We Were Here documents the coming of what was called the “Gay Plague” in the early 1980s. It illuminates the profound personal and community issues raised by the AIDS epidemic as well as the broad political and social upheavals it unleashed. It offers a cathartic validation for the generation that suffered through, and responded to, the onset of AIDS. It opens a window of understanding to those who have only the vaguest notions of what transpired in those years. It provides insight into what society could, and should, offer its citizens in the way of medical care, social services, and community support. [Red Flag Releasing]

89-year old Agnes Varda, one of the leading figures of the French New Wave, and acclaimed 33 year-old French photographer and muralist JR teamed up to co-direct this enchanting documentary/road movie. Kindred spirits, Varda and JR share a lifelong passion for images and how they are created, displayed and shared. Together they travel around the villages of France in JR’s photo truck meeting locals, learning their stories and producing epic-size portraits of them. The photos are prominently displayed on houses, barns, storefronts and trains revealing the humanity in their subjects, and themselves. Faces Places documents these heart-warming encounters as well as the unlikely, tender friendship they formed along the way. [Cohen Media Group]

A distinguished poet, translator, critic and teacher, Edwin Honig wrote dozens of books and poems that attracted critical praise around the world. His seminal translations awakened English-speaking readers to previously overlooked literary giants, resulting in honorary knighthoods from the king of Spain and the president of Portugal.

David Byrne’s American Utopia brings the critically acclaimed Broadway show to HBO in a one-of-a-kind film directed by Spike Lee. Recorded during its run at Broadway’s Hudson Theatre in New York City, David Byrne is joined by an ensemble of 11 musicians, singers, and dancers from around the globe, inviting audiences into a joyous dreamworld where human connection, self-evolution, and social justice are paramount.

Starting in 1999, Claude Lanzmann made several films that could be considered satellites of Shoah, comprised of interviews conducted in the 1970s that didn’t make it into the final, monumental work. In the last years of the late director’s life, he decided to devote a film to four women from four different areas of Eastern Europe with four different destinies, each finding herself improbably alive after war’s end: Ruth Elias from Ostravia, Czechoslovakia; Paula Biren from Lodz, Poland; Ada Lichtman from further south in Krakow; and Hannah Marton from Cluj, or Kolozsvár, in Transylvania. Survivors of unimaginable Nazi horrors during the Holocaust, they tell their individual stories and become crucial witnesses to the barbarism they experienced. Each possesses a vivid intelligence and a commitment to candor that make their accounts of what they suffered through both searing and unforgettable. Four Sisters now arrives on the screen to remind audiences of the immense courage it took for these witnesses to return to their past as they share their deeply moving personal tragedies. The frankness of their words, their intensely scrutinized faces, and their bravery as they revisit unimaginable experiences will make them lasting presences in the moral universe of younger generations. [Cohen Media Group]

Basel Adra, a young Palestinian activist from Masafer Yatta on the West Bank, has been fighting the mass expulsion of his community by Israel's occupation since childhood. He documents the slow-motion eradication of the villages in his home region where soldiers deployed by the Israeli government are gradually demolishing houses and driving out their residents. At some point, he meets Yuval, an Israeli journalist, who supports him in his efforts. An unlikely alliance develops. But the relationship between the two is strained by the enormous inequality between them: Basel lives under military occupation while Yuval lives freely and without restrictions. This film by a Palestinian-Israeli collective of four young activists has been made as an act of creative resistance on the path to greater justice. [Berlin]

Veteran documentarian Claire Simon observes the everyday operations of the gynecological ward in a public hospital in Paris. In the process, she questions what it means to live in a woman’s body, filming the diversity, singularity and beauty of patients in all stages of life. We see cancer screenings and fertility appointments, a teenager dealing with an unwanted pregnancy, a trans woman considering the beginnings of menopause. Through these encounters and many more, the specific fears, desires and struggles of these individuals become the health challenges we all face, even the filmmaker herself.

