Preminger: Anatomy of a Filmmaker

This documentary, hosted by actor Burgess Meredith, explores the life and career of movie director Otto Preminger, whose body of work includes such memorable films as Anatomy of a Murder, Exodus, Laura, Forever Amber, Advise and Consent, In Harm's Way, The Moon Is Blue, The Man with the Golden Arm, and many other movies made from the '30s through the '70s. Interviews with actors Frank Sinatra, Vincent Price, James Stewart, Michael Caine, and others who worked with the flamboyant and sometimes control-obsessed director add information and insight to the story.

The Better Angels

At an isolated log cabin in the harsh wilderness of Indiana circa 1817, the rhythms of love, tragedy, and the daily hardships of life on the developing frontier shaped one of our nation’s greatest heroes: Abraham Lincoln. Abe is a thoughtful and quiet boy who spends his days at the side of his beloved mother while learning to work the land from his stern father. When illness takes his mother, Abe's new guardian angel comes in the form of his new stepmother, who sees the potential in the boy and pushes for his further education.

George Stevens and His Place In The Sun

This short documentary takes a look at director George Stevens' making of the classic 1951 film A Place in the Sun.

I'm a Stranger Here Myself

A portrait of legendary filmmaker Nicholas Ray while he is working as a film professor at a college in upstate New York.

Islands

A bunch of stories, portraits and images about people of amazing destinies, including Parajanov and Tarkovsky, merging into a non-traditional and polemic image of Armenia.

FIT Hives: Sustainability - The Secret to Survival

A documentary that introduces FIT Hives, a student-run organization whose mission is to educate the FIT community about the importance of bees to the environment, the use of bee-derived resources in the industries related to the majors at FIT and its goal to put a beehive on the roof. FIT Hives is a recipient of an FIT Innovation Grant which also supported the making of this documentary.

A March to Remember

Vitoria, Basque Country, Spain, March 3rd, 1976. After several months of protests demanding decent working conditions, representatives of struggling workers call for a general strike. In the church of San Francisco, in the working class neighborhood of Zaramaga, thousands of workers fill the temple in assembly. Outside, many more people gather and, in the middle, about a hundred heavily armed police officers wait to act.

Declining by Degrees: Higher Education at Risk

Debunking commonly held notions about the rite of passage known as the college experience, this PBS documentary follows 30 students and their teachers along the path of higher education, from admission to graduation, and exposes the disappointment, disorientation and deflation many students feel -- in both public and private schools. This revealing study also addresses the quality and readiness of America's future work force.

El infierno vasco

The Enlightener

Returning from Mecca, Darwis changes his name to Ahmad Dahlan as he is disturbed by the trend of Islamic laws in his society; that borders on heresy, Syrik (polytheism), and Bid’ah (wrong innovation). Using a compass, he proves that the direction of Qibla (that points to Mecca), in the Great Mosque of Kauman is wrong. The discovery angers every Kyai (Islamic experts), especially the head of the Great Mosque of Kauman, Kyai Penghulu Cholil Kamaludiningrat. Dahlan, who studied in Mecca for five years, is seen as a rebel upstart. Since the proposal of changing the direction of Qibla is rejected, Dahlan starts a movement calling for the change. On his first sermon as a preacher, Dahlan criticizes the habits of residents in his village in Yogyakarta: "In a prayer, only a sincere and patient heart is needed, it requires no Kyais, money, let alone offerings". As a result, Dahlan gets a hostile reception.

CzechMate: In Search of Jiří Menzel

An epic exploration of the Czechoslovak New Wave cinema of the 1960s and 70s, structured around a series of conversations with one of its most acclaimed exponents - Closely Observed Trains director Jiří Menzel.

Brakhage

BRAKHAGE explores the depth and breadth of the filmmaker’s genius, the exquisite splendor of his films, his magic personal charm, his aesthetic fellow travelers, and the influence his work has had on generations of other creators. While touching on significant moments in Brakhage’s biography, the film celebrates Brakhage’s visionary genius, and explores the extraordinary artistic possibilities of cinema, a medium mostly known only for its commercial applications in the form of narratives, cartoons, documentaries, and advertising. BRAKHAGE combines excerpts from Brakhage’s films and films of other avant-garde filmmakers (eg, George Kuchar, Jonas Mekas, Willie Varela, Bruce Elder, and others); interviews with Brakhage, his friends, family, colleagues, and critics; archival footage of Brakhage spanning the past thirty-five years; and location shooting in Boulder, Colorado and New York.

Barefoot in the Kitchen

What was the role of women in Spanish cinema from the 1930s to the present explained through fragments of different films, both fiction and non-fiction. (Followed by “Manda huevos,” 2016.)

Wie funktioniert Evolution?

On the Way to School

These children live in the four corners of the earth, but share the same thirst for learning. They understand that only education will allow them a better future and that is why, every day, they must set out on the long and perilous journey that will lead them to knowledge. Jackson and his younger sister from Kenya walk 15 kilometres each way through a savannah populated by wild animals; Carlito rides more than 18 kilometres twice a day with his younger sister, across the plains of Argentina; Zahira lives in the Moroccan Atlas Mountains who has an exhausting 22 kilometres walk along punishing mountain paths before she reaches her boarding school; Samuel from India sits in a clumsy DIY wheelchair and the 4 kilometres journey is an ordeal each day, as his two younger brothers have to push him all the way to school…

Firingoti

The story is set in 1962, the time of Sino-India war. It revolves around a widowed teacher named Ritu who is transferred to Koronga, a small Assamese village. The school here was destroyed by fire ten years earlier. Ritu takes on the challenge of rebuilding the school and starts campaigning among the villagers.