Movie Releases by Genre
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Food, Inc. 2
April 9, 2024
In Food, Inc. 2, the sequel to the 2008 Oscar®-nominated and Emmy®-award winning documentary, Food, Inc., filmmakers Robert Kenner and Melissa Robledo reunite with investigative authors Michael Pollan (The Omnivore’s Dilemma) and Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation) to take a fresh look at our efficient yet vulnerable food system. Since the first film, multinational corporations have tightened their stronghold on the U.S. government. The system at large has robbed workers of a fair living wage, and profit focused corporations are proliferating a chemically formulated international health crisis by focusing on growing the market for ultra-processed foods. The film centers around innovative farmers, future-thinking food producers, workers’ rights activists and prominent legislators such as U.S Senators Cory Booker and Jon Tester, who are facing these companies head-on to inspire change and build a healthier, more sustainable future.
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Beyond Utopia
October 23, 2023
A suspenseful, riveting portrait of the lengths people will go to gain freedom, Beyond Utopia follows various families as they attempt to flee North Korea, one of the most oppressive places on Earth, a land they grew up believing was a paradise. At the film’s core is a courageous pastor, a man of God on a mission to help a mother reunite with the child she was forced to leave behind, and a family of five — including small children and an elderly grandmother — embarking on a treacherous journey into the hostile mountains of China. Leaving their homeland is fraught with unimaginable danger — yet these individuals are driven to take the risk.
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While We Watched
July 21, 2023
The documentary While We Watched is a turbulent newsroom drama intimately chronicling the working days of broadcast journalist Ravish Kumar as he navigates a spiraling world of truth and disinformation. As factual reporting is in free fall, globally While We Watched is a dignified lens into the abyss.
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A Sexplanation
June 7, 2022
From neuroscience labs to church pews, A Sexplanation follows a grown man on his journey to unlearn the sexual shame from his all-American sex education. The documentary features provocative conversations with psychologists, sex researchers—and even a Jesuit priest. With humor and grit, Alex Liu takes audiences on a playful, heartfelt journey from a shame-filled past to a happier, healthier future.
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This Is Not a Movie
October 16, 2020
Yung Chang’s This Is Not a Movie captures Fisk in action—feet on the ground, notebook in hand, as he travels into landscapes devastated by war, ferreting out the facts and firing reports back home to reach an audience of millions. The process of translating raw experience into incisive and passionate dispatches requires the determination to see things first-hand and the tenacity to say what others won’t. In his relentless pursuit of the facts, Fisk has attracted his share of controversy. But in spite of the danger, he has continued to cover stories as they unfold, talking directly to the people involved. In an era of fake news, when journalists are dubbed “the enemies of the people,” Fisk’s resolve to document reality has become an obsessive war to speak the truth. [KimStim]
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Bellingcat: Truth in a Post-Truth World
October 1, 2020
Bellingcat: Truth in a Post-Truth World explores the promise of open source investigation, taking viewers inside the exclusive world of the “citizen investigative journalist” collective known as Bellingcat. In cases ranging from the MH17 disaster to the poisoning of a Russian spy in the United Kingdom, the Bellingcat team’s quest for truth will shed light on the fight for journalistic integrity in the era of fake news and alternative facts.
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Midnight Return: The Story of Billy Hayes and Turkey
July 21, 2017
After his ingenious escape from a Turkish prison in 1975, Billy Hayes arrived home to a hero’s welcome, instant celebrity and within a week had a book and movie deal for his story. From the moment it stunned the world at the Cannes Film Festival in 1978, Midnight Express cemented its place in film history as an artistic and financial success, before becoming an indelible part of pop culture. But its lasting impact has been on Turkish people worldwide who still condemn the film as racist and blame Billy Hayes for defaming them and their country. Despite warnings from family and friends, Billy returns to Turkey and faces a nation still haunted by the film and his own demons.
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In Transit
June 23, 2017
In Transit journeys into the hearts and minds of everyday passengers aboard Amtrak's Empire Builder, the busiest long-distance train route in America. Captured in the tradition of Direct Cinema, the film unfolds as a series of interconnected vignettes, ranging from overheard conversations to moments of deep intimacy, in which passengers share their fears, hopes and dreams. In the space between stations, where 'real life' is suspended, we are swept into a fleeting community that transcends normal barriers, and where a peculiar atmosphere of contemplation and community develops. To some passengers, the train is flight and salvation, to others it is reckoning and loss. But for all, it is a place for personal reflection and connecting with others they may otherwise never know.
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All the Rage (Saved by Sarno)
June 23, 2017
America is experiencing an epidemic of pain. One man has the answer to the problem yet the medical establishment has ignored him. For nearly 50 years, Dr. John Sarno has been single-handedly battling the pain epidemic by focusing on the mind-body connection and the nature of stress and the manifestation of physical ailments.
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The Age of Consequences
January 27, 2017
The Age of Consequences investigates the impacts of climate change, resource scarcity, migration, and conflict through the lens of US national security and global stability. Whether a long-term vulnerability or sudden shock, the film unpacks how water and food shortages, extreme weather, drought, and sea-level rise function as accelerants of instability and catalysts for conflict. Left unchecked, these threats and risks will continue to grow in scale and frequency, with grave implications for peace and security in the 21st century. military veterans take us beyond the headlines of the European refugee crisis, the conflict in Syria, the social unrest of the Arab Spring, the rise of radicalized groups like ISIS, and lay bare how climate change stressors interact with societal tensions, sparking conflict. Whether a long-term vulnerability or sudden shock, the film unpacks how water and food shortages, extreme weather, drought, and sea-level rise function as 'accelerants of instability' and 'catalysts for conflict' in volatile regions of the world. These Pentagon insiders make the compelling case that if we go on with business as usual, the consequences of climate change - waves of refugees, failed states, terrorism - will continue to grow in scale and frequency, with grave implications for peace and security in the 21st century.
