Wanderlust

The Cult of JT LeRoy

A feature documentary about the writer JT LeRoy - Ethically charged, controversial, and confusing, JT’s life and death sprang open a Pandora’s box of powerful questions about literature and culture, identity and celebrity, and the reality of the society we live in. Fraud? Art? Mental illness? Complicity? The Cult of JT Leroy will be a testament to this bizarre and elaborate story that has captured the attention and fascination of the world’s media, and perplexes to this day.

1999

In the late 1990s, Moncton's Acadian community was forever marked when death struck an high school. In a sweet impressionist film, Samara returns to the city she fled as a teenager to immerse herself in memories that are still buried there, in various places and in dusty boxes containing diaries, photos and VHS tapes. 1999 is not a ghost story, although it is populated by ghosts. The snow-covered streets, corridors and locker rooms of the school are intact, as in a dream, but the absence left by the wave of teenage suicides still resonates with unanswered questions, trauma and regret. Samara meets inspiring people who carry with them great pain and who, 16 years later, can finally comfort each other by breaking a long silence. In the end, the film interweaves different voices and gives rise to a collective reflection on the internalization of mourning and the need to learn to affirm one's desire to survive.

Dancing Across Borders

On a trip to Angkor Wat in Siem Reap, Cambodia in January 2000, filmmaker Anne Bass came across a sixteen-year-old boy who moved her immensely with his amazing natural charm and grace as a dancer. A longtime devotee of the world of dance, Bass felt compelled to give this young boy the opportunity to leave his home and follow a dream that he could not yet have fully imagined. From the serene countryside of Southeast Asia to the halls of New York’s School of American Ballet to the stage of the Pacific Northwest Ballet in Seattle, DANCING ACROSS BORDERS peeks behind the scenes into the world of dance and chronicles the intimate and triumphant story of a boy who was discovered, and who only much later discovered all that he had in himself.

Think Global, Act Rural

Edinburgh

Directed by Marion Grierson, who ran the film unit of the Travel and Industrial Development Association (TIDA), this short film contains some fine photography of the delights on offer to Edinburgh visitors - including trams, bustling streets, restful parks and some familiar tourist sights.

VICE News Presents: 'Epstein Didn't Kill Himself'

How the mysteries surrounding Jeffrey Epstein’s life and death gave rise to a conspiracy theory that will never die.

So This Is London

London at its best? This gorgeously photographed portrait of the capital was made by Marion Grierson, sister of the more famous John Grierson, often hailed as the father of documentary film. The film transcends the typical travelogue thanks to the photography of William Shenton and Grierson's poetic approach to editing - which prefigures modern films like the acclaimed From the Sea to the Land Beyond (2012). The film achieved international fame at the time of its original release, yet Marion Grierson is almost completely overshadowed in the history of British documentary film by her brother John.

Twelve Ways to Sunday

A tight-knit community fixing up motorcycles, dishing up meals at the local diner, and canning fruit preserves. The people of Allegany County, New York, have always sustained through the good and bad times.

Okänd, kvinna 2009-349701

A staged psychosis and suicide attempt at the Liljeholmsbron in Stockholm, Sweden, in order to initiate a debate about the Swedish health care system.

En tierra extraña

A documentary about the life of young Spanish immigrants in Edinburgh, Scotland, who had to leave Spain due to recession and unemployment.

How to Lose Your Virginity

It has launched both purity balls and porn franchises, defines a young woman's morality-but has no medical definition. Enter the magical world of virginity, where a white wedding dress can restore a woman's innocence and replacement hymens can be purchased online. Filmmaker Therese Shechter uses her own path out of virginity to explore why our sex-crazed society cherishes this so-called precious gift. Along the way, we meet sex educators, virginity auctioneers, abstinence advocates, and young men and women who bare their tales of doing it-or not doing it. "How To Lose Your Virginity" uncovers the myths and misogyny surrounding a rite of passage that many obsesses about but few truly understand.

Pie Lady of Pie Town

In the New Mexico desert, pie equals love. Kathy Knapp left her privileged life to bake pie in dusty Pie Town, a once forgotten corner of the world with few amenities. Why? To find her center and give the world pie. This is her story.

Older, Stronger, Wiser

In this short documentary, five black women talk about their lives in rural and urban Canada between the 1920s and 1950s. What emerges is a unique history of Canada’s black people and the legacy of their community elders. Produced by the NFB’s iconic Studio D.

Loretta Lynn: My Story In My Words

2021 marks the 50th anniversary of "Coal Miner’s Daughter," the Loretta Lynn song that became a book, a feature film, and an indelible part of popular culture. Like so many other songs written by Lynn, the lyrics told the story of her life and spoke to women who struggled to make ends meet. Lynn’s simple, straightforward song stories gave legitimacy to the joys, heartaches, struggles and triumphs.

A Rustling of Leaves: Inside the Philippine Revolution

A chronicle of the three points of a political triangle — the legal left, the illegal (armed) revolution, and the enemy which threatens them both: the armed reactionary right. It is 1987. The dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos has just been overthrown. Newly elected President Corazon Aquino struggles to wrench control of the country from her own military. A Rustling of Leaves poses the key question facing the revolutionaries and the Filipino Left: Should the People’s Movement continue the guerilla war, or do they dare enter legal politics and reveal the hidden face of the revolution?

The Quantum Activist

There is a revolution going on in science. A genuine paradigm shift. While mainstream science remains materialist, a substantial number of scientists are supporting and developing a paradigm based on the primacy of consciousness. Amit Goswami, Ph.D., a pioneer of this revolutionary new perspective within science, shares with us his vision of the unlimited potential of consciousness as the ground of all being, and how this revelation can actually help us to live better. The Quantum Activist tells the story of a man who challenges us to rethink our very notions of existence and reality, with a force and scope not felt since Einstein. This film bridges the gap between God and Science. The work of Goswami, with stunning precision and without straying from the rigors of quantum mechanics, reveals the overarching unity inherent in the world’s major religions and mystical traditions. Meet the man behind the message…

Mentor

Mentor, Ohio: largely white, largely upper middle class, and listed as one of the Top 100 Places to Live in the United States. Its attraction for immigrants and others has proven to be a deadly illusion.

The Newsroom: Off the Record

In this new documentary you get to follow the life of Ekstra Bladet's editorial staff through one of the papers most turbulent years with catastrophic readership numbers and a long row of controversial agenda-setting cases. From the common journalistic staff being pushed to deliver the daily front-page stories, to Poul Madsen in management who has to make the drastic decisions regarding the papers continued existence. We get to see up close how the paper's staff handles the many ethical dilemmas they face everyday. We see what it takes for news to make the front page and in the paper's machine room we get to see the drastic death battle for the 110 years old paper play out - The question is: Will there be a place for Ekstra Bladet in the media image of tomorrow?

Showboy

Christian Taylor, a writer on hit TV series Six Feet Under, is being profiled by a British documentary crew when he's sacked, though he doesn't know they've overheard the firing. They follow him to Las Vegas, where he is ostensibly doing "research" for the next season, but is actually pursuing a dream to become a dancer in a Vegas show.

Black Diamonds: Mountaintop Removal & the Fight for Coalfield Justice

"Black Diamonds: Mountaintop Removal and the Fight for Coalfield Justice" is an award-winning feature documentary exploring radical community resistance to the explosive rise of mountaintop removal coal mines in Appalachian states.