The Cinema Guild

The Cinema Guild

Based in New York City, The Cinema Guild is a distributor of independent, foreign and documentary films.

The company was founded by Philip and Mary-Ann Hobel, producers known for their work in documentaries and features, including Tender Mercies, winner of two Academy Awards.

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The Cinema Guild
  • 4 Days in France

    Directed by Jérôme Reybaud • Drama • 2017 • 137 minutes

    Jérôme Reybaud’s remarkably accomplished feature debut is a sly and sophisticated take on gay romance in the 21st century. On a seemingly ordinary night in Paris, Pierre takes one last look his lover Paul’s sleeping body, then steals away i...

  • Anarchism in America

    Directed by Steven Fischler and Joel Sucher • Documentary • 1982 • 75 minutes

    A colorful and provocative survey of anarchism in America which attempts to dispel popular misconceptions and to trace its historical development, both as a native American philosophy stemming from 19th century America...

  • Bluebeard (Kékszakállú)

    Directed by Gastón Solnicki • Drama • With Laila Maltz, Lara Tarlowski,
    Katia Szechtman • 2016 • 72 minutes

    Hailed as "an eerie high-modernist fable... mightily minimalist, and drop-dead gorgeous" (Film Comment), Kékszakállú is a beguiling portrait of several young women at the threshold of adu...

  • Chinese Portrait

    Directed by WANG Xiao Shuai • Documentary • With Liu Xiaodong • 2018 • 79 minutes

    From acclaimed director Wang Xiaoshuai (Beijing Bicycle; So Long, My Son) comes a personal snapshot of contemporary China in all its diversity. Shot over the course of ten years on both film and video, the film con...

  • Counting (Jem Cohen)

    Directed by Jem Cohen • Documentary • 2015 • 111 minutes

    In fifteen linked chapters shot in locations ranging from Moscow to New York to Istanbul, Counting merges city symphony, diary film, and personal/political essay to create a vivid portrait of contemporary life. Perhaps the most personal of...

  • Expedition Content

    Directed by Ernst Karel & Veronika Kusumaryati • Documentary • 2020 • 78 minutes

    Note: For best viewing results, please manually adjust the streaming quality to 720p or higher.

    An immersive marvel of sonic ethnography, Expedition Content draws on audio recordings made by recent college graduate...

  • Frame Up!

    Directed by Steven Fischler, Joel Sucher and Howard Blatt • Documentary • 1974 • 30 minutes

    Examining the case of Martin Sostre, a black Puerto Rican bookstore owner in Buffalo, New York who was framed on drug possession charges in 1967 and sentenced to prison, this film shows how the American j...

  • Free Voice of Labor: The Jewish Anarchists

    Directed by Steven Fischler and Joel Sucher • Documentary • 1980 • 55 minutes

    A dramatic portrait of immigrant life in the U.S. as seen through the eyes of the sweatshop workers who made up the Jewish anarchist movement. Between 1900 and WWI they built trade unions, organized schools, sponsored ...

  • From Swastika to Jim Crow

    Directed by Lori Cheatle • Documentary • 2000 • 60 minutes

    In the 1930s Jewish intellectuals who escaped Nazi Germany and immigrated to the U.S. faced an uncertain future. Confronted with anti-Semitism at American universities and a public distrust of foreigners, many sought refuge in an unlikel...

  • Geographies of Solitude

    Directed by Jacquelyn Mills • Documentary • 2022 • 103 minutes

    An immersion into the rich ecosystem of Sable Island, a remote sliver of land in the Northwest Atlantic, the film follows Zoe Lucas, a naturalist and environmentalist who has lived there for over 40 years collecting, cleaning and doc...

  • Holy Terror

    Directed by Victoria Schultz • Documentary • 1986 • 58 minutes

    Examines the political activism of the religious New Right, focusing on their anti-abortion efforts. Combining interviews with scenes filmed at anti-abortion conventions and demonstrations, the video provides a revealing, inside look...

  • The Image You Missed

    Directed by Donal Foreman • Documentary • 2018 • 74 minutes

    An Irish filmmaker grapples with the legacy of his estranged father, the late American documentarian Arthur MacCaig, through MacCaig's decades-spanning archive of the conflict in Northern Ireland.

    Drawing on over 30 years of unique and...