A fight on Everest? It seemed incredible. But in 2013 news channels around the world reported an ugly brawl at 21,000ft as European climbers fled a mob of angry Sherpas. In 1953, New Zealander Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay had reached the summit in a spirit of co-operation and brave optimism. Now climbers and Sherpas were trading insults - even blows. What had happened to the happy, smiling Sherpas and their dedication in getting foreigners to the top of the mountain they hold so sacred? Determined to explore what was going on, the filmmakers set out to make a film of the 2014 Everest climbing season, from the Sherpas' point of view. Instead, they captured a tragedy that would change Everest forever. At 6.45am on 18th April, 2014, a 14 million ton block of ice crashed down onto the climbing route through the Khumbu Icefall, killing 16 Sherpas. It was the worst tragedy in the history of Everest. The disaster provoked a drastic reappraisal about the role of the Sherpas in the Everest industry.

When Robert Mugabe was removed from power, Zimbabwe military leaders promised they would not seize control for themselves but would ensure democracy in a national election. Against a backdrop of economic crisis, food shortages, and political violence, the stakes could not be higher.Working to defeat the ruling party, which has controlled Zimbabwe since independence, is the young and charismatic Nelson Chamisa, who draws comparisons to a young Nelson Mandela in expressing the country’s utmost desire to be “led” and not “ruled”. After decades of a corrupt group clinging to power using any tool available—legal or not—can a free, fair, and transparent election be truly possible?

The Los Angeles punk music scene circa 1980 is the focus of this film. With Alice Bag Band, Black Flag, Catholic Discipline, Circle Jerks, Fear, Germs, and X.

This documentary by Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky details the murder trial of Delbert Ward. Delbert's of a family of 4 brothers (the other 3 being Roscoe, Lyman and William - Bill, for short), working as semi-literate farmers, and living together in isolation in a ramshackle shack, until William's death. The subsequent police investigation and medical examiner's autopsy suggested Bill may not have died from natural causes, and Delbert was arrested on charges of second-degree murder. Under questioning by police, Delbert appears to have waived his rights and signed a confession, but, it seems he might not have been competent, and was coerced into doing so. The film explores possible motives for the crime, from mercy-killing (Bill was ill at the time), to progressively more outré hypotheses. It also shows how residents of the rural community of Munnsville, NY rallied to the support of one of their own (residents previously considered the Wards as social outcasts), against what they felt were intrusive 'big-city' police and a district attorney involved in an election, who might've used the death to help bolster his candidacy.

Sam Harkness and his half-brother Reed go on a road trip to find their missing mom. But solving the mystery of her disappearance is only the beginning of their story.

Attenborough explores the planet's undersea habitats, revealing the greatest age of ocean discovery and emphasizing the ocean's vital importance while exposing its problems and highlighting opportunities for marine life recovery.

A documentary of artist Robert Crumb's life.

A unique one night only cinema event directed by Andrew Dominik, One More Time With Feeling will be the first ever opportunity anyone will have to hear Skeleton Tree, the sixteenth studio album from Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds. The film will screen in cinemas across the world on 8th September 2016, immediately prior to the release of Skeleton Tree the following day. Originally a performance based concept, One More Time With Feeling evolved into something much more significant as Dominik delved into the tragic backdrop of the writing and recording of the album. Interwoven throughout the Bad Seeds’ filmed performance of the new album are interviews and footage shot by Dominik, accompanied by Cave’s narration and improvised rumination.

Preeminent West African curator and scholar Funmilayo Akechukwu’s magnum opus, The Resonance Field, leads her to the heart of the Atlantic Ocean, drawing a journalist into a journey that shatters her understanding of consciousness and time.

In Remake, filmmaker Ross McElwee turns his lens on the passage of time and the uneasy space between documenting life and understanding it. The film traces McElwee’s relationship with his son Adrian, and the fragile bond the camera created between them while Adrian was alive, and now that he’s gone. Drawing from decades of footage, some shot by Ross, some by Adrian, the film becomes a layered excavation of memory and image making. Threaded through is the ghost of another project: a stalled effort by Hollywood to fictionalise McElwee’s 1986 classic, Sherman’s March. What emerges is a work shaped by absence and propelled forward by the urge to keep looking, even when there’s no clear story left to tell. [Venice]

A documentary in which former Indonesian death squad leaders reenact their real-life mass-killings in various cinematic genres.