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Saving Banksy
January 13, 2017
Saving Banksy is the story of one misguided art collectors attempts to save a Banksy painting from destruction and the auction block.
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Blood on the Mountain
November 18, 2016
Blood on the Mountain is an investigation into the economic and environmental injustices that have resulted from industrial control in West Virginia. This feature documentary details the struggles of a hard-working, misunderstood people, who have historically faced limited choices and have never benefited fairly from the rich, natural resources of their land. Blood On The Mountain delivers a portrait of a fractured population, exploited and besieged by corporate interests, and abandoned by the powers elected to represent them. [Abramorama]
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A Billion Lives
October 28, 2016
The United Nations’ World Health Organization projects that a billion people will die prematurely from smoking this century. In the next 20 years, there will be nearly 1.6 billion smokers around the world. A Billion Lives takes a critical look at the history of smoking and the corruption that's led to the current situation where safer, healthier alternatives are banned or heavily restricted in most countries, while the cigarette trade is continually protected. The film examines major conflicts of interest and corruption between governments, big pharmaceutical companies, and public health officials. It also takes a look at the history of e-cigarettes, as well as the role vapor technology and Swedish snus have played in the current health crisis.
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Before the Flood
October 21, 2016
A look at how climate change affects our environment and what society can do prevent the demise of endangered species, ecosystems and native communities across the planet.
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Among the Believers
September 30, 2016
Charismatic cleric Abdul Aziz Ghazi, an ISIS supporter and Taliban ally, is waging jihad against the Pakistani state. His dream is to impose a strict version of Shariah law throughout the country, as a model for the world. A flashpoint in Aziz's holy war took place in 2007, when the government leveled his flagship mosque to the ground, killing his mother, brother, only son and 150 students. With unprecedented access, Among the Believers follows Aziz on his very personal quest to create an Islamic utopia, during the bloodiest period in Pakistan's modern history.
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Hooligan Sparrow
July 22, 2016
When a Chinese elementary school principal who raped six of his students seems poised to receive a light sentence, famed women’s rights advocate Ye Haiyan (AKA Hooligan Sparrow) leads a group of activists in a protest – a move that could end with each participant’s arrest. As filmmaker Nanfu Wang films the demonstration and its aftermath, she becomes embroiled in the government’s effort to harass and intimidate everyone associated with the protest. After being threatened by angry mobs, chased by police, and interrogated by national security agents, Wang discovers the Chinese government’s willingness to target anyone they perceive to be a threat to their control.
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Indian Point
July 8, 2016
Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant looms just 35 miles from Times Square. With over 50 million people living in close proximity to the aging facility, its continued operation has the support of the plant's operators and the NRC -- Nuclear Regulatory Commission -- yet has stoked a great deal of controversy in the surrounding community, including a vocal anti-nuclear contingent concerned that what happened at Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant could happen here. In the brewing fight for clean energy and the catastrophic possibilities of government complacency, director Ivy Meeropol presents a balanced argument about the issues surrounding nuclear energy and offers a startling reality check for our uncertain nuclear future.
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Dying to Know: Ram Dass & Timothy Leary
June 17, 2016
Dying to Know is an intimate portrait celebrating two very complex controversial characters in an epic friendship that shaped a generation. In the early 1960s Harvard psychology professors Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert began probing the edges of consciousness through their experiments with psychedelics. Leary became the LSD guru, asking us to think for ourselves, igniting a global counter-cultural movement and landing in prison after Nixon called him 'the most dangerous man in America'. Alpert journeyed to the East becoming Ram Dass, a spiritual teacher for an entire generation who continues in his 80s teaching service through compassion. With interviews spanning 50 years the film invites us into the future encouraging us to ponder questions about life, drugs & the biggest mystery of all: death.
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Unlocking the Cage
May 25, 2016
Unlocking the Cage follows animal rights lawyer Steven Wise in his unprecedented challenge to break down the legal wall that separates animals from humans. Arguing that cognitively complex animals such as chimpanzees, whales, dolphins and elephants have the capacity for limited personhood rights, Steve and his legal team are making history by filing the first lawsuits that seek to transform a chimpanzee from a “thing” with no rights to a “person” with legal protections. Unlocking the Cage captures a monumental shift in our culture, as the public and judicial system show increasing receptiveness to Steve’s impassioned arguments. It is an intimate look at a lawsuit that could forever transform our legal system, and one man’s lifelong quest to protect “nonhuman” animals. [First Run Features]
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Almost Holy
May 20, 2016
Gennadiy Mokhnenko has made a name for himself by forcibly abducting homeless drug-addicted kids from the streets of Mariupol, Ukraine. As his country leans towards a European Union inclusion, hopes of continued post-Soviet revitalization seem possible. In the meantime, Gennadiy's center has evolved into a more nebulous institution.
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Colliding Dreams
March 4, 2016
Colliding Dreams recounts the dramatic history of one of the most controversial, and urgently relevant political ideologies of the modern era. The century-old conflict in the Middle East continues to play a central role in world politics. And yet, amidst this fierce, often-lethal controversy, the Zionist idea of a homeland for Jews in the land of ancient Israel remains little understood and its meanings often distorted. Colliding Dreams addresses that void with a gripping exploration of Zionism’s meaning, history and future.
