Richard Avedon's photographs shaped our image-driven world. This film explores his life and legacy through never-before-seen archives, footage, and interviews, revealing how his vision transformed 20th-century visual culture.

Every year, thousands of aspiring dancers enter one of the world's most prestigious ballet competitions, the Youth America Grand Prix, where lifelong dreams are at stake. In the final round, with hundreds competing for only a handful of elite scholarships and contracts, practice and discipline are paramount, and nothing short of perfection is expected. Bess Kargman's award-winning documentary, FIRST POSITION, follows six young dancers as they prepare for a chance to enter the world of professional ballet, struggling through bloodied feet, near exhaustion and debilitating injuries, all while navigating the drama of adolescence. A showcase of awe-inspiring talent, tenacity and passion, FIRST POSITION paints a thrilling and moving portrait of the most gifted young ballet stars of tomorrow. (Sundance Selects)

Emerging from Ann Arbor Michigan amidst a countercultural revolution, The Stooges’ powerful and aggressive style of rock-n-roll blew a crater in the musical landscape of the late 1960s. Assaulting audiences with a blend of rock, blues, R&B, and free jazz, the band planted the seeds for what would be called punk and alternative rock in the decades that followed. Jim Jarmusch’s Gimme Danger chronicles the story of The Stooges, one of the greatest rock-n-roll bands of all time, presenting the context of the Stooges emergence musically, culturally, politically, historically, and relating their adventures and misadventures while charting their inspirations and the reasons behind their initial commercial challenges, as well as their long-lasting legacy.

Sirens chronicles the lives and music of Slave to Sirens, a band made up of five young metalheads whose burgeoning fame is set against the backdrop of the Lebanese revolution. Its members wrestle with friendship, sexuality, and destruction as their music serves as a refuge to Beirut’s youth culture. At the band’s core are its two founding members, Lilas Mayassi and Shery Bechara, whose complicated relationship and subsequent tense fallout threatens the very fabric of the band. An even greater looming threat, however, is Lebanon’s criminalization of homosexuality, as well as the wholly devastating effects of their country’s political regime. Despite their obvious challenges, the members of Slave to Sirens persist in trying to create a revolution of their own: living their truth.

An extraordinary and remarkably humorous portrait of American folk music legend Ramblin' Jack Elliott. (Lot 47 Films)

The filmed account of The Beatles' attempt to recapture their old group spirit by making a back to basics album, which instead drove them further apart.

A Compassionate Spy is a gripping real-life spy thriller about controversial Manhattan Project physicist Ted Hall, who infamously provided nuclear secrets to the Soviet Union, told through the perspective of his loving wife Joan, who protected his secret for decades. Recruited in 1944 as an 18-year-old Harvard undergraduate to help Robert Oppenheimer and his team create a bomb, Hall was the youngest physicist on the Manhattan Project, and didn’t share his colleagues’ elation after the successful detonation of the world’s first atomic bomb. Concerned that a U.S. post-war monopoly on such a powerful weapon could lead to nuclear catastrophe, Hall began passing key information about the bomb’s construction to the Soviet Union. After the war, he met, fell in love with, and married Joan, a fellow student with whom he shared a passion for classical music and socialist causes — and the explosive secret of his espionage. The pair raised a family while living under a cloud of suspicion and years of FBI surveillance and intimidation.

The Beatles: Eight Days A Week - The Touring Years documents the first part of The Beatles’ career (1962-1966) – the period in which they toured and captured the world’s acclaim. Ron Howard’s film explores how John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr came together to become the extraordinary phenomenon, The Beatles. It chronicles their inner workings – how they made decisions, created their music and built their collective career together – all the while, exploring The Beatles’ extraordinary and unique musical gifts and their remarkable, complementary personalities.

A collection of expertly photographed phenomena with no conventional plot. The footage focuses on nature, humanity and the relationship between them.

Once known as the "California Riviera," the Salton Sea is now called one of America's worst ecological disasters. This documentary covers the historical, economic, political, and environmental issues that face the Sea, it more importantly offers up an offbeat portrait of the eccentric and individualistic people who populate its shores. Hair-raising and hilarious, part history lesson, part cautionary tale and part portrait of one of the strangest communities you've ever seen, this is the American Dream gone as stinky as a dead carp. (Tilapia Corp.)