Five centuries ago, anatomist André Vésale opened up the human body to science for the first time in history. Today, De Humani Corporis Fabrica opens the human body to the cinema. It reveals that human flesh is an extraordinary landscape that exists only through the gaze and attention of others. As places of care, suffering and hope, hospitals are laboratories that connect every body in the world.

A documentary that explores the effects of 9/11 on the firm Cantor Fitzgerald, whose offices on the top five floors of the North Tower of the World Trade Center were destroyed in the attacks, killing 658 out of their 960 employees.

Let It Fall takes a unique and in-depth look at the years and events leading up to the city-wide violence that began April 29, 1992, when the verdict was announced in the Rodney King case.

(Also known as "Ningen Johatsu") The American premiere of a 1967 documentary by one of Japan's most prominent directors Shohei Imamura which focuses on a seemingly ordinary office worker who was one of the 91,000 Japanese citizens who disappeared in that year. [New York Times]

The Look of Silence is Joshua Oppenheimer's powerful companion piece to the Oscar®-nominated The Act of Killing. Through Oppenheimer's footage of perpetrators of the 1965 Indonesian genocide, a family of survivors discovers how their son was murdered, as well as the identities of the killers. The documentary focuses on the youngest son, an optometrist named Adi, who decides to break the suffocating spell of submission and terror by doing something unimaginable in a society where the murderers remain in power: he confronts the men who killed his brother and, while testing their eyesight, asks them to accept responsibility for their actions.

August 1, 1966, was the day our innocence was shattered. A sniper rode the elevator to the top floor of the iconic University of Texas Tower and opened fire, holding the campus hostage for 96 minutes in what was a previously unimaginable event. TOWER combines archival footage with rotoscopic animation of the dramatic day, based entirely on first person testimonies from witnesses, heroes and survivors, in a seamless and suspenseful retelling of the unfolding tragedy. The film highlights the fear, confusion, and visceral realities that changed the lives of those present, and the rest of us, forever – a day when the worst in one man brought out the best in so many others.

What begins as a minor accident sets in motion a series of escalating consequences.

Fox Rich is a fighter. The entrepreneur, abolitionist and mother of six boys has spent the last two decades campaigning for the release of her husband, Rob G. Rich, who is serving a 60-year sentence for a robbery they both committed in the early 90s in a moment of desperation. Combining the video diaries Fox has recorded for Rob over the years with intimate glimpses of her present-day life, director Garrett Bradley paints a mesmerizing portrait of the resilience and radical love necessary to prevail over the endless separations of the country’s prison-industrial complex.

Ryuichi Sakamoto's last performance, a concert film featuring just him and his piano playing for the last time before passing away.

In the remote village of El Echo that exists outside of time, the children care for the sheep and their elders. While the frost and drought punish the land, they learn to understand death, illness and love with each act, word and silence of their parents. A story about the echo of what clings to the soul, about the certainty of shelter provided by those around us, about rebellion and vertigo in the face of life. About growing up.

In 1960, United Nations: the Global South ignites a political earthquake, musicians Abbey Lincoln and Max Roach crash the Security Council, Nikita Khrushchev bangs his shoe denouncing America’s color bar, while the U.S. dispatches jazz ambassador Louis Armstrong to the Congo to deflect attention from its first African post-colonial coup.

Amin Nawabi grapples with a painful secret he has kept hidden for 20 years, one that threatens to derail the life he has built for himself and his soon-to-be husband. Recounted mostly through animation to director Jonas Poher Rasmussen, he tells the story of his extraordinary journey as a child refugee from Afghanistan for the first time.

Frederick Wiseman’s film, EX LIBRIS – The New York Public Library, goes behind the scenes of one of the greatest knowledge institutions of the world. The film reveals the library as a place of welcome, cultural exchange and learning to 18 million patrons and 32 million online visitors annually. There are 92 library branches throughout Manhattan, the Bronx and Staten Island. The NYPL is committed to being a resource for all the inhabitants of this multifaceted and cosmopolitan city. It is accessible, open to everyone and exemplifies the deeply rooted American belief in the individual’s right to know and be informed. The library is one of the most democratic institutions in America—all races, social classes and ethnicities are welcome and are active participants in the life and work of the library. The library strives to inspire learning, advance knowledge and strengthen communities.

