17 Blocks

17 Blocks

In 1999, nine-year-old EMMANUEL SANFORD-DURANT and his Washington, D.C. family began to film their daily lives in America’s most dangerous neighborhood — just 17 blocks behind the U.S. Capitol building. They’ve been filming ever since. Made in a unique collaboration with filmmaker and journalist DAVY ROTHBART, the film focuses on four generations of the Sanford […]

American Factory

American Factory

In 2014, a Chinese billionaire opened a Fuyao factory in a shuttered General Motors plant in Dayton, Ohio. For thousands of locals, the arrival of this multinational car-glass manufacturer meant regaining their jobs—and dignity—after the recession left them high and dry. American Factory takes us inside the facility to observe what happens when workers from […]

Apollo 11

Apollo 11

From director Todd Douglas Miller (Dinosaur 13) comes a cinematic event fifty years in the making. Crafted from a newly discovered trove of 65mm footage, and more than 11,000 hours of uncatalogued audio recordings, Apollo 11 takes us straight to the heart of NASA’s most celebrated mission—the one that first put men on the moon, […]

Boys State

Still Image from the Documentary Boys State

Strap up your saddle and get ready for a wild ride. Boys State is a political coming-of-age story, examining the health of American democracy through an unusual experiment: a thousand 17-year-old boys from across the state of Texas gather together to build a representative government from the ground up. High-minded ideals collide with low-down dirty […]

Cameraperson

Drawing on footage she’s shot over the course of 25 years, documentary cinematographer Kirsten Johnson searches to reconcile her part in the thorny questions of permission, power, creative ambition and human obligation that come with filming the lives of others. (Ambulante)

City Hall

Still Image from the Documentary City Hall

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 […]

Collective

Still Image from the Documentary Collective

What begins as a seeming exposé into a tragic accident gradually turns into something deeper and more shocking in this heartrending and revelatory documentary about state neglect and corruption. In October 2015, a devastating fire broke out at the Bucharest nightclub Colectiv, killing 27 people that night; in the following weeks, while the country was […]

Dawson City: Frozen Time

Dawson City: Frozen Time

Dawson City: Frozen Time is a feature length film by Bill Morrison pieces together the bizarre true history of a collection of some 500 films dating from 1910s – 1920s, which were lost for over 50 years until being discovered buried in a sub-arctic swimming pool deep in the Yukon Territory. Using archival footage to […]

Gleason

After former New Orleans Saints defensive back Steve Gleason receives a devastating diagnosis of ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s disease, he turns the camera on himself to provide his then-unborn son a sense of the father he may otherwise never know in this emotionally powerful portrait. Steve and his steadfast wife Michel use humor to cope […]

Gunda

Still Image from the Documentary Gunda

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, […]