Inside Paris’s Crazy Horse cabaret – the most famous nude dance show in the world. Acclaimed documentary filmmaker Frederick Wiseman explores one of the most mythic and colorful places dedicated to women, the Crazy Horse – a legendary Parisian cabaret club, founded in 1951 by Alain Bernardin. Over the years it has become the Parisian nightlife ‘must’ for visitors, ranking alongside the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre. Wiseman’s impeccable eye finds the Crazy Horse a uniquely French showcase, with an emphasis on elegance, perfectionism and a grueling schedule (2 shows a night and 3 on Saturdays, 7 days a week). The film shows us the rehearsals for and the unveiling of the brand new show – Désir – created by the renowned French choreographer Phillippe Decoufle. (Zipporah Films)

In a country where 58% of African American 4th graders are functionally illiterate, The Lottery uncovers the failures of the traditional public school system and reveals that hundreds of thousands of parents attempt to flee the system every year. The Lottery follows four of these families from Harlem and the Bronx who have entered their children in a charter school lottery. Out of thousands of hopefuls, only a small minority will win the chance of a better future. (Variance Film)

This HBO Documentary Film follows the American rock band Eagles of Death Metal as they recount their experiences before, during and after the tragic terrorist attack at their concert in Paris on November 13, 2015 – a heinous act of violence that claimed 89. The film spotlights the deep bond of friendship between band co-founders Jesse Hughes and Josh Homme as well as the intensely personal connection that the Eagles of Death Metal has always had with their devoted fans. That relationship, coupled with a profound sense of responsibility to help the Bataclan survivors cope with their physical and emotional wounds, inspired the band to return to Paris: first to perform with U2 at a rescheduled concert three weeks after the attacks, and later to finish the Paris show at the Olympia concert hall in front of their fans, many of whom were survivors of the earlier show.

Three seniors at Philadelphia's Frankford High School find an unlikely champion in the kitchen of Wilma Stephenson. A legend in the school system, Mrs. Stephenson's hilariously blunt boot-camp method of teaching Culinary Arts is validated by years of scholarship success. (Non Sequitur Productions)

Escapes blazes a wild path through mid-20th-century Hollywood via the experiences of Hampton Fancher – flamenco dancer, actor, and the unlikely producer and screenwriter of the landmark sci-fi classic Blade Runner. A consummate raconteur, Fancher recounts episodes from his remarkable life — romantic misadventures with silver-screen stars, wayward acts of chivalry, jealousy, and friendship — matched with a parallel world of film and TV footage wherein Fancher plays cowboys, killers, fops, cads, and the occasional hero. Equal parts dense and fleet, Escapes shows how one man’s personal journey can unexpectedly shape a medium’s future.

A battle of naked ambition played out on the national and, ultimately, world stage, Air Guitar Nation chronicles the birth of the U.S. Air Guitar Championships as legions of aspiring rock stars live out their dreams on a quest to become the world champion in a strange world where musical ability plays second fiddle to virtual virtuosity. (Docurama Films)

Through the eyes of the greatest athletes of all time, IN SEARCH OF GREATNESS is a cinematic journey into the secrets of genius.

Millions of Chinese people do live streaming. Those whose poverty, physical shortcomings or gender prevent them from taking part in the real world find human contact here; fragments of lives that are interwoven with virtual showrooms.

For decades, legendary film producer Jeremy Thomas has driven from England to the Cannes Film Festival. This time, he’s joined by acclaimed filmmaker Mark Cousins. On their intimate, visual five-day road movie through rural France, they remember some of the most acclaimed and controversial films ever made: The Last Emperor, which won nine Oscars for Thomas when he was still in his 30s, including Best Picture; David Cronenberg’s Crash and its Cannes scandal; the masterpiece of sexual obsession, Bad Timing. Thomas introduces us to his remarkable world of movie stars–Marlon Brando, Jack Nicholson, David Bowie–and daring international cinema, influenced by punk and counter-culture. The journey is intercut with acclaimed actors Tilda Swinton and Debra Winger, who give exclusive insights into the man and his work. Illustrated with a dazzling range of film clips and rich in insights about creativity and survival, The Storms of Jeremy Thomas is a road movie portrait of France, a film school, and–in the era of streaming and corporatization–a passionate call to arms for movies that get to the heart of life.

