Debut

Good Grief is a short stop motion animated documentary that explores the lessons we learn from dealing with grief and loss. Five real people share their true stories of losing something precious and what it has taught them about living.

Kalo (taro) production on each of the major islands of Hawai'i circa 1994. Meet the amazing people who love and continue to cultivate taro on lo'i that in some cases has been in the family for generations and centuries! Young, old, and family growers on Maui, Moloka'i, Hawai'i, O'ahu, and Kaua'i islands. Includes history/culture of kalo, Issues related to land and water, uses of kalo, and prospects for the future.

For several decades, gifted and incredibly prolific forger Mark Landis compulsively created impeccable copies of works by a variety of major artists, donating them to institutions across the country and landing pieces on many of their walls. ART AND CRAFT brings us into the cluttered and insular life of an unforgettable character just as he finds his foil in an equally obsessive art registrar.

A woman reads letters written to her by her imprisoned lover over a seascape. In this dialogue between images and text, absence, expectation and the desire for freedom are expressed.

Farmers alone cannot make our food system thrive - it’s up to all of us. That is the message of this enlightening and encouraging film. The good stewardship efforts being made by farmers, consumers and policy makers in the rapidly growing county of Ventura, California will inspire any community interested in preserving agricultural resources.

The movie revolves around the factory worker figure evolution from post-WWII in Italy, with the emigration from southern to northern regions, the years of economic boom, the strikes, the riots and the infamous march of the 40000 in Turin in 1980.

The '40s and '50s were a classic period in New York City nightlife, when the saloonkeeper was king and regular folks could drink with celebrities like Frank Sinatra and Jackie Gleason. In this documentary, Kristi Jacobson profiles her grandfather, the king of kings: Toots Shor of the eponymous restaurant and saloon, which was once the place to be seen in Manhattan. Edward R. Murrow called Toots Shor the owner of America’s greatest saloon. He became the unlikely den-mother to the heroes of America's golden age. Politicians and gangsters, sports heroes and movie stars - Sinatra, Gleason, DiMaggio, Ruth, Costello, Eisenhower, Nixon, Warren - for 30 years, they all found their way to Toots' eponymous saloon on New York's West 51st Street.

The untold tragedy and scandal of what happened to a vibrant community of immigrants from the Cape Verde Islands in the Fox Point section of Providence, Rhode Island who were forcibly displaced by urban renewal to make way for fancy coffee shops, antique stores and elegantly restored houses. Poignant, heartfelt and warm, in a timeless snapshot SKFPR captures the essence, spirit and heart of a community whose history was erased before it was written.

Reporter Clay Pigeon interviews New Yorkers in October, 2008.

When filmmaker Will Lautzenheiser's limbs are amputated, his life is derailed and he turns to stand-up comedy as therapy. Meanwhile, a world-famous medical team is performing transplants that restore bodies to unprecedented levels. Despite grave risks, Will agrees to undergo an experimental double-arm transplant in the hope of reclaiming his independence.

The film follows teenage girls Mairéad Mc Ilkenny and Christine Savage. The two young women live in the same city but at the same time in two different worlds, cut off from each other by high walls that separate people.

This experimental video breaks the many silences surrounding lesbians and AIDS. Interweaving the voices of two friends, Internal Combustion reflects on the often unspoken tensions within this epidemic of survival and power and mourning and loss .

How to combine modernity and fundamentalist Islam. "Saudi Solutions" is a unique and revealing documentary about the lifestyles and attitudes of ambitious career womenin conservative Saudi Arabia - the only country in the Arabworld where women are obliged to cover themselves inabayas and aren't allowed to drive cars. Because of the strong influence of fundamentalist Islam on society, filmingis severely restricted in Saudi Arabia. With unique access to the Kingdom, Backlight had the opportunity to film the daily routines of Saudi working women. This documentaryfeatures a top gyneacologist, a TV news anchor woman, a photographer, and a university professor. It also introducesthe wealthy Prince Al-Waleed, who passionately promotes the acceptance of women into the workforce. He kindly invitesBacklight to his luxury desert camp, but there are no women to be found - only thousands of men.

Contrary to the public stereotype of a youthful homosexual community, gay men and women do grow old. Silent Pioneers presents an upbeat focus on the lives of these people today, showing them living full and diverse lives and sharing concerns on ageing, health and housing, with other senior citizens. It also considers how support networks within the gay and lesbian community have enriched and strengthened their individual lives.

Documentary film about the official view of art in the Third Reich and state funding of artistic practice.

For over thirty years, three women have languished in Missouri State prison under unjust sentences for killing their abusive husbands. Denied the opportunity to enter the abuse into evidence, each of the women represents a system broken by outdated and media-sensationalized stereotypes. When a greater understanding of the "battered" syndrome change legal practices in 2000, Missouri's Governor crafts a new law demanding the parole board reevaluate each woman's case.

In the crystal clear waters off the coast of Borneo, a unique way of life threatens to disappear forever. For generations, the Badjao were oceanic nomads, living in harmony with the sea as fishermen and free divers. Nowadays, however, only a few Badjao remain, like Alexan, who still remembers the old ways. He hopes to pass his knowledge along to his ten-year-old nephew Sari, but time and opportunities are running out. Sari loves the sea, but it can only offer a hard life of subsistence fishing, while the nearby tourist resort sings a siren song of easy money.

Just one year ago, citizens joined together at Place de la République in Paris to demonstrate against labor reforms, the El Khomri law. This rapidly became an opportunity to invent another way of handling politics. It was the beginning of Nuit Debout. The film follows closely this social movement's inner core, a new kind of citizen's and democratic parliament, without representatives or leaders, which attempts to allow everyone the chance to speak. How do we speak in unison without speaking with a single voice?

Film Title Poem is comprised of over 500 film title cards.

Singapore GaGa is a 55-minute paean to the quirkiness of the Singaporean aural landscape. It reveals Singapore's past and present with a delight and humour that makes it a necessary film for all Singaporeans. We hear buskers, street vendors, school cheerleaders sing hymns to themselves and to their communities. From these vocabularies (including Arabic, Latin, Hainanese), a sense of what it might mean to be a modern Singaporean emerges. This is Singapore's first documentary to have a cinema release. With English and Chinese subtitles.