In Rithy Panh's latest exploration of the lasting effects of the Cambodian genocide, a 13-year-old boy who loses most of his family begins a search for their graves.Cambodian-born, France-based filmmaker Rithy Panh has dedicated much of his career to investigating the campaign of genocide undertaken by the Khmer Rouge during the Cambodian Civil War and memorializing its victims.

Director Sarah Polley looks into her past and excavates layers of myth and memory to find the elusive truth at the core of a family of storytellers.

All the Beauty and the Bloodshed is an epic, emotional and interconnected story about internationally renowned artist and activist Nan Goldin told through her slideshows, intimate interviews, ground-breaking photography, and rare footage of her personal fight to hold the Sackler family accountable for the overdose crisis. [Neon]

Using state of the art technology to restore original archival footage which is more than a 100-years old, Jackson brings to life the people who can best tell this story: the men who were there. Driven by a personal interest in the First World War, Jackson set out to bring to life the day-to-day experience of its soldiers. After months immersed in the BBC and Imperial War Museums’ archives, narratives and strategies on how to tell this story began to emerge for Jackson. Using the voices of the men involved, the film explores the reality of war on the front line; their attitudes to the conflict; how they ate; slept and formed friendships, as well what their lives were like away from the trenches during their periods of downtime.

Over the Limit shows how the successful Russian system for training athletes transgresses boundaries. Elite rhythmic gymnast Rita Mamun has reached a crucial moment in her career. She’s soon to retire, but has one final goal set out for her: winning Olympic gold. A nail-biting behind-the-scenes drama about the intense physical and mental labor put into a sport that thrives on its beautiful aesthetics. [Film Movement]

Menus Plaisirs - Les Troisgros is a film about the Troisgros family and their three restaurants, Troisgros, Le Central and Colline, located in three neighboring locations in central France. Troisgros, a restaurant founded 93 years ago, has had three Michelin stars for 55 years and in 2020 was awarded a Michelin green star for exemplary sustainable practices. Much of the film takes place at Troisgros. The present chef, Cesar Troisgros, is the fourth generation of the family to be in charge at Troisgros. The film shows the day-to-day operations involving the purchase, preparation and service at this restaurant .

Patricio Guzmán travels to Chile’s Atacama Desert where astronomers examine distant galaxies, and women dig for the remains of relatives. [Icarus Films]

A documentary by the Israeli director Dror Moreh which consists of interviews with six surviving former heads of Shin Bet, the Israeli security agency established in 1949 which has engaged in counter-terrorism and intelligence gathering, among other things.

The untold stories of female jazz and big band instrumentalists and their groundbreaking journeys from the late 1930's to the present day.

Incarcerated men defy the odds to expose a cover-up in one of America’s deadliest prison systems.

32 Sounds is an immersive feature documentary and profound sensory experience from Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Sam Green (The Weather Underground) featuring original music by JD Samson (Le Tigre, MEN). The film explores the elemental phenomenon of sound by weaving together 32 specific sound explorations into a cinematic meditation on the power of sound to bend time, cross borders, and profoundly shape our perception of the world around us. Join Oscar-nominated filmmaker Green as he takes the audience on a journey through time and space — exploring everything from forgotten childhood memories, to the soundtrack of resistance, to subaquatic symphonies — and experience in new ways the astonishing sounds of our everyday lives. 32 Sounds investigates the mysterious nature of perception and the subtle yet radical politics that arise from sensation and being present in one’s body. [Abramorama]

An exploration of Black generational farmers in the American South reveals the fragility of legacy and the significance of owning land.

On a snowy night in February 1972, the 33 year old jazz trumpet star Lee Morgan was shot dead by his common-law wife, Helen, during a gig at a club in New York City. The murder sent shockwaves through the jazz community, and the memory of the event still haunts the people who knew the Morgans. Helen served time for the crime and, following her release, retreated into obscurity. Over 20 years later, a chance encounter led her to give a remarkable interview. Helen’s revealing audio “testimony” acts as a refrain throughout the film, which draws together a wealth of archival photographs and footage, notable talking heads and incredible jazz music to tell the ill-fated pair’s story.