It's a shame no one wants to talk to them at parties, because obituary writers are a surprisingly funny bunch. Ten hours before newspapers hit neighborhood doorsteps—and these days, ten minutes before news hits the web—an obit writer is racing against deadline to sum up a long and newsworthy life in under 1000 words. The details of these lives are then deposited into the cultural memory amid the daily beat of war, politics, and football scores. Obit. is the first documentary to explore the world of these writers and their subjects, focusing on the legendary team at The New York Times, who approach their daily work with journalistic rigor and narrative flair. Going beyond the byline and into the minds of those chronicling life after death on the freshly inked front lines of history, the film invites some of the most essential questions we ask ourselves about life, memory, and the inevitable passage of time. What do we choose to remember? What never dies? [Kino Lorber]

Twenty years after the release of Nas's groundbreaking debut album Illmatic, Nas: Time is Illmatic takes us into the heart of his creative process. Returning to his childhood home in Queensbridge, Nas shares stories of his upbringing, his influences, and the obstacles he faced before his major label signing at age 19. [Tribeca Film]

In A Space Program, internationally acclaimed artist Tom Sachs takes us on an intricately handmade journey to the red planet, providing audiences with an intimate, first person look into his studio and methods. The film is both a piece of art in its own right and a recording of Sachs’ historic piece, Space Program 2.0: MARS, which opened at New York’s Park Avenue Armory in 2012. For Space Program 2.0: MARS, Sachs and his team built an entire space program from scratch. They were guided by the philosophy of bricolage: creating and constructing from available yet limited resources. They ultimately sent two female astronauts to Mars in search of the answer to humankind’s ultimate question... are we alone? [Zeitgeist Films]

Across more than 50 years of essays, novels, screenplays, and criticism, Joan Didion has been our premier chronicler of the ebb and flow of America’s cultural and political tides with observations on her personal – and our own – upheavals, downturns, life changes, and states of mind. In the intimate, extraordinary documentary Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold, actor and director Griffin Dunne unearths a treasure trove of archival footage and talks at length to his “Aunt Joan” about the eras she covered and the eventful life she’s lived, including partying with Janis Joplin in a house full of L.A. rockers; hanging in a recording studio with Jim Morrison; and cooking dinner for one of Charles Manson’s women for a magazine story. Didion guides us through the sleek literati scene of New York in the 1950s and early ’60s, when she wrote for Vogue; her return to her home state of California for two turbulent decades; the writing of her seminal books, including Slouching Towards Bethlehem, Play It as It Lays, A Book of Common Prayer, and The White Album; her film scripts, including The Panic in Needle Park; her view of 1980s and ’90s political personalities; and the meeting of minds that was her long marriage to writer John Gregory Dunne. She reflects on writing about her reckoning with grief after Dunne’s death, in The Year of Magical Thinking (winner of the National Book Award for Nonfiction), and the death of their daughter Quintana Roo, in Blue Nights. With commentary from friends and collaborators including Vanessa Redgrave, Harrison Ford, Anna Wintour, David Hare, Calvin Trillin, Hilton Als, and Susanna Moore, the most crucial voice belongs to Didion, one of the most influential American writers alive today. [Netflix]

Dear Santa shines a light on the 100-year-old Operation Santa Program of the United States Postal Service. Each year, hundreds of thousands of letters to Santa arrive at Post Offices around the country. Through Operation Santa, the United States Postal Service makes it possible for the public to safely adopt these letters and make children’s dreams come true. The film invites audiences along for the magic of this massive endeavor. Traveling the country, much like Santa does on Christmas Eve, the film focuses on select Operation Santa Centers: some in metropolitan areas like the massive operation in New York City and others in small towns where the Post Office is the heart of the community. [IFC Films]

In Everyone Is Lying to You for Money, actor and author Ben McKenzie turns investigator, pulling back the curtain on the cryptocurrency industry and the culture of hype, misinformation, and speculation that fueled its explosive rise. What began as a promise of financial freedom has evolved into a volatile ecosystem rife with fraud and reckless gambling, carrying with it devastating consequences for everyday people. Through firsthand reporting, expert interviews, and a clear-eyed examination of major collapses and scandals, the film traces how crypto became one of the most aggressively marketed financial products of the modern era—and how warning signs were ignored, dismissed, or deliberately obscured. As fortunes are made and lost, Everyone Is Lying to You for Money asks a sobering question: who benefits from the chaos, and who is left to clean up the damage?

