Directed by Mark Blottner, Ilko Davidov & Denis Mueller • Documentary • 2015 • 85 minutes

This in-depth portrait of notorious American author Nelson Algren uses interviews, rare archival footage, and the gritty voice of Algren himself to capture the elusive and unique literary figure whose fame ...

Directed by Terese Svoboda and Steve Bull • Documentary • 1992 • 28 minutes

MARGARET SANGER: A PUBLIC NUISANCE highlights Sanger's pioneering strategies of using media and popular culture to advance the cause of birth control. It tells the story of her arrest and trial, using actuality films, va...

Directed by Brenda Longfellow • Documentary • 2004 • 60 minutes

A new independent feature documentary by acclaimed Canadian director Brenda Longfellow, TINA IN MEXICO, follows the tumultuous and epic story of Tina Modotti, revolutionary, bohemian spirit and renowned photographer, acclaimed for h...

Directed by Wang Bing • Documentary • 2017 • 184 minutes

Often cited as one of the great documentary achievements, Wang Bing’s dazzling tour-de-force — a gripping monologue recounting five decades in the life of a once-ardent socialist in the new China — is a testament to the power of oral histo...

Directed by Shirley Clarke • Documentary • 1967 • 108 minutes

On the night of December 2, 1966, Clarke and a tiny crew convened in her apartment at the Hotel Chelsea to make a film. There, for twelve straight hours they filmed the one-and-only Jason Holliday as he spun tales, sang, donned costum...

Directed by Emmanuel Finkiel • Drama • With Mélanie Thierry • 2018 • 127 minutes

In Emmanuel Finkiel’s haunting adaptation of Marguerite Duras’s semi- autobiographical novel, The War: A Memoir, the famed author (Mélanie Thierry) recounts an emotionally complex story of love, loss, and perseveran...

Directed by Rosine Mbakam • Documentary • 2021 • 91 minutes

Delphine reclines on a daybed in her bright, cluttered apartment in Belgium, an empty crib beside her. “I started to work the streets like crazy,” she says, matter-of-factly recounting her life story. “Selling my body.” Delphine, who is...

Directed by Yannick Bellon • Documentary • 1951 • 29 minutes

French writer Sidonie Gabrielle Colette (1873-1954) was both a popular and literary sensation. Known simply as Colette, she scandalized French society with her three marriages and her career as a racy music-hall performer and mime arti...

Directed by Amei Wallach • Documentary • With Ilya Kabakov, Emilia Kabakov, Igoris Markovas, Andrei Monastrysky, Oleg Vassiliev • 2013 • 103 minutes

Ilya and Emilia Kabakov: Enter Here portrays two of Russia’s most celebrated international artists, now American citizens, as they come to terms wi...

Directed by Jero Yun • Documentary • 2016 • 71 minutes

"There are five kinds of families that buy us," says Mrs. B over dinner and drinks with fellow North Korean exiles living in China. "The first type, either the father or the mother is missing and the son can't get married. Then there are the...

Directed by Petra Seeger • Documentary • With Eric Kandel • 2008 • 95 minutes

'Memory is everything. Without it we are nothing,' says neuroscientist Eric Kandel, winner of the Nobel Prize for his groundbreaking research on the physiology of the brain's storage of memories. As he explains, memory...

Directed by Daniel Traub • Documentary • 2020 • 57 minutes

URSULA VON RYDINGSVARD: INTO HER OWN is an artistic biography of one of the few women in the world working in monumental sculpture. Von Rydingsvard’s work has been featured in the Venice Biennale and is held in the collections of some of...

Directed by François Lévy-Kuentz • Documentary • 2021 • 53 minutes

A group of friends meet up in the country to spend the summer together. They go to the beach, play cards, and take day trips in the surrounding region. But these aren’t everyday city folk on vacation. The hosts are Pablo Picasso ...

Directed by Rodrigo H. Vila • Documentary • With Mercedes Sosa, Pablo Milanes, Leon Gieco, Chichi Sosa, Chico Buarque, Elba Bustelo, David Byrne • 2013 • 93 minutes

Journey into the world of Argentina's most famous musical artist in Mercedes Sosa: The Voice of Latin America. Over a career that ...

Directed by Andrés Wood • Drama • With Francisca Gavilán, Cristian Quevedo, Thomas Durand , Roberto Farías, Gabriela Aguilera, Juan Quezada, Marcial Tagle • 2013 • 110 minutes

Violeta Went to Heaven tells the story of famed Chilean singer and folklorist Violeta Parra, tracing her evolution f...

Directed by Grace Winter & Luc Plantier • Documentary • 2017 • 85 minutes

The man squats by the fire, holding an object slightly larger than his palm. He feels it carefully, pressing and shaping it, then turns it upside down and fills it with hot sand. The man is a member of the Shuar people, an...

Directed by Catherine Gund & Darsha Kyi • Documentary • With Chavela Vargas • 2017 • 93 minutes

Chavela is the captivating look at the unconventional life of beloved performer Chavela Vargas, whose passionate renditions of Mexican popular music and triumphant return to the stage late in life bro...

Directed by Carl Bidleman • Documentary • 2020 • 52 minutes

NO TIME TO WASTE celebrates legendary 98-year-old park ranger Betty Reid Soskin's inspiring life, work and urgent mission to restore critical missing chapters of America's story. The film follows her journey as an African American woman...

Directed by Keren Shayo • Documentary • 2013 • 58 minutes

Since 2006 when Europe closed its borders, human trafficking has burgeoned in Egypt’s Sinai Desert, where Eritrean asylum seekers and refugees heading north to Israel are kidnapped, held hostage, and tortured by Bedouin smugglers demandin...

Directed by Andrew Rossi • Documentary • With Okwui Okpokwasili • 2017 • 91 minutes

From director Andrew Rossi (Page One: Inside the New York Times, The First Monday in May) comes an electrifying portrait of writer and performer Okwui Okpokwasili and her acclaimed one-woman show, Bronx Gothic. R...

Directed by Alain Resnais • Documentary • 1948 • 18 minutes

Classic French New Wave director Alain Resnais’ early film, VAN GOGH won an Oscar for best short documentary film. Recently restored, this 1948 boundary-pushing short brilliantly evokes the life of Vincent Van Gogh, using only his paint...

Directed by Marc Allégret • Documentary • 1951 • 92 minutes

Nobel-prize-winning author, social justice crusader, anti-colonialist, adventure traveler, musician, and one-time Communist: André Gide was a larger-than-life character who dominated French letters from the turn of the 20th century to h...

Directed by Stephen Ives • Documentary • 2020 • 62 minutes

BEATRIX FARRAND'S AMERICAN LANDSCAPES follows award-winning public garden designer Lynden B. Miller as she sets off to explore the remarkable life and career of America's first female landscape architect, Beatrix Farrand. Farrand was res...

Directed by Susan Vogel • Documentary • 2011 • 53 minutes

Filmed over three years in Venice, Nsukka, and the United States, this is a powerful portrait of Africa's most widely acclaimed contemporary artist El Anatsui. FOLD CRUMPLE CRUSH: THE ART OF EL ANATSUI gives an insider's view of the artis...