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Rolling Papers
February 19, 2016
In 2014, recreational marijuana sales began in Colorado. With all eyes on ground zero of the green rush, The Denver Post appointed the world's first marijuana editor. Pot is legal and The Cannabist is covering it as it unfolds.
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Sweaty Betty
January 8, 2016
In a cramped row house on the border of Washington D.C., two stories of big dreams take place. Floyd and his family have raised a 1,000 pound pig in their backyard, and are determined to turn her into the team mascot for the Redskins football team. Floyd puts his plan into motion, but the pig, named Miss Charlotte, draws unwanted attention. A few blocks away, Rico and Scooby, two teenage single fathers and best friends, are hanging around the neighborhood. As they scheme up a better life for themselves and their children, they are presented with an unexpected opportunity.
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Dreams Rewired
December 16, 2015
Dreams Rewired traces the desires and anxieties of today’s hyper-connected world back more than a hundred years, when telephone, film and television were new. As revolutionary then as contemporary social media is today, early electric media sparked a fervent utopianism in the public imagination – promising total communication, the annihilation of distance, an end to war. But then, too, there were fears over the erosion of privacy, security, morality. Using rare (and often unseen) archival material from nearly 200 films to articulate the present, Dreams Rewired reveals a history of hopes to share, and betrayals to avoid.
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Sweet Micky for President
November 13, 2015
Sweet Micky for President follows Pras Michel, Grammy award-winning rapper and founder of the hip-hop group, The Fugees, as he returns to his homeland of Haiti post-earthquake and finds a corrupt government in paralysis. With no experience or money, Pras passionately mobilizes a presidential campaign for the unlikeliest of candidates: Michel Martelly, aka “Sweet Micky”, Haiti’s most popular and most outlandish pop star. The idealistic and politically inexperienced pair set out against a corrupt government, civil unrest, and a fixed election system to change the course of Haitian history. When Pras’s former bandmate – superstar Wyclef Jean – also enters the presidential race, their chances seem further doomed and the story takes on the wild twists of celebrity drama.
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The Armor of Light
October 30, 2015
The Armor of Light follows an Evangelical minister and the mother of a teenage shooting victim who ask, is it possible to be both pro-gun and pro-life?
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India's Daughter
October 23, 2015
India's Daughter is the story of of the short life, and brutal gang rape and murder in Delhi in December 2012 of an exceptionally inspiring young woman. The rape and death of the 23 year old medical student, sparked unprecedented protests throughout India and led to the first glimmers of a change of mindset. Interwoven into the storyline are the lives, values and mindsets of the rapists whom the filmmakers have had exclusive access to interview before they hang. The film examines the society and values which spawn such violent acts, and makes an optimistic and impassioned plea for change.
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The Russian Woodpecker
October 16, 2015
Fedor Alexandrovich is a radioactive man. He was four years old in 1986, when he was exposed to the toxic effects of the Chernobyl nuclear meltdown and forced to leave his home. Now 33, he is an artist in Ukraine, with radioactive strontium in his bones and a singular obsession with Chernobyl, and with the giant, mysterious steel pyramid now rotting away 2 miles from the disaster site: a hulking Cold War weapon known as the Duga and nicknamed the "Russian Woodpecker" for the constant clicking radio frequencies that it emits. In Gracia's documentary/conspiracy thriller, Alexandrovich returns to the ghost towns in the radioactive Exclusion Zone to try to find answers - and to decide whether to risk his life by revealing them, amid growing clouds of Ukraine's emerging revolution and war.
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Peace Officer
September 16, 2015
Dub Lawrence is a man obsessed. As a young rookie cop, he used his savvy investigation skills to help break the Ted Bundy case. His obsession with turning around the systemic failings he saw as a young police officer led to a successful bid to become Sheriff of Davis County, Utah at a young age in 1974. Committed to the highest standards of peace officers serving the public good, he once wrote himself a parking ticket when a citizen called him out for his patrol car's violation. After years in public service, today Dub works in semi-retirement as a private investigator, with projects fueled mostly by income from his water and sewage pump repair service. When he's not wading through raw sewage, his remaining free time is spent investigating the shooting death of his son-in-law Brian Wood.
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Best of Enemies
July 31, 2015
In the summer of 1968, television news changed forever. Dead last in the ratings, ABC hired two towering public intellectuals to debate each other during the Democratic and Republican national conventions. William F. Buckley Jr. was a leading light of the new conservative movement. A Democrat and cousin to Jackie Onassis, Gore Vidal was a leftist novelist and polemicist. Armed with deep-seated distrust and enmity, Vidal and Buckley believed each other’s political ideologies were dangerous for America. Like rounds in a heavyweight battle, they pummeled out policy and personal insult—their explosive exchanges devolving into vitriolic name-calling. Live and unscripted, they kept viewers riveted. Ratings for ABC News skyrocketed. And a new era in public discourse was born. [Magnolia Pictures]
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Mala Mala
July 1, 2015
Mala Mala is a feature-length documentary about the power of transformation told through the eyes of 9 trans-identifying individuals in Puerto Rico.
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A Murder in the Park
June 26, 2015
With his execution just 48 hours away, Anthony Porter’s life was saved by a Northwestern University journalism class. Their re-investigation of the crime for which he was convicted—a double homicide in a Chicago park—led to the discovery of the real killer, Alstory Simon, whose confession exonerated Porter. If it all sounds too good to be true, it’s because, as compellingly argued here, Porter actually is guilty, Simon is an innocent man and both are just pawns in a much larger plan.