Like many American outsider adventurers, Dorian "Doc" Paskowitz set out to realize a utopian dream. Abandoning a successful medical practice, he sought self-fulfillment by taking up the nomadic life of a surfer. But unlike other American searchers like Thoreau or Kerouac, Paskowitz took his wife and nine children along for the ride, all 11 of them living in a 24-foot camper. Together, they lived a life that would be unfathomable to most, but enviable to anyone who ever relinquished their dreams to a straight job. The Paskowitz Family proved that, though America may be running out of frontiers, it hasn't run out of frontiersman. (Magnolia Pictures)

Jack Smith has been simultaneously hailed as the godfather of performance art, the William Blake of film, and a photographer who has "influenced three decades of artists." While largely unknown in mainstream circles today, Jack Smith was central to a period when American culture finally began to question itself. (Tongue Press)

A documentary comprised of three stories about forgotten people around the globe, including an impoverished Peruvian boy, a Kurdish exile living in Sweden, and a death-row inmate in Texas.

This documentary examines today's global surf culture.

The documentary features a 2003 Carnegie Hall concert featuring many of folk music's leading lights, in honor an unsung American hero: music impresario Harold Leventhal. (Seventh Art Releasing)

Japan, 1977. A dark, lonely road leads to the windswept shores. This is the remarkable story of a 13-year-old Japanese girl abducted on her way home from school by North Korean spies. For 20 years, her parents had no idea what had happened to her or if she was even alive. Then, one day the whole world learned the shocking truth. (Safari Media)

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A former banker in Germany, who entered the business with the advent of modern computer systems reminisces about his years in some of the world-leading banking corporations.

Salad Days: A Decade of Punk in Washington, DC (1980-90) is a documentary film that examines the early DIY punk scene in the Nation’s Capital. It was a decade when seminal bands like Bad Brains, Minor Threat, Government Issue, Scream, Void, Faith, Rites of Spring, Marginal Man, Fugazi, and others released their own records and booked their own shows—without major record label constraints or mainstream media scrutiny. Contextually, it was a cultural watershed that predated the alternative music explosion of the 1990s (and the industry’s subsequent implosion). Thirty years later, DC’s original DIY punk spirit serves as a reminder of the hopefulness of youth, the power of community and the strength of conviction.

Made following the discovery of amateur footage shot in China in 1966 during the first and most radical stage of the Cultural Revolution, In the Intense Now speaks to the fleeting nature of moments of great intensity. Scenes of China are set alongside archival images of the events of 1968 in France, Czechoslovakia, and, to a lesser extent, Brazil. In keeping with the tradition of the film-essay, they serve to investigate how the people who took part in those events continued onward after passions had cooled. The footage, all of it archival, not only reveals the state of mind of those filmed—joy, enchantment, fear, disappointment, dismay—but also sheds light on the relationship between a document and its political context. What can one say of Paris, Prague, Rio de Janeiro, or Beijing by looking at the images of the period? Why did each of these cities produce a specific sort of record? [Icarus FIlms]

In his 94 years, David Attenborough has visited every continent on the globe, exploring the wild places of our planet and documenting the living world in all its variety and wonder. Now, for the first time he reflects upon both the defining moments of his lifetime as a naturalist and the devastating changes he has seen.

The Kill Team looks at the devastating moral tensions that tear at soldiers’ psyches through the lens of one highly personal and emotional story. Private Adam Winfield was a 21-year-old soldier in Afghanistan when he attempted with the help of his father to alert the military to heinous war crimes his platoon was committing. But Winfield’s pleas went unheeded. Left on his own and with threats to his life, Private Winfield was himself drawn into the moral abyss, forced to make a split-second decision that would change his life forever.