Six midwestern men — all survivors of childhood sexual assault at the hands of Catholic priests and clergy — come together to direct a drama therapy-inspired experiment designed to collectively work through their trauma. As part of a radically collaborative filmmaking process, they create fictional scenes based on memories, dreams and experiences, meant to explore the church rituals, culture and hierarchies that enabled silence around their abuse. In the face of a failed legal system, we watch these men reclaim the spaces that allowed their assault, revealing the possibility for catharsis and redemption through a new-found fraternity.

A four-hour odyssey through the history of Italian cinema and its influences on Scorsese's work.

A filmmaker ventures into the archives of her photographer mother to construct a personal story of love, loss, and finding someone in the work they leave behind.

Wojnarowicz: F**k You F*ggot F**ker is a fiery and urgent documentary portrait of downtown New York City artist, writer, photographer, and activist David Wojnarowicz. As New York City became the epicenter of the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s, Wojnarowicz weaponized his work and waged war against the establishment’s indifference to the plague until his death from it in 1992 at the age of 37. Exclusive access to his breathtaking body of work – including paintings, journals, and films – reveals how Wojnarowicz emptied his life into his art and activism. Rediscovered answering machine tape recordings and intimate recollections from Fran Lebowitz, Gracie Mansion, Peter Hujar, and other friends and family help present a stirring portrait of this fiercely political, unapologetically queer artist. [Kino Lorber]

My Perestroika follows five ordinary Russians living in extraordinary times — from their sheltered Soviet childhood, to the collapse of the Soviet Union during their teenage years, to the constantly shifting political landscape of post-Soviet Russia. Together, these childhood classmates paint a complex picture of the dreams and disillusionment of those raised behind the Iron Curtain. (Red Square Productions)

This clandestine documentary, shot partially on an iPhone and smuggled into France in a cake for a last-minute submission to Cannes, depicts the day-to-day life of acclaimed director Jafar Panahi during his house arrest in his Tehran apartment. While appealing his sentence – six years in prison and a 20 year ban from filmmaking – Panahi is seen talking to his family and lawyer on the phone, discussing his plight with Mirtahmasb and reflecting on the meaning of the art of filmmaking. (Palisades Tartan)

An investigation into abuse and missing children at an Indian residential school ignites a reckoning on the nearby Sugarcane Reserve.

Big Men looks at the corruption in the oil industries of Ghana and Nigeria.

The Friedmans are a seemingly typical, upper-middle-class Jewish family whose world is instantly transformed when the father and his youngest son are arrested and charged with shocking and horrible crimes.

Ulrike Ottinger, then a young painter, lived in Paris in the 1960s. Now a filmmaker, she looks back on that time, weaving memories of the Parisian life and the upheavals of the time into a cinematic poem with the city at its center.

The River and the Wall follows five friends on an immersive adventure through the unknown wilds of the Texas borderlands as they travel 1200 miles from El Paso to the Gulf of Mexico on horses, mountain bikes, and canoes. They set out to document the borderlands and explore the potential impacts of a wall on the natural environment, but as the wilderness gives way to the more populated and heavily trafficked Lower Rio Grande Valley, they come face-to-face with the human side of the immigration debate and enter uncharted emotional waters.

In the tiny town of Williston, North Dakota, tens of thousands of unemployed hopefuls show up with dreams of honest work and a big paycheck under the lure of the oil boom. However, busloads of newcomers chasing a broken American Dream step into the stark reality of slim work prospects and nowhere to sleep. The town lacks the infrastructure to house the overflow of migrants, even for those who do find gainful employment. Over at Concordia Lutheran Church, Pastor Jay Reinke is driven to deliver the migrants some dignity. Night after night, he converts his church into a makeshift dorm and counseling center, opening the church’s doors to allow the “Overnighters” (as he calls them) to stay for a night, a week or longer. [Drafthouse Films]

Director Michael Apted revisits the same group of British-born adults after a 7 year wait. The subjects are interviewed as to the changes that have occurred in their lives during the last seven years.

