Browse Movies : 2012 : Documentary (Page #4)

In 1989, five black and Latino teenagers from Harlem were arrested and later convicted of brutally beating and raping a white woman in New York City’s Central Park. New York Mayor Ed Koch called it the “crime of the century” and it remains to date one of the biggest media stories of our time. The five eachspent between 6 and 13 years in prison before a shocking confession from a serial rapist and DNA evidence proved their innocence. Set against a backdrop of a decaying city beset by violence and racial tension, THE CENTRAL PARK FIVE tells the story of how five lives were upended by the rush to judgment by police, a sensationalist media and a devastating miscarriage of justice.

An investigative documentary about one of America's most shameful and best kept secrets: the epidemic of rape within the U.S. military. The film paints a startling picture of the extent of the problem--today, a female soldier in combat zones is more likely to be raped by a fellow soldier than killed by enemy fire. The Department of Defense estimates there were a staggering 19,000 violent sex crimes in the military in 2010. Twenty percent of all active-duty female soldiers are sexually assaulted.

Jon Shenk's The Island President tells the story of President Mohamed Nasheed of the Maldives, a man confronting a problem greater than any other world leader has ever faced--the literal survival of his country and everyone in it. After bringing democracy to the Maldives after thirty years of despotic rule, Nasheed is now faced with an even greater challenge: as one of the most low-lying countries in the world, a rise of three feet in sea level would submerge the 1200 islands of the Maldives enough to make them uninhabitable. The Island President captures Nasheed's first year of office, culminating in his trip to the Copenhagen Climate Summit in 2009, where the film provides a rare glimpse of the political horse-trading that goes on at such a top-level global assembly. Nasheed is unusually candid about revealing his strategies--leveraging the Maldives' underdog position as a tiny country, harnessing the power of media, and overcoming deadlocks through an appeal to unity with other developing nations. When hope fades for a written accord to be signed, Nasheed makes a stirring speech which salvages an agreement. Despite the modest size of his country, Mohamed Nasheed has become one of the leading international voices for urgent action on climate change.

After leading the USSR to a gold medal (and victory over the U.S.A.) at the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, Sarunas Marciulionis and Arvydas Sabonis were poster boys for their oppressor's sports machine. Four years later, after the fall of the Soviet Union, they emerged as symbols of democracy, helping their country break free from the shackles of Communism, and willing newly independent Lithuania to the medal stand at the Barcelona Olympics. "The Other Dream Team" documents the Lithuanians' experiences behind the Iron Curtain for 50 years, where elite athletes were subjected to brutalities of Communist rule. As they hid from KGB agents and feared for their lives, Lithuania's basketball stars always shared a common goal--to utilize their athletic gifts to help free their country.

An urgent expose of the culture wars being fought within America's public school system, The Revisionaries is a behind-the-scenes look at the Texas State Board of Education's decade-defining conference on state textbook standards. As Texas is the country's single largest textbook buyer--and publishers are forced to re-write content to comply with their educational standards--the board's decisions have the ability to affect the future of American education.

Several stories of prostitution around the world focusing on the lives and individual hopes, needs and experiences of the women.

A Palestinian farmer's chronicle of his nonviolent resistance to the actions of the Israeli army.

Named by ArtReview as the most powerful artist in the world, Ai Weiwei is China's most celebrated contemporary artist, and its most outspoken domestic critic. In April 2011, when Ai disappeared into police custody for three months, he quickly became China's most famous missing person. First-time director Alison Klayman gained unprecedented access to the charismatic artist, as well as his family and others close to him, while working as a journalist in Beijing. In the years she filmed, government authorities shut down Ai's blog, beat him up, bulldozed his newly built studio, and held him in secret detention--while Time magazine named him a runner-up for 2011's Person of the Year.

Three contemporary American artists and a master printer help explain the dynamic sequences of social reality and protest. While their graphics sweep by, the making of an etching, a woodcut and a lithograph unfolds, as the contemporary artists join their illustrious predecessors in creating art of social engagement.

A look inside the world of Major League Baseball (MLB) training camps in the Dominican Republic. Miguel Angel and Jean Carlos are two of the top prospects at an MLB training camp, and they are both about to turn 16, which means they can be signed to an MLB farm team and ultimately move up to the majors.

Featuring Tony Hawk and directed by Stacy Peralta (Dogtown and Z-Boys), Bones Brigade: An Autobiography is a very personal story of a group of young, dorky, strait-laced American kids who did the impossible through a combination of work, skill, passion, and the belief that anything is possible: they succeeded in turning skateboarding from a fringe pastime to a thrilling action sport filled with extraordinary gravity-defying feats, and generated a billion dollar industry. The Bones Brigade was the team they formed that revolutionized not only their lives, but international popular culture as well.

Chronicles the 90-year-old icon - both onstage and off...past and present. The film is both an intimate love story and a rarefied journey inside Broadway's most glamorous era.

A documentary about pop music, spirituality and celebrity, Ben Lee: Catch my Disease is an acerbic, playful yet profoundly intimate portrait of a unique child pop star who stepped through the looking glass of fame.

Chely Wright: Wish Me Away is the story of Chely Wright, the first Nashville music star to come out as gay. Over three years, the filmmakers were given extraordinary access to Chely's struggle and her unfolding plan to come out publicly. Using interviews with Chely, her family, her pastor, and key players in the music world, alongside Chely's intimate private video diaries, the film goes deep into her back story as an established star and then forward as she steps into the national spotlight to reveal her secret. Chronicling the aftermath in Nashville and within the LGBT community, Chely Wright: Wish Me Away reveals both the devastation of her own internalized homophobia and the transformational power of living an authentic life.

Nobody noticed when thirty-eight year old Joyce Vincent died in her apartment above a shopping mall in North London in 2003. When her skeleton was discovered three years later, her television was still on. Newspaper reports offered few details of Joyce's life- not even a photograph. Who was Joyce Vincent? And how could this happen to someone in our day and age--the so-called age of communication? Dreams of a Life is Carol Morley's quest to discover who Joyce was and how she came to be so forgotten.

Does hell exist? If so, who ends up there, and why? Featuring an eclectic group of authors, theologians, pastors, social commentators and musicians, Hellbound? is a provocative, feature-length documentary that looks at why we are so bound to the idea of hell and how our beliefs about hell affect the world we are creating today.

The film traces the rise of one of the world’s premier architects, Norman Foster and his unending quest to improve the quality of life through design. Portrayed are Foster’s origins and how his dreams and influences inspired the design of emblematic projects such as the largest building in the world Beijing Airport, the Reichstag, the Hearst Building in New York and works such as the tallest bridge ever in Millau France.

The 100 year history of Israel's kibbutz movement. Can a radically socialist institution survive a new market-driven reality with its ideological integrity intact?

A raw touching portrait of cult metal legend Bobby Liebling, chronicling his bid to resurrect his life and career after decades wasting away in his parents' basement.

Over the past century more than 45,000 large dams have redefined river corridors around the globe with disastrous results. Descending the Baker River from the Northern Patagonia Ice Cap to its terminus at the Pacific Ocean, Patagonia Rising investigates a controversial plan to build five large hydroelectric dams in Chile's famed wilderness. Stopping off at Patagonia's most remote frontier ranches, this engaging story brings voice to the iconic South American cowboys, Gauchos, caught in the crossfire of future energy demands. Chile could become a leader in sustainable energy development, or it could continue down the road to squandering the pure watersheds of Patagonia.