In Uganda’s 2021 presidential election, music star, activist and opposition leader Bobi Wine, together with his wife Barbie, rallies his people in a dangerous fight for freedom from President Museveni’s oppressive 35-year regime.

A perennial whipping boy, in recent decades Manassas had gone so far as to sell their home games to the highest bidder, but that all changed in the spring of 2004 when Bill Courtney, a former high school football coach turned lumber salesman, volunteered to lend a hand. When he arrived, the team consisted of 17 players, some timeworn equipment and a patch of grass masquerading as a practice field. Focusing more on winning young men than football games, the football program nevertheless began resurrecting itself and, in 2009, features the most talented team Manassas has ever fielded; a team that seems poised to end the playoff jinx that has plagued the school since time immemorial. (The Weinstein Company)

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.

Far more of us get sick from what we eat than anyone has ever realized. This potent exposé uncovers the food industry’s dirty secrets. This exploration reveals how, in the wake of media attention, public fascination with appearance and government policies pushing for change, generations of Americans will live shorter lives. [RADiUS-TWC]

This documentary depicts the stories of a small number of Jewish children who were saved from the Nazis by non-Jews who hid these children in their homes despite great personal danger.

The film explores the definition, history, culture, social impact and global influence of New York's outdoor summer basketball scene.

This unique documentary focuses on the friendship between director Richard Linklater ("Before Midnight") and experimental filmmaker James Benning, combining filmed conversations and archival material to explore connections between the work and lives of these two American visionaries. [FilmBuff]

Twenty years after the death of Derek Jarman, a heretofore unknown Jarman film comes to light. Found by friend Ron Peck, Jarman shot inside Benjy's, a now closed gay nightclub in east London. The film is shown in it's 78 minute unedited glory, meant to be experimental footage to assist friend Peck for the future filming of Peck's Empire State, and set to Frankie Goes to Hollywood, among others.

Gymnast David Holmes played Daniel Radcliffe’s stunt double in the Harry Potter films until a tragic on-set accident left him paralyzed. With his life turned upside down, David's extraordinary spirit of resilience becomes a source of strength and inspiration to everyone around him.

Legendary musician Swamp Dogg has been described as “one of the great cult figures of 20th century American music” and “the soul genius time forgot.” He is a genuine eccentric responsible for some of the most unique rock-influenced R&B (and wildest album covers) ever made. Hidden away deep in suburban Los Angeles, Swamp Dogg, alongside housemates Moogstar and Guitar Shorty, has transformed his home into an artistic playground. Together, they navigate the tumultuous waves of the music industry, and forge a wonderfully bizarre and inspiring path across time and space.

Courtney Love, singer, songwriter, and actor, is sober and preparing to release new music after a decade, ready to share her unfiltered story.

Beloved by children of all ages around the world, Elmo is an international icon. Few people know his creator, Kevin Clash, who dreamed of working with his idol, master puppeteer Jim Henson. Displaying his creativity and talent at a young age, Kevin ultimately found a home on Sesame Street. Narrated by Whoopi Goldberg, this documentary includes rare archival footage, interviews with Frank Oz, Rosie O’Donnell, Cheryl Henson, Joan Ganz Cooney and others and offers a behind-the-scenes look at Sesame Street and the Jim Henson Workshop. (Submarine Entertainment)

A look at the rise and fall of disgraced Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein featuring interviews with former colleagues and those who accused him of sexual misconduct.

Robert Greenwald's documentary WAL-MART: The High Cost of Low Price takes you behind the glitz and into the real lives of workers and their families, business owners and their communities, in an extraordinary journey that will challenge the way you think, feel... and shop. (Brave New Films)

Thomas and Alexander Huber, risk takers in the extreme, rank as two of the best mountain climbers of our time. Now the two Huber brothers have set out to break the record in speed climbing at the wall of all walls, the 1,000 foot vertical “Nose” of El Capitan in Yosemite Valley, California. Featuring breathtaking footage of the mountains of Patagonia and Yosemite National Park, Pepe Danquart follows the Huber brothers to locations never before reached by a film crew. To the Limit is a portrait of two competitive brothers who go to the very edge of the possible, physically and psychologically. These brothers, who ordinarily live very different and separate lives, become like twins when they climb together, as they have since childhood, each driven to search for his own limits. To the Limit completes a trilogy of sports films by Pepe Danquart, the other films being Home Match and Hell On Wheels. (First Run Features)

The life and career of Elvis Presley are chronicled in home movies, concert footage, and dramatizations. Subjects include early performances, army service, Ed Sullivan Show appearance, marriage, 1968 comeback, health decline and death.

