Documentary Movies

The Odelsrett

A series of interviews of people, whose lives, for better of for worse, has been shaped by the Norwegian inheritance law "Odelsrett".

Sergei Eisenstein: Mexican Fantasy

Eisenstein shot 50 hours of footage on location in Mexico in 1931 and 32 for what would have become ¡Que viva México!, but was not able to finish the film. Following two wildly different reconstruction attempts in 1939 (Marie Seton's 'Time in the Sun') and 1979 (Grigori Alexandrov's '¡Que viva México!') Kovalov has here compiled another hypothetical version of what Eisenstein's film might have been.

Morichales

In Venezuelan Guayana, large gold reserves lie beneath “moriche” palms, attracting multitudes of miners to the territory. A fictional explorer narrates a journey from far-flung mines in the jungle to the banks of the Orinoco River, trying to understand the uncertain fortune of humanity immersed in the anxious quest for treasure. His reflections combine illustrations and photochemical paintings to draw a map of the extraction and commercialization of gold, object and symbol through which he questions where value resides.

Para siempre

Shutter Shooter

Etienne-Jules Marey, a French inventor who turned a gun into a camera. A hand-drawn hunter whose weapon, instead of firing ammunition, shoots photographs. Carlos, a Mexican wildlife photographer who used to be a real life hunter until he chose to get rid of all his guns. All come together in this poetic yet approachable animated documentary short film.

Andre the Giant

An ambitious and wide-ranging documentary exploring Andre’s upbringing in France, his celebrated career in WWE, and his forays in the entertainment world.

Elephant

Disneynature’s Elephant follows African elephant Shani and her spirited son Jomo as their herd make an epic journey hundreds of miles across the vast Kalahari Desert. Led by their great matriarch, Gaia, the family faces brutal heat, dwindling resources and persistent predators, as they follow in their ancestors’ footsteps on a quest to reach a lush, green paradise.

!W.A.R.: !Women Art Revolution

Through intimate interviews, provocative art, and rare, historical film and video footage, this feature documentary reveals how art addressing political consequences of discrimination and violence, the Feminist Art Revolution radically transformed the art and culture of our times.

Private Ground

Documentary about the delicate balance between private and public life in the Heerma van Voss literary family.

¿Quién dice yo?

How much can we impact someone's life when we set our minds to it? A story that invites us to make a difference in the lives of the people around us and challenges us to ask: Who says I?

Living memories

Living Memories is a documentary film that traces the history of the director’s neighborhood and native country, Haiti, through a personal and engaged perspective. Brick by brick, through encounters and wanderings throughout Port-au-Prince’s neighborhoods, archival photos, graffiti, and animations, the filmmaker introduces us to architect Léon Mathon and the residential architecture of the early 20th century. Over the ruins of her family home, Dominique, the director's mother, an architect like her father and grandfather before her, searches through her memories and significant places for traces of the past and the history of her country. Many of her landmarks are no longer there. From this tragedy arises a quest — a need to reconnect memory and history to understand the present better. The filmmaker follows her mother during her journey, capturing her reflections and conversations and documenting them to bring memories back to life.

Feminicides

While in 2019, 150 women were killed by their spouse or their ex-companion in France, the journalists of Le Monde created an investigation unit within their editorial staff to decipher these feminicides. With methodology, they highlighted a recurrent criminal pattern and characterized the signals that led to the murders of these women. Through the testimonies of the entourage of the victims and the institutions, this film analyzes five emblematic cases of feminicides and traces the evolution of the romantic relationship from the meeting to the murder. This documentary warns of the collective blindness of society in the hope of causing global awareness.

Blue Bird

"Blue Bird" is a letter to the director’s ancestors and a quest to understand the anxiety consuming his body, exploring how memories and the body intertwine.

He and I

"He and I" narrates the reflections of a woman in her role as wife and mother lived between imposition and choice. Through the editing of the shootings of a single filmmaker who portrays his wife and life, the woman narrates herself being in opposition to her husband’s world, a militant always far from home. A reworking of female status as a political act to tell that love is an act of acceptance of differences and that personal memories are part of the collective history.

Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat

Jazz and decolonization are intertwined in a powerful narrative that recounts one of the tensest episodes of the Cold War.

Street Heroines

Follows the personal experiences of three emerging Latina artists from New York City, Mexico City, and São Paulo as they navigate the male-dominated subculture of graffiti and street art.

Tackling the World's Highest Peak

27-year-old German alpinist Jost Kobusch wants to climb Everest, alone, without oxygen and in Winter, when the roof of the world is deserted.

Das Krokodil - Innenansichten eines Kraftpakets

Minus: 9

A look into nightlife within the city of Leeds, filmed in one night, from the evening into the early hours of the morning.

Indie Origins

Filmmaker Craig Brewer highlights a number of independent Memphis filmmakers, and shows the full short films Broke on a Saturday, You Better Behave, Blown, Two Hundred Dollars on E-Bay, Clean Up in Booth B, The Morning Ritual and Eso-Phagas.