Free Fish

To Be Takei

Over seven decades, actor and activist George Takei journeyed from a World War II internment camp to the helm of the Starship Enterprise, and then to the daily news feeds of five million Facebook fans. Join George and his husband, Brad, on a wacky and profound trek for life, liberty, and love.

Leviathan

An experimental portrait of the North American commercial fishing industry through the lens of GoPro cameras placed on a fishing vessel off the coast of New England.

Audrey

An unprecedented and intimate look at the life, work and enduring legacy of British actress Audrey Hepburn (1929-1993).

The Last Survivors

In the near future, society collapses and water becomes scarce. When a greedy water baron starts violently clearing out survivors, Kendal, a 17-year-old teenager, fights the baron's henchman to keep a well open.

Val

For over 40 years Val Kilmer, one of Hollywood’s most mercurial and/or misunderstood actors has been documenting his own life and craft through film and video. He has amassed thousands of hours of footage, from 16mm home movies made with his brothers, to time spent in iconic roles for blockbuster movies like Top Gun, The Doors, Tombstone, and Batman Forever. This raw, wildly original and unflinching documentary reveals a life lived to extremes and a heart-filled, sometimes hilarious look at what it means to be an artist and a complex man.

Human Flow

More than 65 million people around the world have been forced from their homes to escape famine, climate change and war, the greatest displacement since World War II. Filmmaker Ai Weiwei examines the staggering scale of the refugee crisis and its profoundly personal human impact. Over the course of one year in 23 countries, Weiwei follows a chain of urgent human stories that stretch across the globe, including Afghanistan, France, Greece, Germany and Iraq.

Night Will Fall

When Allied forces liberated the Nazi concentration camps in 1944-45, their terrible discoveries were recorded by army and newsreel cameramen, revealing for the first time the full horror of what had happened. Making use of British, Soviet and American footage, the Ministry of Information’s Sidney Bernstein (later founder of Granada Television) aimed to create a documentary that would provide lasting, undeniable evidence of the Nazis’ unspeakable crimes. He commissioned a wealth of British talent, including editor Stewart McAllister, writer and future cabinet minister Richard Crossman – and, as treatment advisor, his friend Alfred Hitchcock. Yet, despite initial support from the British and US Governments, the film was shelved, and only now, 70 years on, has it been restored and completed by Imperial War Museums under its original title "German Concentration Camps Factual Survey".

Love, Marilyn

Using the book 'Fragments', which collects Marilyn Monroe's poems, notes and letters, and with participation from the Arthur Miller and Truman Capote estates who have contributed more material, each of the actresses will embody the legend at various stages in her life.

Iverson

Iverson is the ultimate legacy of NBA legend Allen Iverson, who rose from a childhood of crushing poverty in Hampton, Virginia, to become an 11-time NBA All-Star and universally recognized icon of his sport. Off the court, his audacious rejection of conservative NBA convention and unapologetic embrace of hip hop culture sent shockwaves throughout the league and influenced an entire generation. Told largely in Iverson's own words, the film charts the career highs and lows of one of the most distinctive and accomplished figures the sport of basketball has ever seen.

Waking Sleeping Beauty

By the mid-1980s, the fabled animation studios of Walt Disney had fallen on hard times. The artists were polarized between newcomers hungry to innovate and old timers not yet ready to relinquish control. These conditions produced a series of box-office flops and pessimistic forecasts: maybe the best days of animation were over. Maybe the public didn't care. Only a miracle or a magic spell could produce a happy ending. Waking Sleeping Beauty is no fairy tale. It's the true story of how Disney regained its magic with a staggering output of hits - "Little Mermaid," "Beauty and the Beast ," "Aladdin," "The Lion King," and more - over a 10-year period.

In the Realms of the Unreal

In the Realms of the Unreal is a documentary about the reclusive Chicago-based artist Henry Darger. Henry Darger was so reclusive that when he died his neighbors were surprised to find a 15,145-page manuscript along with hundreds of paintings depicting The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What is Known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glodeco-Angelinnian War Storm, Cased by the Child Slave Rebellion.

Falcon Rising

Chapman is an ex-marine in Brazil's slums, battling the yakuza outfit who attacked his sister and left her for dead.

Five Broken Cameras

Five broken cameras – and each one has a powerful tale to tell. Embedded in the bullet-ridden remains of digital technology is the story of Emad Burnat, a farmer from the Palestinian village of Bil’in, which famously chose nonviolent resistance when the Israeli army encroached upon its land to make room for Jewish colonists. Emad buys his first camera in 2005 to document the birth of his fourth son, Gibreel. Over the course of the film, he becomes the peaceful archivist of an escalating struggle as olive trees are bulldozed, lives are lost, and a wall is built to segregate burgeoning Israeli settlements.

