Documentary Movies

Pampa y O'higgins

Horror Family

Alberto Luis Galateo was an Argentinian soccer star of the 1930s. But at home, he was abusive towards his family. One Sunday afternoon, three shots stirred up his quiet neighborhood.

Aníbal

What if, after spending precious years of youth surrounded by crime and violence, the only answer were to pick up a pen? Aníbal was sentenced to 52 years in prison when he was 17. He thought he would die young in jail. He is now 30 and after 3 years in literature and creative writing workshops he has published a book of essays. His work is part of an anthology and he continues to write. While he waits and hopes for an early release on parole, literature and his passion for writing have become his freedom.

Namibia: Cuba’s Female Boxing Revolution

The short film captures the tireless battle of Namibia Flores Rodriguez, the only known female boxer in the Caribbean nation. Training at Havana’s Rafael Trejo arena in defiance of the ban, the athlete undertakes the same unrelenting regime as her male counterparts—running the same circuits, lifting the same truck tires—but without the hope that she might one day represent her country.

Two Men at War

As the war between Russia and Ukraine rages, this George Stephanopoulos documentary pulls back the curtain on the rise of the two men at the center of the conflict – Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Dog Stories

Pugs in leis at a birthday party, a dancing poodle named Ivana, a bat-swinging border collie, even a shepherd that shoots its owner in the back with a shotgun—these are just a few of the outrageous details of the reverent homages that Shereen Jerrett has included in the humane and hysterical Dog Stories.

Neo Rauch - Comrades and Companions

Documentary about Leipzig artist Neo Rauch, who is considered to be one of the seminal painters of his generation. Born in 1960, Rauch lost his parents in an accident while he was still a baby. He studied at the Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst in Leipzig, and rose to international fame in the 1990s. Rauch, whose paintings often revolve around notions of home, is one of the most eminent figures of the Leipzig New School.

Escuela Monte

An 8-year-old boy learns and explores in the thick of the forest. Carmelo's parents, like many neighbors in the area, left the city to live in the middle of nature. On this thorny and contradictory new path, the forest lurks and plays with their inexperienced wills. Thus, they attend the inevitable lesson of the Monte School.

130 Children

In Costa Rica, the family of Melba (65) and Víctor (70) has sheltered over 130 children in the last 40 years. Today, some of them seek paths to adulthood while a new child is integrated into this great family with the adventures and difficulties of a home that continues to multiply despite the parents’ advanced age.

Fordlandia Malaise

Fordlandia Malaise is a film about the memory and the present of Fordlandia, the company town founded by Henry Ford in the Amazon rain forest in 1928. His aim was to break the British rubber monopoly and produce this material in Brazil for his car production in the United States. Today, the remains of construction testify to the scale of the failure of this neocolonialist endeavor that lasted less than a decade. Nowadays, Fordlandia is a space suspended between times, between the 20th and 21st centuries, between utopia and dystopia, between visibility and invisibility: architectural buildings of steel, glass, and masonry still remain in use while traces of indigenous life left no marks on the ground.

Scrap

The corridors of a consciousness invaded by ruined cars, where images of the past, present and possible futures coexist.

Háblame

The night is dark and cold, I walk through the plantations, I look at the leaves and stems of the banana trees while memories of my grandfather come to my mind.

Manos Mansas

Three moving stories in different parts of Venezuela, which address the theme of shortened childhood, the family that unites before difficulties and the boys who decide to sacrifice their childhood for a better life for themselves and their loved ones.

Life Story

Pairing an original text by philosopher McKenzie Wark (Hacker Manifesto, Raving) with slowly-strobing orange-hued images of her body and domestic life, framed by techno and the most stripped-down version of the rave’s aesthetics, this semi-documentary delicately merges the history of the left with the history of Wark's body as laid bare before the camera. We see the marks of her gender transition and her life story as she speaks of love and lost futures, even as both her own death and the death of the left hover just out of frame. A love story.

You Only Die Twice

A Jewish detective story in the Alps revolving around the former President of the Jewish Community in Tyrol, Ernst Beschinsky. A man with this name dies twice – once in 1969, in Israel, and a second time in 1987, in Innsbruck. This goes unnoticed, at first. In 2010, when a relative in London leaves a house as inheritance, the question arises both in Israel and in Innsbruck: Who was Ernst Beschinsky really? A true story, told by numerous forged documents and many authentic reports.

Yes, Mistress

At 61, Steve leads a seemingly ordinary routine life. But behind this facade hides a much more complex universe: that of BDSM, where the body becomes a field of pleasure and exploration of submission. This anthropologically inspired documentary paints an intimate portrait of this man who, through his fantasies, seeks to redefine his relationship with the body, desire and his deep identity. By diving into his most abstract motivations, the film questions what this quest for control… and abandonment reveals.

The Savior for Sale

In November 15, 2017, the painting Salvator Mundi, attributed to Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), was sold for an unprecedented $450 million. An examination of the dirty secrets of the art world and the surprising story of how a work of art is capable of upsetting both personal and geopolitical interests.

The War to Come

Baraq and his platoon live in the trenches in a permanent state of anticipation. Through careful and silent observation among members of the Syrian army, the film shows the slowness at times of life at the front in a seemingly unending conflict.

Here is So Far

From saved memories of a long journey, a letter is sent to the future. Alone, away from home and on the eve of her 30th birthday, a Brazilian is on a journey through Africa. In the letter to her daughter, she tells of encounters with women living in their cultures and times. A diary, a road movie and an invitation to all the people who lead their own paths.

A Maldita

On March 1, 1982, the city of Niterói enters history and hosts one of the most important cultural movements: a so-called Rock 80 Generation. Radio Fluminense FM, known as “A Maldita”, goes on the air, mixing irreverence, daring and creativity with its programming aimed at music that lacks commercial space. The boldness of believing in the new made “Maldita” become one of the main alternative communication vehicles, launching Brazilian rock groups and independent music and creating a legion of fans.