parents brought her to therapy after she accused a family friend of sexual assault. Freud's account of his sessions with Dora was the only major case history he published of a female patient. Intercutting his published text with a scripted version told from Dora's point of view, Hysterical Girl, from the acclaimed director of The Gospel According to André, revisits this landmark case.

Whether grabbing a sheet of paper from a printer, helping to push in a syringe, or comforting a veteran with PTSD while he sleeps, Buddy, the incredible new documentary from legendary filmmaker Heddy Honigmann is a beautifully composed, heartwarming portrait of six amazing service dogs and their heroic owners that explores the close bond between animal and human.

In the Mexican village of Milpillas, deteriorating economic and social conditions have led to a wave of suicides among its young people. The remarkable new documentary Cabellerango, from filmmaker Juan Pablo González, examines one such case, relying on conversations with family members and townspeople to piece together the factors that led to this tragic incident, and in the process, reflect upon the changes occurring across much of the country.

Three brothers confront the chasm between adolescent yearning and adult responsibilities when brought together to care for their charismatic ninety-three year old grandmother in this critically-acclaimed documentary, “a sublime, magical masterpiece.” (Joshua Oppenheimer, director, The Act of Killing)

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.