Totally fascinating and often hilarious, this crowd-pleasing film follows tough-minded state prosecutor Vera Ngassa and court president Beatrice Ntuba as they help women in their Cameroon village fight difficult cases of abuse. With fierce compassion, they dispense wisdom and wisecracks in fair measure. (Women Make Movies)

Told through performances, TV interviews, home movies, family photographs, private letters and unpublished memoirs—nearly all of which have never been shown to the public—the film reveals the essence of an extraordinary woman who rose from humble beginnings in New York City to become a glamorous international superstar and one of the greatest artists of all time. [Sony Pictures Classics]

Patrick Keiller’s latest sees his shadowy, somewhat eccentric titular researcher embark on another tour of ‘sites of scientific and historical interest’ in and around Oxford. A decade after his earlier trips around London and England, film cans and writings are discovered suggesting that Robinson – though is that his real name? – resumed his investigations upon release from prison. Keen to cure the world of ‘a great malady’ (symptoms include the banking crisis, global warming, war in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the transfer of British land to obscure owners), Robinson sought – or so we’re told by an ex-lover of the now deceased narrator of the first two films – to communicate with ‘non-human intelligences’ determined to preserve life on Earth… Keiller’s witty, revealing script weaves together philosophy, the arts, history, politics, economics, science, agriculture, architecture and much else, even as surreal, mysterious and beautiful images, imbued with a deep love of the natural world, remind us of what’s at risk. Timely indeed. (BFI Homepage)

A documentary follows the last months of Neil Platt, a young father with terminal and debilitating motor neuron disease.

Jack Cardiff’s career spanned an incredible nine of moving picture’s first ten decades and his work behind the camera altered the look of films forever through his use of Technicolor photography. Craig McCall’s passionate film about the legendary cinematographer reveals a unique figure in British and international cinema. (Strand Releasing)

In 2001, Lenny Cooke was the most hyped high school basketball player in the country, ranked above future greats LeBron James, Amar’e Stoudemire and Carmelo Anthony. A decade later, Lenny has never played a minute in the NBA. In this quintessentially American documentary, filmmaking brothers Joshua and Benny Safdie track the unfulfilled destiny of a man for whom superstardom was only just out of reach.

The Wehrmacht-Exhibition, which was shown in eleven major cities in Germany between 1999 and 2004 and was visited by more than 500,000 attendants, challenged ordinary Germans to rethink what their fathers and grandfathers did during the war. Whereas most had been led to believe that the cold-blooded murder of civilians had been a crime of a minority of officers, for the first time Germans saw photos and footage of ordinary soldiers gleefully tormenting and executing civilians on the Eastern front. The nation was shaken, and large protests were organized by those who believed the evidence was manufactured. (First Run Features)

MoviePass, MovieCrash chronicles the origin story, meteoric rise and stranger-than-fiction implosion of the theatrical movie subscription app, MoviePass, as told through the eyes of the visionary co-founders. The film details the unique challenges they faced in building the pop culture phenomenon, only to eventually find themselves cast aside, watching from the sidelines, as new executives seized control and havoc ensued.

The most recognizable woman in technology lives in our collective imagination. Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing taught millions globally, but the software’s Haitian-born cover model vanished decades ago. Two DIY detectives search for the model while posing questions about identity and artificial intelligence.

One Lucky Elephant begins with circus producer David Balding’s realization that Flora, the orphaned African elephant he adopted and made the star of his circus, is tired of performing. What unfolds is a nine-year odyssey to find Flora a good home. Caught between the human and animal world, Flora epitomizes the harsh reality elephants face in our expanding man-made world. Through Flora and David’s story, the film raises questions about our complex relationships with animals, for which there are no easy answers. One thing is certain: after watching this film, you will never look at an elephant in a zoo or a circus in the same way again. (Crossover Productions)

Based on Adam Hochschild's critically acclaimed international bestseller King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa, the documentary centers on the atrocities that are still happening everyday in the Congo as a result of King Leopold II of Belgium's rule and the development of one of the world’s first human rights movements.