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Fresh Dressed
June 26, 2015
Fresh Dressed chronicles the history of Hip-Hop | Urban fashion and its rise from southern cotton plantations to the gangs of 1970s in the South Bronx, to corporate America, and everywhere in-between. Supported by rich archival materials and in depth interviews with individuals crucial to the evolution of a way of life--and the outsiders who studied and admired them--Fresh Dressed goes to the core of where style was born on the black and brown side of town.
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3 1/2 Minutes, 10 Bullets
June 19, 2015
Black Friday 2012, the day after Thanksgiving November 2012, four boys in a red SUV pull into a gas station after spending time at the mall buying sneakers and talking to girls. With music blaring, one boy exits the car and enters the store, a quick stop for a soda and a pack of gum. A man and a woman pull up next to the boys in the station, making a stop for a bottle of wine. The woman enters the store and an argument breaks out when the driver of the second car asks the boys to turn the music down. 3 1/2 minutes and ten bullets later, one of the boys is dead.
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Live From New York!
June 12, 2015
Saturday Night Live has been reflecting and influencing the American Story for 40 years. Live From New York! explores the show’s early years, an experiment from a young Lorne Michaels and his cast of unknowns, and follows its evolution into a comedy institution. The film looks at SNL as a living time capsule, encompassing decades of American politics, media, tragedy, and popular culture with an irreverent edge.
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Every Last Child
June 3, 2015
Parents and health care workers are caught in the cross-hairs of violence and politics as they attempt to protect their children from Polio in Pakistan. Once on the brink of eradication, the disease has again become a global threat - with Pakistan at its epicenter. Will these everyday heroes succeed and end Polio in our lifetime, or will another young generation be at risk?
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The True Cost
May 29, 2015
This is a story about clothing. It’s about the clothes we wear, the people who make them, and the impact the industry is having on our world. The price of clothing has been decreasing for decades, while the human and environmental costs have grown dramatically.
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Seeds of Time
May 22, 2015
A perfect storm is brewing as agriculture pioneer Cary Fowler races against time to protect the future of our food. Seed banks around the world are crumbling, crop failures are producing starvation and rioting, and the accelerating effects of climate change are affecting farmers globally. Communities of indigenous Peruvian farmers are already suffering those effects, as they try desperately to save over 1,500 varieties of native potato in their fields. But with little time to waste, both Fowler and the farmers embark on passionate and
personal journeys that may save the one resource we cannot live without: our seeds.
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(Dis)Honesty: The Truth About Lies
May 15, 2015
(Dis)Honesty – The Truth About Lies is a documentary feature film that explores the human tendency to be dishonest. Inspired by the work of behavioral economist Dan Ariely, the film interweaves personal stories, expert opinions, behavioral experiments, and archival footage to reveal how and why people lie.
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Revolution
April 22, 2015
Continuing his adventurous journey around the world, filmmaker Rob Stewart brings us Revolution, a full length feature film that is inspiring humans to change the world and save our planet. Along with world renowned experts, he learns that past evolutions can help solve some of our current and future environmental problems.
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The Hand That Feeds
April 3, 2015
At a popular bakery café, residents of New York’s Upper East Side get bagels and coffee served with a smile 24 hours a day. But behind the scenes, undocumented immigrant workers face sub-legal wages, dangerous machinery, and abusive managers who will fire them for calling in sick. Mild-mannered sandwich maker Mahoma López has never been interested in politics, but in January 2012, he convinces a small group of his co-workers to fight back.
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The Hunting Ground
February 27, 2015
From the makers of The Invisible War comes a startling expose of rape crimes on US campuses, their institutional cover-ups, and the devastating toll they take on students and their families. Weaving together verite footage and first person testimonies, the film follows the lives of several undergraduate assault survivors as they attempt to pursue - despite incredible push back, harassment and traumatic aftermath - both their education and justice.
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The Widowmaker
February 27, 2015
Every minute of every year an American drops dead of a heart attack, a huge number without any warning or prior symptom. For thirty years a hidden battle has been fought inside America’s medical establishment that has condemned them to death—a battle that is much about money, as it is about medicine—a battle that this film reveals for the first time.
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1971
February 6, 2015
On March 8, 1971, The Citizens' Commission to Investigate the FBI, as they called themselves, broke into a small FBI office in Media, Pennsylvania, took every file, and shared them with the American public. These actions exposed COINTELPRO, the FBI's illegal surveillance program that involved the intimidation of law-abiding Americans and helped lead to the country's first Congressional investigation of U.S. intelligence agencies. Never caught, forty-three years later, these everyday Americans – parents, teachers and citizens – publicly reveal themselves for the first time and share their story in the documentary 1971.
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Joy of Man's Desiring
January 16, 2015
This cinematic reflection on the nature of work pivots almost continuously from mode to mode, approaching its subject from a myriad of directions. Filmed in factories and workshops, it’s composed in turn of theatrical monologues, poetic musings, immaculately composed documentation, and the whisper of a narrative. Its constantly shifting form triggers a reckoning with the concept of manual labor – and with the daily routines and inner lives of the factory workers who populate the film – which breaks free of the rhetoric that typically goes with the territory. [Anthology Film Archives]
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Vessel
January 9, 2015
Dr. Rebecca Gomperts sails a ship around the world, providing abortions at sea for women with no legal alternative. Her idea begins as flawed spectacle, faced with governmental, religious, and military blockade. But with each roadblock comes a more refined mission, until Rebecca realizes she can use new technologies to bypass law - and train women to give themselves abortions using WHO-researched protocols with pills. From there we witness her create an underground network of emboldened, informed activists who trust women to handle abortion themselves. Vessel is Rebecca's story: one of a woman who hears and answers a calling, and transforms a wildly improbable idea into a global movement.
