Hyperallergic
Hyperallergic is one of the few sites with dedicated coverage for nonfiction film and art. Documentary editor Dan Schindel has gathered a series of works expressing both sides of the political and personal split—often mixing the two. From an in-depth examination of Nazi history to a train acting as synecdoche for modern China, these documentaries (and one mockumentary on feminist revolution) tackle how people's lives are shaped by the forces around them.
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Le Joli Mai
Directed by Chris Marker, Pierre Lhomme • Documentary • 1963 • 145 minutes
Filmed just after the March 1962 ceasefire between France and Algeria, LE JOLI MAI documents Paris during a turning point in French history: the first time since 1939 that France was not involved in any war.
Part I, "A P...
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Finally Got the News
Directed by Stewart Bird, Rene Lichtman and Peter Gessner • Documentary • 1970 • 55 minutes
FINALLY GOT THE NEWS is a forceful, unique documentary that reveals the activities of the League of Revolutionary Black Workers inside and outside the auto factories of Detroit. Through interviews with th...
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Seventeen
Directed by Joel DeMott and Jeff Kreines • Documentary • 1982 • 120 minutes
Part of the acclaimed Middletown series.
In their final year at Muncie's Southside High School, a group of seniors hurtles toward maturity with a combination of joy, despair, and an aggravated sense of urgency. They are...
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Born in Flames (Lizzie Borden)
Directed by Lizzie Borden • Drama • With Honey, Adele Bertaei, Jeanne Satterfield, Flo Kennedy, Ron Vawter, Eric Bogosian • 1983 • 80 minutes
The movie that rocked the foundations of the early indie film world, this provocative, thrilling classic is a fantasy of female rebellion set in America t...
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Hotel Terminus - Part I
Directed by Marcel Ophuls • Documentary • 1988 • 114 minutes
"Making this film was like an intense fight for the survival of memory itself."—Marcel Ophuls
A brilliant and epic Academy Award-winning examination of the Nazi SS officer Klaus Barbie, the infamous "Butcher of Lyon", HOTEL TERMINUS: ...
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Dark Days
Directed by Marc Singer • Documentary • 2000 • 82 minutes
For years, a homeless community took root in a train tunnel beneath New York City, braving dangerous conditions and perpetual night. DARK DAYS explores this surprisingly domestic subterranean world, unearthing a way of life unimaginable t...
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Live Nude Girls Unite!
Directed by Vicky Funari & Julia Query • Documentary • With Julia Query, Siobhan Brooks, Kristina, Ellen, Star, Joyce Wallace • 2000 • 70 minutes
Winner of the Audience Award at the San Francisco International Film Festival, Live Nude Girls Unite! is "a partisan tale from the inside" (Boston Pho...
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Our Daily Bread
Directed by Nikolaus Geyrhalter • Documentary • 2005 • 92 minutes
OUR DAILY BREAD reveals the little-known world of high-tech agriculture. In a series of visually stunning, continuously tracking, wide-screen images that seem right out of a science-fiction movie, we see the places where food is c...
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The Iron Ministry
Directed by J. P. Sniadecki • Documentary • 2014 • 83 minutes
Filmed over three years on China's railways, J. P. Sniadecki's masterful documentary traces the vast interiors of a country on the move: flesh and metal, clangs and squeals, light and dark, language and gesture. Scores of rail journey...