Welcome to Rockford, Illinois, in the heart of Rust-Belt America, home to debut filmmaker Bing Liu. With over 12 years of footage, Bing discovers connections between two of his skateboarder friends' volatile upbringings and the complexities of modern-day masculinity. As the film unfolds, Bing captures 23-year-old Zack’s tumultuous relationship with his girlfriend deteriorate after the birth of their son and 17-year-old Keire struggling with his racial identity as he faces new responsibilities following the death of his father. While navigating a difficult relationship between his camera and his friends, Bing weaves a story of generational forgiveness while exploring the precarious gap between childhood and adulthood.

As her childhood turns into motherhood, teenage troublemaker Gemma comes of age in her fading Scottish steel town. But in a place where "you either get knocked up or locked up," innocent games can easily turn into serious crime.

Winner of the Cinema Tropical Award for Best Film, the second feature documentary by Laura Herrero Garvín follows Doña Olga, also known as La Mami, who having worked more than 40 years in nightlife is the caretaker of the women’s restroom at the mythical Cabaret Barba Azul in Mexico City. Night after night, she attends to the dancers who perform there to live music. A beautiful friendship gradually develops between her and newcomer Priscilla, as the two exchange intimate details during their shifts, sharing glances in the mirror. Textural, empathetic, and shot completely from the female perspective, Herrero Garvín crafts an exquisite look into a world of women doing what they have to in order to provide for their families and carve a path for themselves and their loved ones under unforgiving circumstances. [Cinema Tropical]

The National Gallery in London is one of the great museums of the world with 2400 paintings from the 13th to the end of the 19th century. Almost every human experience is represented in one or the other of the paintings. The sequences of the film show the public in various galleries; the education programs, and the scholars, scientists and curators, studying, restoring and planning the exhibitions. The relation between painting and storytelling is explored.

On August 7th 1974, a young Frenchman named Philippe Petit stepped out on a wire illegally rigged between New York's twin towers, then the world’s tallest buildings. After nearly an hour dancing on the wire, he was arrested, taken for psychological evaluation, and brought to jail before he was finally released. Following six and a half years of dreaming of the towers, Petit spent eight months in New York City planning the execution of the coup. Aided by a team of friends and accomplices, Petit was faced with numerous extraordinary challenges: he had to find a way to bypass the WTC’s security; smuggle the heavy steel cable and rigging equipment into the towers; pass the wire between the two rooftops; anchor the wire and tension it to withstand the winds and the swaying of the buildings. The rigging was done by night in complete secrecy. At 7:15 AM, Philippe took his first step on the high wire 1,350 feet above the sidewalks of Manhattan. [Magnolia Pictures]

For Sama is both an intimate and epic journey into the female experience of war. A love letter from a young mother to her daughter, the film tells the story of Waad al-Kateab’s life through five years of the uprising in Aleppo, Syria as she falls in love, gets married and gives birth to Sama, all while cataclysmic conflict rises around her. Her camera captures incredible stories of loss, laughter and survival as Waad wrestles with an impossible choice– whether or not to flee the city to protect her daughter’s life, when leaving means abandoning the struggle for freedom for which she has already sacrificed so much.

The second chapter of the 2018 Academy Award-winning feature documentary, ICARUS.

After a lifetime of bus rides to the United States to visit his children, Julián Moreno quietly begins building a house in his rural Mexico at the age of 89. In filming his work and final days, his granddaughter, Iliana Sosa, crafts a piercingly personal and poetic love letter to her elder and his homeland.

An examination of the U.S. government's response to Hurricane Katrina.

Uncertain is a visually stunning and disarmingly funny portrait of the literal and figurative troubled waters of Uncertain, Texas. In a 94-resident town so tucked away “you’ve got to be lost to find it", three Uncertain men make their own bids for survival looking to find a more certain future. An ex-convict obsessed with Mr. Ed, a gigantic boar he hunts in order to stay on the straight and narrow. A young idealist with big plans but few prospects is looking for a bigger life. An aging fisherman learning to let go of his youthful ways, and making peace with a fateful moment thirty years ago. All the while Uncertain’s vast, swampy lake is being choked by an aquatic weed, upsetting the natural balance and the town’s only source of livelihood.