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Food Chains
November 21, 2014
A group of Florida farmworkers battle to defeat the $4 trillion global supermarket industry through their ingenious Fair Food program, which partners with growers and retailers to improve working conditions for farm laborers in the United States.
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Monk With a Camera
November 21, 2014
Nicholas Vreeland walked away from a worldly life of privilege to become a Tibetan Buddhist monk in 1972. Grandson of legendary Vogue editor, Diana Vreeland, and trained by Irving Penn to become a photographer, Nicholas' life changed drastically upon meeting a Tibetan master, one of the teachers of the Dalai Lama. Soon thereafter, he gave up his glamorous life to live in a monastery in India, where he studied Buddhism for fourteen years. In an ironic twist of fate, Nicholas went back to photography to help his fellow monks rebuild their monastery. Recently, the Dalai Lama appointed Nicholas as Abbot of the monastery, making him the first Westerner in Tibetan Buddhist history to attain such a highly regarded position. Monk With a Camera chronicles Nicky's journey from playboy to monk to artist. [Kino Lorber]
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Drug Lord: The Legend of Shorty
November 14, 2014
Angus Macqueen and Guillermo Galdos set out to achieve what the combined forces of the US and Mexican governments had failed to do in thirteen years – track down Joaquin Guzman, one of the most wanted men in the world. Guzman, known as ‘El Chapo’ or ‘Shorty’ was head of the Sinaloa Cartel, the most powerful drug cartel in history. [Gravitas Ventures]
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Showrunners: The Art of Running a TV Show
October 31, 2014
Showrunners is the first ever feature length documentary film to explore the world of US television showrunners and the creative forces aligned around them. These are the people responsible for creating, writing and overseeing every element of production on one of the United State’s biggest exports – television drama and comedy series. Often described as the most complex job in the entertainment business, a showrunner is the chief writer / producer on a TV series and, in most instances, the show’s creator. Battling daily between art and commerce, showrunners manage every aspect of a TV show’s development and production: creative, financial and logistical. [Gravitas Ventures]
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True Son
October 31, 2014
22-year old Stanford graduate Michael Tubbs campaigns for a seat on the Stockton, CA City Council during a year of record homicides and impending bankruptcy.
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Watchers of the Sky
October 17, 2014
Watchers of the Sky interweaves four stories of remarkable courage, compassion, and determination, while setting out to uncover the forgotten life of Raphael Lemkin - the man who created the word "genocide," and believed the law could protect the world from mass atrocities. Inspired by Samantha Power’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book, A Problem From Hell, Watchers of the Sky takes you on a provocative journey from Nuremberg to The Hague, from Bosnia to Darfur, from criminality to justice, and from apathy to action.
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The Culture High
October 3, 2014
The Culture High tears into the very fiber of modern day marijuana prohibition to reveal the truth behind the arguments and motives governing both those who support and oppose the existing pot laws.
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Levitated Mass
September 5, 2014
Prominently displayed outside the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), land artist Michael Heizer’s Levitated Mass gained worldwide recognition during its installation in 2012. Over 10 nights, a 340-ton solid granite boulder crawled through Southern California neighborhoods on a 294-foot-long, 206-wheeled trailer. Thousands of people came out to watch it travel through their communities. It is one of the only pieces of art in recent history to inspire such a reaction in pop culture. The film masterfully interweaves this artist's biography, the dreams of a major museum, and the uniting of a city, examining the perennial question: what is art? [First Run Features]
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Alive Inside
July 18, 2014
Alive Inside investigates the power music has to awaken deeply locked memories. The film follows Dan Cohen, a social worker, who decides on a whim to bring iPods to a nursing home. To his and the staff's surprise many residents suffering from memory loss and Alzheimer's Disease seem to "awaken" when they are able to listen to music from their past. With great excitement, Dan turns to renowned neurologist Dr. Oliver Sacks, and we follow them both as we investigate the mysterious way music functions inside our brains and our lives.
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Underwater Dreams
July 11, 2014
Underwater Dreams chronicles how the sons of undocumented Mexican immigrants learned how to build an underwater robot from Home Depot parts and challenge engineering powerhouse MIT.
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The Internet's Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz
June 27, 2014
The story of programming prodigy and information activist Aaron Swartz. From Swartz's help in the development of the basic internet protocol RSS to his co-founding of Reddit, his fingerprints are all over the internet. But it was Swartz's groundbreaking work in social justice and political organizing combined with his aggressive approach to information access that ensnared him in a two year legal nightmare. It was a battle that ended with the taking of his own life at the age of 26. Aaron's story touched a nerve with people far beyond the online communities in which he was a celebrity. This film is a personal story about what we lose when we are tone deaf about technology and its relationship to our civil liberties.
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Ivory Tower
June 13, 2014
As tuition rates spiral beyond reach and student loan debt passes $1 trillion (more than credit card debt), Ivory Tower asks: Is college worth the cost? From the halls of Harvard, to public colleges in financial crisis, to Silicon Valley, filmmaker Andrew Rossi assembles an urgent portrait of a great American institution at the breaking point.
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The Case Against 8
June 6, 2014
The Case Against 8 takes a riveting, inside look at the groundbreaking Supreme Court case that overturned Proposition 8, California’s ban on same-sex marriage. Five years in the making, with exclusive behind-the-scenes access to the powerhouse legal team of Ted Olson and David Boies, who previously faced off as opposing counsel in Bush v. Gore, along with the four plaintiffs in the suit, the film provides a definitive account of the battle that effectively ended marriage discrimination in California.
