New: Documentaries

The sixty-or-so most recent documentaries released on OVID.

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  • Terrorists in Retirement

    Movie + 1 extra

    Directed by Mosco Boucault • Documentary • 1983 • 71 minutes

    Too controversial to be shown on French TV when first released – after its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, in 1983 – TERRORISTS IN RETIREMENT is the story of men and women from Armenia, Poland, and Romania, mostly Jews, who fough...

  • 23 Foreigners — Our Brothers

    Directed by Mosco Boucault, Ruth Zylberman • Documentary • 2024 • 38 minutes

    Just outside Paris, in a peaceful clearing surrounded by woods, a French flag flies above a bare concrete pad. Here, on February 21, 1944, Nazi occupiers executed 23 Resistance fighters by firing squad.

    After the execu...

  • How They Got Over

    Directed by Robert Clem • Documentary • With J.W. Alexander, Ira Tucker • 2018 • 87 minutes

    How They Got Over tells the story of how Black gospel quartet music became a primary source for what we would call rock and roll, and in the process helped to break down racial walls in 1950s America.

    Be...

  • Roberta

    Directed by Antonino D'Ambrosio • Documentary • 2022 • 87 minutes

    Directed by award-winning filmmaker Antonino D'Ambrosio, this is the long overdue documentary about the legendary Roberta Flack. Of course she is well known the world over for “First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” and "Killing Me Soft...

  • The Birth of Sake

    Directed by Erik Shirai • Documentary • 2015 • 93 minutes

    A beautiful and immersive portrait of life at the 144-year old Yoshida Brewery, a producer of world class sake. With changing times ahead and new regime led by the 6th generation heir, this is a rarified look at the personal and professio...

  • The Sojourn

    Directed by Tiffany Sia • Documentary • 2023 • 32 minutes

    Directed by artist and filmmaker Tiffany Sia, “The Sojourn” imagines a restless landscape film in Taiwan. Visiting scenic locations shot by King Hu, the short experiments with the road movie genre and its intersection with the martial art...

  • A Child Already Knows

    Directed by Tiffany Sia • Documentary • 2024 • 33 minutes

    “A Child Already Knows” is a short film that describes a child’s retelling of an escape from Shanghai disguised as a family vacation through the south. Half-remembered scenes of a historical cusp are recalled alongside a montage of approp...

  • Martin Margiela: In His Own Words

    Directed by Reiner Holzemer • Documentary • With Martin Margiela, Carla Sozzani • 2019 • 95 minutes

    One of the most revolutionary and influential fashion designers of his time, Martin Margiela has remained an elusive figure the entirety of his decades-long career. From Jean Paul Gaultier's assis...

  • Kyiv Theater: An Island of Hope

    Directed by Duccio Bellugi-Vannuccini, Thomas Briat • Documentary • With Ariane Mnouchkine • 2024 • 59 minutes

    Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 brings back dark memories of 1930s Europe for Ariane Mnouchkine, the 84-year-old theater director and founder of the prestigious Théâtre du...

  • Written on the Landscape

    Directed by Anna Sofaer • Documentary • With Christopher Beaver • 2024 • 58 minutes

    Written on the Landscape: Mysteries Beyond Chaco Canyon conveys to viewers the brilliant achievements of the Chaco civilization -- many of which are in grave danger today. This documentary reveals the astounding ...

  • Modernism, Inc.: The Eliot Noyes Design Story

    Directed by Jason Cohn • Documentary • With Sebastian Roché (narrator) • 2023 • 79 minutes

    From the filmmaker of Eames: The Architect and the Painter comes a new documentary about a pioneer of modern design. Architect Eliot Noyes was one of the leading pioneers of modern design during the mid-ce...

  • Regenerating Life

    Directed by John Feldman • Documentary • With Cynthia Daley, Gail Fuller, Wes Jackson • 2023 • 137 minutes

    Regenerating Life takes an ecological approach to unraveling the climate crisis. The film proposes that it is humankind’s relentless destruction of the natural world that has caused the cli...