The first film of its kind to chronicle the reasons behind Iraq’s descent into guerrilla war, warlord rule, criminality and anarchy, No End in Sight is a jaw-dropping, insider’s tale of wholesale incompetence, recklessness and venality. Based on over 200 hours of footage, the film provides a candid retelling of the events following the fall of Baghdad in 2003 by high ranking officials such as former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, Ambassador Barbara Bodine (in charge of Baghdad during the Spring of 2003), Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, former Chief of Staff to Colin Powell, and General Jay Garner (in charge of the occupation of Iraq through May 2003), as well as Iraqi civilians, American soldiers and prominent analysts. No End in Sight examines the manner in which the principal errors of U.S. policy – the use of insufficient troop levels, allowing the looting of Baghdad, the purging of professionals from the Iraqi government and the disbanding of the Iraqi military – largely created the insurgency and chaos that engulf Iraq today. (Magnolia Pictures)

Experiential cinema in its purest form, Gunda chronicles the unfiltered lives of a mother pig, a flock of chickens, and a herd of cows with masterful intimacy. Using stark, transcendent black and white cinematography and the farm's ambient soundtrack, director Victor Kossakowsky invites the audience to slow down and experience life as his subjects do, taking in their world with a magical patience and an other worldly perspective. Gunda asks us to meditate on the mystery of animal consciousness, and reckon with the role humanity plays in it. [Neon]

For generations, all that distinguished Eagle Pass, TX, from Piedras Negras, MX, was the Rio Grande. But when darkness descends upon these harmonious border towns, a cowboy and lawman face a new reality that threatens their way of life.

In a German city with a complex history of both excluding and integrating foreigners, a charismatic elementary school teacher provides his pupils, who all come from different countries originally, with the key to feeling at home in Germany and becoming citizens of the world. [MUBI]

The Winding Stream tells the story of the American roots music dynasty, the Carters and the Cashes. Starting with the Original Carter Family (A.P., Sara, Maybelle), the film traces the ebb and flow of their influence, the transformation of that act into the Carter Sisters, the marital alliance with legend Johnny Cash and the efforts of present-day family to keep this legacy alive.

The Arc of Oblivion explores a quirk of humankind: in a universe that erases its tracks, we humans are hellbent on leaving a trace. Set against the backdrop of the filmmaker's quixotic quest to build an ark in a field in Maine, the film heads far afield – to salt mines in the Alps, fjords in the Arctic, and ancient libraries in the Sahara – to illuminate the strange world of archives, record-keeping, and memory. Playfully weaving stop-motion animation, spellbinding cinematography and fascinating interviews from the director's inner circle and experts in the fields of science, culture and art – including documentarians Werner Herzog and Kirsten Johnson – The Arc of Oblivion reveals how nature inspires the human drive behind filmmaking.

In Gansu Province, northwest China, lie the remains of countless prisoners abandoned in the Gobi Desert sixty years ago. Designated as “ultra-rightists” in the Communist Party’s Anti-Rightist campaign of 1957, they starved to death in the Jiabiangou and Mingshui reeducation camps. The film invites us to meet the survivors of the camps to find out firsthand who these persons were, the hardships they were forced to endure and what became their destiny. [Cannes]

A boxing match in Brooklyn; life in postwar Bosnia and Herzegovina; the daily routine of a Nigerian midwife; an intimate family moment at home: these scenes and others are woven into Cameraperson, a tapestry of footage collected over the twenty-five-year career of documentary cinematographer Kirsten Johnson. Through a series of episodic juxtapositions, Johnson explores the relationships between image makers and their subjects, the tension between the objectivity and intervention of the camera, and the complex interaction of unfiltered reality and crafted narrative. A hybrid work that combines documentary, autobiography, and ethical inquiry, Cameraperson is both a moving glimpse into one filmmaker’s personal journey and a thoughtful examination of what it means to train a camera on the world. [Janus Films]

A lifetime of making documentaries has convinced the award-winning filmmaker Kirsten Johnson of the power of the real. But now she's ready to use every escapist movie-making trick in the book - staging inventive and fantastical ways for her 86-year-old psychiatrist father to die while hoping that cinema might help her bend time, laugh at pain, and keep her father alive forever.