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Korengal
May 30, 2014
Korengal picks up where Restrepo left off; the same men, the same valley, the same commanders, but a very different look at the experience of war.
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The American Nurse
May 7, 2014
The American Nurse explores some of the biggest issues facing America - aging, war, poverty, prisons - through the work and lives of five nurses. It is a documentary that will change how we think about nurses and how we wrestle with the challenges of healing America. [DigiNext]
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Documented
May 2, 2014
In 2011, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jose Antonio Vargas outed himself as an undocumented immigrant in an essay published in the New York Times Magazine. Documented chronicles his journey to America from the Philippines as a child; his journey through America as an immigration reform activist; and his journey inward as he re-connects with his mother, whom he hasn't seen in person in over 20 years.
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A Fragile Trust
April 11, 2014
A Fragile Trust tells the story of Jayson Blair, the most infamous serial plagiarist of our time, and how he unleashed the massive scandal that rocked the New York Times and the entire world of journalism.
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Kids for Cash
February 7, 2014
Kids For Cash is a riveting look behind the notorious judicial scandal that rocked the nation. Beyond the millions paid and high stakes corruption, Kids For Cash exposes a shocking American secret. In the wake of the shootings at Columbine, a small town celebrates a charismatic judge who is hell-bent on keeping kids in line...until one parent dares to question the motives behind his brand of justice. This real life thriller reveals the untold stories of the masterminds at the center of the scandal and the chilling aftermath of lives destroyed in the process - a stunning emotional roller coaster.
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Hank: 5 Years from the Brink
January 31, 2014
For three weeks in September 2008, one person was charged with preventing the collapse of the global economy. No one understood the financial markets better than Hank Paulson, the former CEO of Goldman Sachs. In Hank: Five Years from the Brink, Paulson tells the complete story of how he persuaded banks, congress and presidential candidates to sign off on nearly $1 trillion in bailouts - even as he found the behavior that led to the crisis, and the bailouts themselves, morally reprehensible.
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Mitt
January 28, 2014
Mitt provides a candid look at the private and public moments of a presidential candidate and his family.
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The Unbelievers
November 29, 2013
Renowned scientists Richard Dawkins and Lawrence Krauss cross the globe as they speak publicly about the importance of science and reason in the modern world.
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Narco Cultura
November 22, 2013
To a growing number of Mexicans and Latinos in the Americas, narco traffickers have become iconic outlaws and the new models of fame and success. They represent a pathway out of the ghetto - a new form of the American Dream, fueled by the war on drugs. Narco Cultura looks at this explosive phenomenon from within; cycles of addiction to money, drugs and violence that are rapidly gaining strength on both sides of the US/Mexican border.
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These Birds Walk
November 1, 2013
In Karachi, Pakistan, a runaway boy's life hangs on one critical question: where is home? The streets, an orphanage, or with the family he fled in the first place? Simultaneously heart-wrenching and life-affirming, These Birds Walk documents the struggles of wayward street children and the samaritans looking out for them. [Oscilloscope Pictures]
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The New Black
November 1, 2013
The New Black is a documentary that tells the story of how the African-American community is grappling with the gay rights issue in light of the recent gay marriage movement and the fight over civil rights. The film documents activists, families and clergy on both sides of the campaign to legalize gay marriage and examines homophobia in the black community's institutional pillar-the black church and reveals the Christian right wing's strategy of exploiting this phenomenon in order to pursue an anti-gay political agenda. The New Black takes viewers into the pews and onto the streets and provides a seat at the kitchen table as it tells the story of the historic fight to win marriage equality in Maryland and charts the evolution of this divisive issue within the black community.
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The Square
October 25, 2013
A group of Egyptian revolutionaries battle leaders and regimes, risking their lives to build a new society of conscience.
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The Human Scale
October 18, 2013
50 % of the worldâ
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The Network
September 27, 2013
The Network is a documentary set behind the scenes at TOLO TV, the largest television network in one of the most unstable and dangerous places on earth, Afghanistan.
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After Tiller
September 20, 2013
After the assassination of Dr. George Tiller in Kansas in 2009, there are a limited number of doctors left in the country who provide third-trimester abortions for women. After Tiller moves between the rapidly unfolding stories of these doctors, all of whom were close colleagues of Dr. Tiller, and are fighting to keep this service available in the wake of his death. These four people have become the new number-one targets of the pro-life movement, yet continue to risk their lives every day to do work that many believe is murder, but which they believe is profoundly important for their patients' lives. After Tiller shows them confronting harassment from protesters, challenges in their personal lives, and a series of tough ethical decisions.
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Herb & Dorothy 50X50
September 13, 2013
When Herb and Dorothy Vogel, a retired postal clerk and librarian, began collecting works of contemporary art in the 1960s, they never imagined it would outgrow their one bedroom Manhattan apartment and spread throughout America. 50 years later, the collection is nearly 5,000 pieces and worth millions. Refusing to sell, the couple launches an unprecedented project to give a total of 2,500 artworks to museums in all fifty states.
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Money for Nothing: Inside the Federal Reserve
September 6, 2013
Nearly 100 years after its creation, the power of the U.S. Federal Reserve has never been greater. Markets and governments around the world hold their breath in anticipation of the Fed Chairman's every word. Yet the average person knows very little about the most powerful - and least understood - financial institution on earth. Narrated by Liev Schreiber, Money For Nothing is the first film to take viewers inside the Fed and reveal the impact of Fed policies - past, present, and future - on our lives. Join current and former Fed officials as they debate the critics, and each other, about the decisions that helped lead the global financial system to the brink of collapse in 2008. And why we might be headed there again.