A feature documentary exploring NYC culture through the influence of nightlife legend Susanne Bartsch.

Cinema verite reaches a new level of reality in this 1968 film-within-a-film as director William Greaves dares to break the accepted rules of cinema. (William Greaves Productions)

Jeremy Irons sets out to discover the extent and effects of the global waste problem, as he travels around the world to beautiful destinations tainted by pollution. This is a meticulous investigative journey that takes Irons (and us) from skepticism to sorrow and from horror to hope.

A profile of legendary funk/R&B icon Rick James capturing the peaks and valleys of his storied career to reveal a complicated and rebellious soul, driven to share his talent with the world.

Rock Hudson: All That Heaven Allowed is an intimate portrait of actor Rock Hudson, one of Hollywood’s most celebrated leading men of the 1950’s and ‘60’s and an icon of Hollywood’s Golden Age, whose diagnosis and eventual death from AIDS in 1985 shocked the world, subsequently shifting the way the public perceived the AIDS pandemic. Born Roy Fitzgerald and renamed “Rock Hudson” by his agent, with his 6’5” frame, strong physique and chiseled good looks, Hudson was the embodiment of romantic masculinity and heterosexuality. The film explores the story of a man living a double life, one whose public persona was carefully manufactured by his handlers and orchestrated by the studio system, while fearing a potentially career-ending discovery that he was privately living as a gay man.

Former Mayor Ed Koch ruled New York from 1978 to 1989—a down-and-dirty decade of grit, graffiti, near-bankruptcy and rampant crime. Making his directorial debut, former Wall Street Journal reporter Neil Barsky has crafted an intimate and revealing portrait of this intensely private man and the town he helped transform. Through candid interviews and rare archival footage, Koch thrillingly chronicles the personal and political toll of running the world’s most wondrous city in a time of upheaval and reinvention. [Zeitgeist Films]

Philadelphia, circa 2010, is about to lose its culinary treasure: Le Bec-Fin, one of the finest French restaurants in the country. The 67-year-old owner, Georges Perrier, nearly as iconic as his landmark eatery, is preparing to sell the restaurant after more than four decades in business. Filmmaker Erika Frankel, a native of the Philly suburbs, asks if she could film Perrier as an era-ending tribute. Perrier, however, has other plans. He decides to withdraw the sale and reinvent Le Bec-Fin by hiring a new protégé, Chef Nicholas Elmi, who achieved national fame on the “Top Chef” TV show. Perrier wants to pass the business to Elmi, but finds he has trouble letting go of the spatula. Over a three-year period, Frankel captures this mercurial, passionate, quixotic force of nature as he struggles to preserve his sumptuous Gallic dishes in an era where casual attitudes and lighter fare are taking hold. [Sundance Selects]

Love+War chronicles Pulitzer Prize-winning Lynsey Addario’s ascent in the male-dominated world of conflict photography. But her work is dangerous. She’s been kidnapped twice while on assignment in war zones — a cost she must wrestle with each time she leaves her husband and two sons to go on assignment. Behind the camera, Addario is torn between her unwavering commitment to the essential work of journalism and the powerful, competing demands of motherhood, grappling with what it truly means to follow your calling when it threatens everything you love.  

Battle for Brooklyn is an intimate look at the very public and passionate fight waged by residents and business owners of Brooklyn’s historic Prospect Heights neighborhood facing condemnation of their property to make way for the polarizing Atlantic Yards project, a massive plan to build 16 skyscrapers and a basketball arena for the New Jersey Nets. The film focuses on graphic designer Daniel Goldstein whose apartment sits at what would be center court of the new arena. A reluctant activist, Daniel is dragged into the fight because he can’t accept that the government should use the power of Eminent Domain to take his new apartment and hand it off to a private developer, Forest City Ratner. The effort to stop the project pits him and his neighbors against Ratner and an entourage of lawyers and public relations emissaries, the government, as well as other residents who want the construction jobs, the basketball team, and the additional housing that the project might produce. (RUMUR Inc.)