Instead of making a conventional documentary or adapting Dunbar’s play The Arbor for the screen, director Clio Barnard has crafted a truly unique work that transcends genre and defies categorization. Following two years conducting audio interviews with Dunbar’s family, friends and neighbors, Barnard filmed actors lip-synching the interviews, flawlessly interpreting every breath, tick and nuance. The film focuses in particular on the playwright’s troubled relationship with her daughter Lorraine who was just 10 when her mother died. Barnard re-introduces Lorraine to her mother’s play and private letters, prompting her to reflect on the extraordinary parallels between their lives. Interwoven with these interviews are staged scenes of Dunbar’s play filmed on The Arbor, the street where she lived. (Strand Releasing)

So long as we are watching history, history is not over. Three minutes of footage, shot by David Kurtz in 1938, are the only moving images remaining of the Jewish inhabitants of Nasielsk, Poland before the Holocaust. Three Minutes: A Lengthening explores the human stories hidden within the celluloid. [Super LTD]

In politically unstable Zimbabwe, a new constitution is being put together by the ruling party of strongman Robert Mugabe and the divided opposition. Various political, local and personal interests are bogging the process down.

On September 15, 1963, a bomb destroyed a black church in Birmingham, Alabama, killing four young girls who were there for Sunday school. It was a crime that shocked the nation -- and a defining moment in the history of America's civil-rights movement. Now, acclaimed filmmaker Spike Lee tells the full story of the bombing, through heart-wrenching testimonials from surviving members of the victims' families, insights from Bill Cosby, Walter Cronkite, Andrew Young, Coretta Scott King and many others, and a rare and revealing interview with former Alabama Governor George Wallace. [HBO Documentary Films]

Amidst a landmark class action lawsuit over illegal policing quotas, Crime + Punishment chronicles the real lives and struggles of a group of black and Latino whistleblower cops and the young minorities they are pressured to arrest and summons in New York City. A highly intimate and cinematic experience with unprecedented access, Crime + Punishment examines the United States' most powerful police department through the brave efforts of a group of active duty officers and one unforgettable private investigator who risk their careers and safety to bring light to harmful policing practices which have plagued the precincts and streets of New York City for decades.

City government touches almost every aspect of our lives. Most of us are unaware of or take for granted these necessary services such as police, fire, sanitation, veterans affairs, elder support, parks, licensing of various professional activities, record keeping of birth, marriage and death as wells as hundreds of other activities that support Boston residents and visitors. City Hall, by Frederick Wiseman, shows the efforts by Boston city government to provide these services. The film also illustrates the variety of ways the city administration enters into civil discourse with the citizens of Boston. Mayor Walsh and his administration are presented addressing a number of their policy priorities which include racial justice, affordable housing, climate action, and homeless. City Hall shows a city government successfully offering a wide variety of services to a diverse population.

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.

Filmed with vérité intimacy for nearly a decade, Quest is the moving portrait of the Rainey family living in North Philadelphia. Beginning at the dawn of the Obama presidency, Christopher "Quest" Rainey, and his wife, Christine'a "Ma Quest" raise a family while nurturing a community of hip hop artists in their home music studio. It's a safe space where all are welcome, but this creative sanctuary can't always shield them from the strife that grips their neighborhood. Epic in scope, Quest is a vivid illumination of race and class in America, and a testament to love, healing and hope. [First Run Features]

Yael Hersonski's powerful documentary achieves a remarkable feat through its penetrating look at another film-the now-infamous Nazi-produced film about the Warsaw Ghetto. Discovered after the war, the unfinished work, with no soundtrack, quickly became a resource for historians seeking an authentic record, despite its elaborate propagandistic construction. The later discovery of a long-missing reel complicated earlier readings, showing the manipulations of camera crews in these "everyday" scenes. Well-heeled Jews attending elegant dinners and theatricals (while callously stepping over the dead bodies of compatriots) now appeared as unwilling, but complicit, actors, alternately fearful and in denial of their looming fate.