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Red Obsession
September 6, 2013
The great wineries of Bordeaux struggle to accommodate the voracious appetite for their rare, expensive wines, which have become a powerful status symbol in booming China.
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American Made Movie
August 30, 2013
American Made Movie looks back on the glory days of U.S. manufacturing and illustrates how technology and globalization have changed the competitive landscape for companies doing business in America, as well as overseas. By illustrating the successes of companies and entrepreneurs that, of their own accord, have prospered without adopting the practices of their competitors, American Made Movie shows the positive impact these jobs can have on national and local economies in the face of great challenges.
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Tokyo Waka: A City Poem
August 28, 2013
A poem about a city, its people, and 20,000 crows.
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We the Parents
August 16, 2013
We the Parents follows the people and events surrounding the first ever school transformation under California's 'Parent Trigger' law. Parents, with the help of the non-profit group Parent Revolution, gathered signatures from over 51% of the families at McKinley Elementary School in Compton, CA. When their petitions are turned in to the district, demanding that a charter school take over McKinley, the controversy begins. Everyday people, who simply want a better life for their children, suddenly find themselves doing extraordinary things: appearing on television, speaking at press conferences, lobbying in the state capital, and becoming community leaders. On their journey they inspire a national movement and discover that education is a political beast.
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Off Label
August 9, 2013
Doctors today are liberally writing prescriptions for psychotropic drugs such as Adderall, Ambien, Zoloft, and Prozac (to name a very few). Often these drugs are combined in polypharmacy cocktails or are given out for unapproved or untested indications, leading to abuse, dangerous side effects, and heavy dependence. Off Label examines our runaway pharma-culture by weaving together the stories of drug-testing subjects, Big Pharma representatives, and many others touched by the rampant use of pharmaceuticals. Together, they create a poetic, sometimes amusing and frequently heartbreaking emotional road trip through an overmedicated, misdiagnosed, and drug-addled America. [Oscilloscope Pictures]
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Zipper: Coney Island's Last Wild Ride
August 9, 2013
A film about greed, politics, land use and public policy, Zipper tells the story behind the battle over an American cultural icon. Small-time ride operator, Eddie Miranda, proudly runs a 38-year-old carnival contraption called the Zipper in the heart of Coney Island’s gritty amusement district. When his rented lot is snatched up by an opportunistic real estate mogul, Eddie and his ride become casualties of a power struggle between the developer and the City of New York. Be it an affront to history or just the path of progress, the spirit of Coney Island is at stake. In a market-driven world where growth often trumps preservation, the Zipper may be only the beginning of what is lost.
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Terms and Conditions May Apply
July 12, 2013
With fascinating examples and so-unbelievable-they’re-almost-funny facts, filmmaker Cullen Hoback exposes what governments and corporations are legally taking from you every day - turning the future of both privacy and civil liberties uncertain. From whistle blowers and investigative journalists to zombie fan clubs and Egyptian dissidents, this disquieting exposé demonstrates how every one of us has incrementally opted-in to a real-time surveillance state, click by click- and what, if anything, can be done about it. [Variance Films]
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Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer
May 31, 2013
Three young women face seven years in a Russian prison for a satirical performance in a Moscow cathedral. But who is really on trial - three young artists or the society they live in?
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Bidder 70
May 17, 2013
In 2008, as George W. Bush tried to gift the energy and mining industries thousands of acres of pristine Utah wilderness via a widely disputed federal auction, college student Tim DeChristopher decided to monkey-wrench the process. Bidding $1.7 million, he won 22,000 acres with no intention to pay or drill. For this astonishing (and successful) act of civil disobedience he was sent to federal prison. Bidder 70 tells the story of this peaceful warrior whose patriotism and willingness to sacrifice have ignited the climate justice movement. [First Run Features]
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Elemental
May 17, 2013
Elemental follows three outsiders who are obsessed by nature and driven by a deep desire to change the status quo. Rajendra Singh, an Indian government official gone rogue, mounts a national crusade to save the Ganges River. Activist Eriel Deranger leads a David and Goliath fight against the oil giants who are destroying her homeland in the Canadian Tar Sands. Australian inventor, Jay Harman, is attempting to halve the world's energy consumption by mimicking natural systems. Separated by continents, each character is part of a global story about water and climate change that goes beyond the issues to reveal the public triumphs and emotional scars of life on the front line.
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Valentino's Ghost
May 17, 2013
A documentary focused on exposing the ways in which America's foreign policy agenda in the Middle East drives the U.S. media's portrayal of Arabs and Muslims. The film lays bare the truths behind taboo subjects that are conspicuously avoided, or merely treated as sound bites, by the mainstream American media.
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Gut Renovation
March 6, 2013
Gut Renovation charts the destruction of Williamsburg after the city passed a re-zoning plan in 2005 which allowed developers to build luxury condos where there were once thriving industries, working-class families, and artists.
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Stolen Seas
January 18, 2013
Utilizing exclusive interviews and access to real pirates, hostages, ship-owners, pirate negotiators and experts on piracy and international policy, Stolen Seas explores the Somali pirate phenomenon - how it came to be and why it will continue.