  • Linefork

    Directed by Jeff Silva & Vic Rawlings • Documentary • With Vic Rawlings, Jeff Silva • 2016 • 96 minutes

    From the Sensory Ethnography Lab, Linefork is an immersive, meditative documentary that explores the daily rituals of Lee Sexton, a revered banjo legend, and his charming wife Opal. Lee is a l...

  • El Mar La Mar

    Directed by Joshua Bonnetta & J.P. Sniadecki • Documentary • 2017 • 94 minutes

    An immersive and enthralling journey through the Sonoran Desert on the U.S.-Mexico border, EL MAR LA MAR weaves together harrowing oral histories from the area with hand-processed 16mm images of flora, fauna and items...

  • The Modern Jungle

    Directed by Charles Fairbanks and Saul Kak • Documentary • 2017 • 71 minutes

    The Modern Jungle is a portrait of globalization filtered through Carmen and Juan, two Zoque people, and how modernity has affected their identity and relation to the indigenous culture. This film documents their strugg...

  • Museum Hours (Jem Cohen)

    Directed by Jem Cohen • Drama • With Mary Margaret O’Hara, Robert “Bobby” Sommer, Ela Piplits • 2012 • 106 minutes

    When a Vienna museum guard befriends an enigmatic visitor, the grand Kunsthistorisches Art Museum becomes a mysterious crossroads which sparks explorations of their lives, the city,...

  • Red Hollywood

    Directed by Thom Andersen & Noel Burch • Documentary • With Billy Woodberry, Paul Jarrico, Alfred Lewis Levitt, Abraham Polonsky, Ayn Rand • 2014 • 118 minutes

    A fascinating documentary by Thom Andersen (director of Los Angeles Plays Itself) and Noel Burch (author of To The Distant Observer), Re...

  • Red Squad

    Directed by Steven Fischler, Joel Sucher, Howard Blatt and Francis Freedland • Documentary • 1972 • 45 minutes

    An investigative (but frequently humorous) documentary on the surveillance activities of the New York City Police Department's Bureau of Special Services, known as the Red Squad.

  • Step Up To The Plate

    Directed by Paul Lacoste • Documentary • With Michel Bras, Sébastien Bras • 2012 • 87 minutes

    French chef Michel Bras, one of the most influential chefs in the world, has decided to hand over his renowned 3-Michelin-Star restaurant to his son Sébastien. Having worked with his father for 15 years...

  • Suburban Birds

    Directed by QIU sheng • Drama • With Yihao Chen, Zhihao Chen, Jing Deng • 2018 • 118 minutes

    A striking debut from China’s Qiu Sheng, SUBURBAN BIRDS is a tantalizing mystery and a bittersweet coming-of-age comedy rolled into one. Hao (Mason Lee) is part of a team of young engineers called in to ...

  • Swimming Out Till the Sea Turns Blue

    Directed by Jia Zhang-Ke • Documentary • 2020 • 112 minutes

    From master director Jia Zhang-Ke (Ash Is Purest White, A Touch of Sin) comes a vital document of Chinese society since 1949. Jia interviews three prominent authors—Jia Pingwa, Yu Hua, and Liang Hong—born in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, ...

  • Three Monkeys (Nuri Bilge Ceylan)

    Directed by Nuri Bilge Ceylan • Drama • With Yavuz Bingöl, Hatice Aslan • 2008 • 106 minutes

    Winner of the Best Director prize at Cannes, Three Monkeys is a moving, visually unforgettable triumph from the Turkish master Nuri Bilge Ceylan (Once Upon a Time in Anatolia, Thear Tree)

    An ambitious p...

  • The Two Sights

    Directed by Joshua Bonnetta • Documentary • 2020 • 90 minutes

    The first solo feature from Joshua Bonnetta (co-director, El Mar La Mar), The Two Sights (An Dà Shealladh) explores the disappearing tradition of second sight in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland. As we listen to locals' accounts of haun...

  • The Wandering Soap Opera

    Directed by Raúl Ruiz and Valeria Sarmiento • Drama • With Luis Alarcón, Patricia Rivadeneira, Francisco Reyes • 2017 • 78 minutes

    Filmed by Chilean master Raúl Ruiz in 1990 but left unfinished until it was completed by his wife and collaborator Valeria Sarmiento in 2017, The Wandering Soap Oper...