Fuck

A documentary on the expletive's origin, why it offends some people so deeply, and what can be gained from its use.

The Crash Reel

The Crash Reel tells the story of a sport and the risks that athletes face in reaching the pinnacle of their profession. This is Kevin Pearce’s story, a celebrated snowboarder who sustained a brain injury in a trick gone wrong and who now aims, against all the odds, to get back on the snow.

Cameraperson

As a visually radical memoir, CAMERAPERSON draws on the remarkable footage that filmmaker Kirsten Johnson has shot and reframes it in ways that illuminate moments and situations that have personally affected her. What emerges is an elegant meditation on the relationship between truth and the camera frame, as Johnson transforms scenes that have been presented on Festival screens as one kind of truth into another kind of story—one about personal journey, craft, and direct human connection.

When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth

An ancient tribe attempts to sacrifice Sanna as an offering to the Sun god to save their tribe from dinosaurs. Tara, a young man from another tribe, saves Sanna and takes her along with him.

Love, Gilda

Diaries, audiotapes, videotapes and testimonials from friends and colleagues offer insight into the life and career of Gilda Radner -- the beloved comic and actress who became an icon on Saturday Night Live.

The Eagle Huntress

Follow Aisholpan, a 13-year-old girl, as she trains to become the first female in twelve generations of her Kazakh family to become an eagle hunter, and rise to the pinnacle of a tradition that has been typically been handed down from father to son for centuries.

For Sama

A love letter from a young mother to her daughter, the film tells the story of Waad al-Kateab’s life through five years of the uprising in Aleppo, Syria as she falls in love, gets married and gives birth to Sama, all while cataclysmic conflict rises around her. Her camera captures incredible stories of loss, laughter and survival as Waad wrestles with an impossible choice– whether or not to flee the city to protect her daughter’s life, when leaving means abandoning the struggle for freedom for which she has already sacrificed so much.

Bil'in Habibti

The Israeli filmmaker Shai Corneli Polak records the building of the 'security wall' through Palestinian territory at the village of Bil'in. The villagers protest mostly peacefully, while the Israeli army doesn't react peacefully. By now the Israeli High Court has ruled that the building of the wall was illegal.

Arctic Tale

Arctic Tale is a 2007 documentary film from the National Geographic Society about the life cycle of a walrus and her calf, and a polar bear and her cubs, in a similar vein to the 2005 hit production March of the Penguins, also from National Geographic.

Mururoa 1973

In 1973 Alister Barry joined the crew of a protest boat (The Fri) to Mururoa Atoll, where the French Government were testing nuclear weapons. Barry records the assembly of the crew, the long journey from Northland, and their reception in the test zone; when The Fri was boarded and impounded by French military he had to hide his camera in a barrel of oranges.

Kherson: Human Safari

Kherson, Ukraine's embattled city, has endured invasion, occupation, and liberation. On February 24, 2022, Russian tanks entered Kherson, leading to brutal occupation marked by violence. Despite being outnumbered, local defense forces resisted, and citizens protested under the slogan "Kherson is Ukraine!" An underground resistance formed, led by brave individuals like journalist Valentyna and others who risked arrest and torture to support the cause. After nine months, Ukrainian forces liberated Kherson, but Russian destruction left the city in chaos. Shelling and drone attacks became relentless, and in June 2023, a dam explosion flooded the city, causing further devastation. Despite these challenges, Kherson's spirit remained unbroken, with citizens embracing arts and resilience. By August 2024, drone attacks specifically targeted civilians, yet the city resisted, determined to rebuild and reclaim its identity, refusing to succumb to ruin.

Frères de la forêt, des résistants face à l'URSS

Between 1944 and 1953, 170,000 Estonians, Latvians, and Lithuanians put up fierce resistance to the Soviet invasion, hiding deep in the vast Baltic forests. Driven by a dream of freedom, they defied a ruthless empire with few resources but unwavering determination. Through previously unseen archives and the poignant accounts of the last survivors, this documentary reveals their clandestine struggle, their heroic sacrifices, and their legacy, timeless symbols of a desperate fight to escape the Soviet stranglehold and preserve the flame of independence.

New Life

"Nû Jîn", New Life, with the slogan ' Woman is life. Life is resistance and resistance is Kobanê', depicts the daily life of women guerillas, Elif Kobanê (18), Vîyan Peyman and Arjîn, joining in the Women's Protection Units (YPJ) in their battle against ISIS. The documentary relates the ISIS assault of 15 September 2014 and the five-month resistance by the YPJ and People's Defense Units (YPG) through the lens of three women fighter

The Boys of H Company

This documentary follows the steps of the boys of H Company as they fight on the island of Iwo Jima.