  • My Worst Enemy

    Directed by Mehran Tamadon • Documentary • With Mehran Tamadon, Zar Amir Ebrahimi • 2023 • 82 minutes

    “What are you thinking? You’re thinking, ‘This is cinema. I’m sowing seeds to create a dialogue.’ Maybe you’ll be able to open a dialogue. A dialogue without any outcome.” — Zar Amir Ebrahimi

    F...

  • My Maysoon

    Directed by Batoul Karbijha • Documentary • 2023 • 55 minutes

    Filmmaker Batoul Karbijha uses making a film about her disappeared sister as a means of finding out what happened and as a way of dealing with it. For herself, for her family and for all families who lost loved ones on their way to a ...

  • The Last Pullman Car

    Directed by Gordon Quinn, Jerry Blumenthal • Documentary • 1983 • 56 minutes

    In 1864, George Pullman began selling his famous railroad sleeping cars which helped him build a vast industrial empire that was supposed to last forever. In 1981, however, Pullman workers found themselves in the midst ...

  • Cat City

    Directed by Ben Kolak • Documentary • 2023 • 78 minutes

    Cat City chronicles Chicago's love/hate relationship with feral cats. It tells the story of Chicago's outdoor cats and the communities who look after them.

    What is the right way to care for feral cats and who gets to decide? A ground-break...

  • Where Can We Live In Peace?

    Directed by Judy Jackson • Documentary • 2023 • 64 minutes

    WHERE CAN WE LIVE IN PEACE? investigates the migrant crisis through the eyes of Pastor Ignacio Martinez, the founder of ABBA safehouse in Celaya, Mexico. Here, thousands of migrants receive help.

    The idea for ABBA began when Ignacio and...

  • Works For All

    Directed by Mark Dworkin, Melissa Young • Documentary • 2023 • 31 minutes

    Cincinnati is an historic city, just across the Ohio River from Kentucky in the heart of the American Midwest. In the years when people were fleeing slavery in the South, the city became a way station on the underground ra...

  • Indigo

    Directed by Julio López Fernández • Documentary • With Emy Mena, Larissa Maltez, Lilibeth Rivas • 2023 • 65 minutes

    Three young actresses recreate testimonies of women who suffered sexual assault during the Salvadoran civil war in a fable guided by the history of Indigo, which narrates the explo...

  • Now We Live on Clifton

    Directed by Jerry Blumenthal, Alphonse Blumenthal, Susan Delson, Sharon Karp, Peter Kuttner, Gordon Quinn, Richa • Documentary • 1974 • 26 minutes

    Now We Live on Clifton follows 10 year old Pam Taylor and her 12 year old brother Scott around their multiracial West Lincoln Park neighborhood. The ...

  • Winnie Wright, Age 11

    Directed by Suzanne Davenport • Documentary • 1974 • 26 minutes

    Winnie, the daughter of a steel worker and a teacher lives in Gage Park, a Chicago neighborhood that is changing from white to black. Her family struggles with racism, inflation and a threatened strike, as Winnie learns what it mean...

  • White Rage

    Directed by Arto Halonen • Documentary • 2016 • 70 minutes

    This is the story of Lauri, and through him the story of other victims of both school bullying and a separate childhood trauma: victims full of white rage, which may lead to school shootings and other extreme acts of violence. The film i...

  • Roads of Lava

    Directed by Gretel Marin • Documentary • 2024 • 28 minutes

    Afibola—a Black, queer, feminist activist and poet—lives with her eight-year-old son Olorun in downtown Havana, Cuba. Moving between the safety of their modest home and the uncertainty of the streets outside, Afibolo reflects on the comp...

  • River Silence

    Directed by Rogério Soares • Documentary • With Raimunda Gomes Da Silva, Tamakwera Parakana, Karliane Lopes De Souza, Francinete Pinto Novaes, Ana Paula Pinto Novaes • 2019 • 92 minutes

    The Belo Monte Dam, one of the world’s biggest and most controversial infrastructure projects, is causing mass...