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Uprising (2013)
January 11, 2013
Uprising recounts the story of the Egyptian revolution from the perspective of its leadership and key organizers, their struggle for freedom against major odds, their sacrifice, and the courage and ingenuity that allowed them to succeed. Featuring major figures including four Nobel Peace Prize nominees, several Egyptian presidential candidates, the former foreign ministers of Egypt and Jordan, and former US Ambassadors and White House officials, along with never before seen footage, UPRISING provides
Amir Waked the authoritative behind-the scenes view of one of the most dramatic events of our generation.
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Divorce Corp
January 10, 2013
More money flows through the family courts, and into the hands of courthouse insiders, than in all other court systems in America combined - over $50 billion a year and growing. Through extensive research and interviews with the nation's top divorce lawyers, mediators, judges, politicians, litigants and journalists, this documentary uncovers how children are torn from their homes, unlicensed custody evaluators extort money, and abusive judges play god with people's lives while enriching their friends. This explosive documentary reveals the family courts as unregulated, extra-constitutional fiefdoms. Rather than assist victims of domestic crimes, these courts often precipitate them. And rather than help parents and children move on, as they are mandated to do, these courts - and their associates - drag out cases for years, sometimes decades, ultimately resulting in a rash of social ills, including home foreclosure, bankruptcy, suicide and violence. Solutions to the crisis are sought out in countries where divorce is handled in a more holistic manner.
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My Brooklyn
January 4, 2013
My Brooklyn is a documentary about Director Kelly Anderson’s personal journey, as a Brooklyn “gentrifier,” to understand the forces reshaping her neighborhood along lines of race and class.
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Addicted to Fame
November 30, 2012
The tragic true story of one filmmaker’s journey from obscurity to moral blindness in the seductive glare of the media spotlight.
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16 Acres
November 16, 2012
The dramatic inside story of the monumental collision of interests at Ground Zero in the decade after 9/11. It's the story of how and why this historic project got built. At the heart of the story is the dramatic tension between noblest intentions, the desire of everyone involved to "get it right," and the politics, hubris, ego and ideology that is the bedrock of New York City. [Tanexis]
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Who Bombed Judi Bari?
November 16, 2012
A news anchor reports while graphic news coverage of a terrorist car bomb attack in 1990 in Oakland, CA is shown. Two Earth First! activists are immediately blamed by the FBI for bombing themselves. We learn that the victim/suspects Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney have later sued the FBI and Oakland Police and that Judi Bari is now dying of cancer before her case goes to trial. Weak though defiant, she gives her deposition, on camera, just a month before she dies. [Hokey Pokey]
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The Revisionaries
October 26, 2012
In Austin, Texas, fifteen people influence what is taught to the next generation of American children. Once every decade, the highly politicized Texas State Board of Education rewrites the teaching and textbook standards for its nearly 5 million schoolchildren. And when it comes to textbooks, what happens in Texas affects the nation as a whole. Don McLeroy, a dentist, Sunday school teacher, and avowed young-earth creationist, leads the Religious Right charge. After briefly serving on his local school board, McLeroy was elected to the Texas State Board of Education and later appointed chairman. During his time on the board, McLeroy has overseen the adoption of new science and history curriculum standards, drawing national attention and placing Texas on the front line of the so-called "culture wars." n his last term, McLeroy, aided by Cynthia Dunbar, an attorney from Houston and professor of Law at Jerry Falwell's Liberty University, finds himself not only fighting to change what Americans are taught, but also fighting to retain his seat on the board. Challenged by Kathy Miller, president of the Texas Freedom Network, and Ron Wetherington, an anthropology professor from Southern Methodist University in Texas, McLeroy faces his toughest term yet. THE REVISIONARIES follows the rise and fall of some of the most controversial figures in American education through some of their most tumultuous intellectual battles. (Kino Lorber)
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A Whisper to a Roar
October 12, 2012
A Whisper to a Roar tells the heroic stories of courageous democracy activists in five countries around the world – Egypt, Malaysia, Ukraine, Venezuela and Zimbabwe. From student leaders to prime ministers and heads of state, these activists share their compelling personal stories of struggle, past and present, with their countries’ oppressive regimes. Shot over three years and finalized in July 2012 by award-winning filmmaker, Ben Moses, the film was inspired by the work of Stanford University’s Larry Diamond, author of “The Spirit of Democracy” and Director of Stanford University’s Center for Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law. It was funded by The Moulay Hicham Foundation, whose benefactor, Prince Moulay Hicham of Morocco, is a renowned public intellectual and democracy advocate, particularly in regards to the Middle East. (Appleseed Entertainment)
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Escape Fire: The Fight to Rescue American Healthcare
October 5, 2012
Escape Fire tackles one of the most pressing issues of our time: what can be done to save our broken medical system? The film examines the powerful forces trying to maintain the status quo in a medical industry designed for quick fixes rather than prevention, for profit-driven care rather than patient-driven care. The film is about a way out, about saving the health of a nation. (Roadside Attractions)
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Harvest of Empire
September 28, 2012
Harvest of Empire takes an unflinching look at the role that U.S. economic and military interests played in triggering an unprecedented wave of migration that is transforming our nation’s cultural and
economic landscape. From the wars for territorial expansion that gave the U.S. control of Puerto Rico, Cuba and more than half of Mexico, to
the covert operations that imposed oppressive military regimes in the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Nicaragua and El Salvador, Harvest of Empire unveils a moving human story that is largely unknown to the great majority of citizens in the U.S. (Onyx Films)
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American Autumn: an Occudoc
September 28, 2012
The first feature length documentary on the Occupy movement not only offers answers for those who continue to ask: “what does the occupy movement stand for? What are our demands?” – it offers a challenge and an invitation to engage with the movement. (Dennis Trainor Jr. Film)
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