Mariupolis 2

In 2022, Mantas Kvedaravičius went back to Ukraine, Mariupol, at the heart of the war, to be with the people he had met and filmed in 2015. Following his death, his producers and collaborators have put all their strength into continuing transmitting his work, his vision and his films. Also a PhD in anthropology, Mantas Kvedaravičius wished to testify as a filmmaker as far as possible from the agitation of the media and the politicians. With huge force and sensitivity, Mariupolis 2 depicts life as it continues amidst the bombing and reveals images that convey both tragedy and hope.

The Red Orchestra

This documentary re-examines the story of the Red Orchestra: the most important resistance network in Nazi Germany, whose operations extended from Berlin and Brussels to Paris.

Há Sempre Alguém Que Te Ama

Filmed immediately after the end of the civil war in Angola, Há Sempre Alguém Que Te Ama records the return of Pocas Pascoal to the country where she was born, in an attempt to reconstruct the episode that, in 1975, led to the capture of the director along with her mother and sisters. An intimate documentary about memory and self-(re)construction.

Beyond the Beach: The Hell and the Hope

A powerful depiction of war in infamous global conflict zones. Directed by Oscar/Emmy documentary makers Buddy Squires and Graeme Scott (know for Sam Smith), this film provides a rare and powerful insight into humanity and hope in the depth of war and the greatest global humanitarian crisis of the last several decades.

Aisheen (Still Alive in Gaza)

Going behind the usual images of war-torn Gaza, Swiss documentarian Nicolas Wadimoff offers this look at how people survive despite constant threat of danger. Children still play, rappers still create music and families still love one another. In addition to visiting the United Nations Food Distribution Center, Wadimoff films at a derelict amusement park and profiles the DARG TeaM rappers, whose politically charged music proclaims their defiance.

Wildgnorance 2: Time Paradox

You Vs. Wildgnorance

Israel's Reel Extremism

An examination of Israel and its society after many months of war, seen initially through the prism of viral social media posts - and exclusive interviews with the soldiers behind them. These posts, some shared millions of times, show soldiers humiliating bound Palestinians, ransacking their homes, joking as they detonate schools and whole districts, and laughing as they launch high explosive ordnance into densely-packed areas. The award-winning team behind this Basement Films production traveled to Israel to interview some of these soldiers, who proudly defended themselves and their videos, some expressing callous disregard for Palestinians in Gaza. Through additional interviews with Israeli radical groups, politicians, and media figures, the film reveals Israeli Jewish society in the aftermath of October 7th, gripped by a vengeance and hate that puts into question any possibility for peace.

The Occupation of the American Mind

Over the past few years, Israel's ongoing military occupation of Palestinian territory and repeated invasions of the Gaza strip have triggered a fierce backlash against Israeli policies virtually everywhere in the world—except the United States. This documentary takes an eye-opening look at this critical exception, zeroing in on pro-Israel public relations efforts within the U.S.

Farfour: A War Diary from Gaza

Amid the ruins of northern Gaza, Ibrahim clings to the only companion he has left: Farfour, a stray cat he adopted during the war. Farfour has become more than just a pet for Ibrahim. He has turned into his shadow, his confidant, his last connection to humanity. Together, Ibrahim and Farfour navigate a collapsing world, enduring a relentless siege while living in an unsafe building, with no water and electricity. As the war tightens its grip, Ibrahim must flee.

El apagón: Aquí vive gente

“El apagón: Aquí vive gente” is a 23-minute film that explores the socio-economic challenges in Puerto Rico, focusing on the effects of power outages and gentrification driven by the real estate and energy sectors. Through visuals and personal stories, the documentary highlights the experiences of Puerto Rican communities facing these issues.

Videocracy

In a country where bella figura is a national pastime, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is the maestro of media manipulation. Having risen to political primacy with the aid of his Mediaset empire, he now controls 90% of the bel paese’s television channels including the state-run RAI network. Quantity, it seems, does not equal quality. Fed on a diet of semi-naked dancing girls, inane competitions and rickety reality shows built around the most ridiculous of premises, is it any wonder that Italians are becoming a nation of fame-hungry wannabes?

Netanyahu at War

The inside story of the bitter clash between President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu. Amid violence in the Middle East, the film traces Netanyahu's rise to power and his high-stakes fight with the president over Iran's nuclear program.