A bipartisan group of US defense, intelligence, and elected policymakers spanning five presidential administrations participate in an unscripted role-play exercise. Portraying a fictional President of the United States and his advisors, they confront a political coup backed by rogue members of the US military in the wake of a contested 2024 presidential election. Like actors in a thriller, but with profound real-world stakes, the players have only six hours to save American democracy.

Trumbo is a unique, star-studded film about Oscar-winning screenwriter Dalton Trumbo and his heroic journey from Hollywood royalty to blacklisted writer to Academy Award winner. Set against the backdrop of tremendous political unrest, audience will be given a first, emotional account of how this turmoil affected one of Hollywood’s most prolific writers. Based on the play “Trumbo”, by his son Christopher, the film features brilliant readings of some of Trumbo’s extraordinary letters performed by an A list cast, interlaced with period and contemporary interviews, and, rare video shot by his family and friends (The Samuel Goldwyn Films)

The first Western interview with Comrade Joe, James Joseph Dresnok, an American soldier who defected to North Korea in 1962 and has embraced life in the secret state ever since. (Kino International Corp.)

Jim Allison: Breakthrough is the astounding, true story of one warm- hearted, stubborn man’s visionary quest to find a cure for cancer. The film traces Allison’s remarkable life from his school-boy days in Friday Night Lights, Creationist Texas all the way to Stockholm where, in December of 2018, he accepted the Nobel Prize in Medicine.

Wildcat follows the emotional and inspiring story of a young veteran (Harry Turner) on his journey into the Amazon. Once there, he meets a young woman (Samantha Zwicker) running a wildlife rescue and rehabilitation center, and his life finds new meaning as he is entrusted with the life of an orphaned baby ocelot. What was meant to be an attempt to escape from life turns out to be an unexpected journey of love, discovery, and healing.

In March 2002, a state TV station in China was hijacked by members of outlawed spiritual group Falun Gong. Their goal was to counter the government narrative about their practice. In the aftermath, police raids sweep Changchun City, and comic book illustrator Daxiong, a Falun Gong practitioner, is forced to flee. He arrives in North America, blaming the hijacking for worsening a violent repression. But his views are challenged when he meets the lone surviving participant to have escaped China, now living in Seoul, South Korea. Combining present-day footage with 3D animation inspired by Daxiong’s art, Eternal Spring retraces the event on its 20th anniversary, and brings to life an unprecedented story of defiance, harrowing eyewitness accounts of persecution, and an exhilarating tale of determination to speak up for political and religious freedoms, no matter the cost.

In this tense and immersive tour de force, audiences are taken directly into the line of fire between powerful, opposing Peruvian leaders who will stop at nothing to keep their respective goals intact. On the one side is President Alan Garcia, who, eager to enter the world stage, begins aggressively extracting oil, minerals, and gas from untouched indigenous Amazonian land. He is quickly met with fierce opposition from indigenous leader Alberto Pizango, whose impassioned speeches against Garcia’s destructive actions prove a powerful rallying cry to throngs of his supporters. When Garcia continues to ignore their pleas, a tense war of words erupts into deadly violence.

Along the rhythm of the changing seasons they watch one another. Bestiary unfolds like a filmed picture book about mutual observation, about peculiar perception. A contemplation of a stable imbalance, and of lose, calm and indefinable elements. (Metafilms)

A documentary which examines the life of the HIV-positive leader of the Atlanta band Smoke.

A feature length documentary about the creative side of the scientific endeavor, this is a journey into the hearts and minds of seven of the most distinguished scientists of our time. (First Look Pictures)

This documentary examines the life and legend of Warhol transvestite superstar Jackie Curtis who was a poet, playwright, performer, and one of the great personalities of his time. (Highberger Media Inc.)

The Zen Of Bennett is a seductive and soulful view into the mind of singer Tony Bennett as well as an intimate portrait of the artist’s creative process as he turns 85 years old. In a first person narrative, Tony reflects back over his 60 year career while looking ahead within the context of his latest recording project. We experience inspirational insights as Tony discusses his philosophies of life, lessons learned, and his passion for art and music. (Abramorama)