Browse Movies : 2012 : NR (Page #3)

For the young dancers at the Youth America Grand Prix, one of the world's most prestigious ballet competitions, lifelong dreams are at stake. With hundreds competing for a handful of elite scholarships and contracts, practice and discipline are paramount, and nothing short of perfection is expected. Bess Kargman's documentary, First Position, follows six young dancers as they prepare for a chance to enter the world of professional ballet, struggling through bloodied feet, near exhaustion and debilitating injuries all while navigating the drama of adolescence.

When Nirvana burst onto the scene in 1991, the music they played spoke directly to an angry and disenfranchised generation. Grunge took over MTV and radio overnight… but just three years later, the drug-related deaths of several musicians and the suicide of Kurt Cobain closed the books on an all too brief era. Patty Schemel, the acclaimed drummer for Courtney Love's seminal rock band Hole, was in the middle of all of it. The openly gay woman who always felt different never dreamed she would be in a multi-platinum band, touring with legends… or that, thanks to drug addiction, she could lose it all. Given a video camera just before Hole's infamous Live Through This world tour, Patty filmed everything the shows, the parties, and startlingly intimate footage of Kurt and Courtney. This footage has never been seen... until now.

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.

Margaret Atwood's Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth is the basis for this documentary on "debt" in its various forms--societal, personal, environmental, spiritual, criminal, and of course, economic. Filmmaker Jennifer Baichwal (Manufactured Landscapes) strikingly interweaves these (sometimes surprising) debtor/creditor relationships: two families in a years-long Albanian blood feud; the BP oil spill vs. the Earth; mistreated Florida tomato farm workers and their bosses; imprisoned media mogul Conrad Black and the U.S. justice system.

This darkly comic, genre-bending piece of journalism from international provocateur Mads Brugger rips the corroded lid off the global scheme of political corruption and exploitation happening in one of the most dangerous places on the planet: the Central African Republic. Armed with a phalanx of hidden cameras, black-marked diplomatic credentials and a bleeding-edge wit, Bruegger transforms himself into an outlandish caricature of a European-African Consul. As he immerses himself in the life-threatening underworld of nefarious bureaucrats, Bruegger encounters blood diamond smuggling, bribery, and even murder--while somehow managing to crack amazing razor-sharp barbs at every steps along the way.

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.

ilmed in more than twenty states, The House I Live In captures heart-wrenching stories from individuals at all levels of America's War on Drugs. From the dealer to the grieving mother, the narcotics officer to the senator, the inmate to the federal judge, the film offers a penetrating look inside America's longest war, offering a definitive portrait and revealing its profound human rights implications.

The journey of the tragically star-crossed Noah and Emily who are linked by a rare psychological disorder classified as ICD-10 F24, madness of two.

A 18-year-old prodigy painter, suffering from bipolar disorder, needs to come up with an art show to end all art shows, but when he meets a group of artist-anarchists, his world turns upside down.

LACHLAN MacALDONICH (Robert Carlyle) is former Britpop rocker who has settled into a comfortably numb existence in farm country just outside Los Angeles. By day, he works on an organic farm and travels regularly to the city's farmers' markets to sell produce. By night, he retreats to his crummy apartment to record "Flame-Outs," his podcast that recounts the tragic deaths of great musicians. The only spark in his humdrum existence is BEAU (Alexia Rasmussen), a lovely struggling actress and amateur chef who frequents the Silver Lake farmers' market. One night, Lachlan gets pulled over for a DUI, a charge that dredges up his past drug offense and threatens him with deportation. Lachlan's only hope of staying in the U.S. is proving that his removal would cause "extreme hardship" to a U.S. citizen spouse or relative. Lachlan contacts his estranged ex-wife and daughter, raising past demons that he must finally confront.

In central China, a Master coach recruits poor rural teenagers and turns them into Western-style boxing champions. Through hard work and discipline, these boys and girls come of age, trained in the art of boxing and the game of life. They are filled with Olympic dreams, hoping to become China's next amateur heroes. But the pull of professionalism also weighs upon their shoulders. Their coach hopes to show them the way. The top student boxers face dramatic choices as they graduate--should they fight for the collective good as amateurs or for themselves and their own personal gain as professionals? It's a metaphor for the choices that everyone faces now, in the New China.

A documentary feature that pointedly confronts the most urgent problem facing America today – its increasingly destructive economic trade relationship with a rapidly rising China. Since China began flooding U.S. markets with illegally subsidized products in 2001, over 50,000 American factories have disappeared, more than 25 million Americans can’t find a decent job, and America now owes more than 3 trillion dollars to the world’s largest totalitarian nation. Through compelling interviews with voices across the political spectrum, Death by China exposes that the U.S.-China relationship is broken and must be fixed if the world is going to be a place of peace and prosperity.

Follows a new couple, Romeo (Jeremie Elkaim) and Juliette (Valerie Donzelli), who must face the ultimate test when they discover their newborn child is very ill. Gathering their friends and family together, they confront the ordeal together as a form of warfare.

Eleven veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan join an expedition to climb the 20,000 foot Himalayan giant Mount Lobuche. With blind adventurer Erik Weihenmayer and a team of Everest summiters as their guides, they set out on an emotional and gripping climb to reach the top in an attempt to heal the emotional and physical wounds of the longest war in U.S. history.

Thirty-four-year-old Anders (Anders Danielsen Lie) is a fortunate, but deeply troubled man battling drug addiction. As part of his rehabilitation program, he is allowed to go into the city for a job interview, but instead uses the opportunity as a way to drift around and revisit old friends. The day grows increasingly difficult as he struggles to overcome personal demons and past ghosts for the chance at love and a new life.

The ubiquitous pink ribbons of breast cancer philanthropy--and the hand-in-hand marketing of brands and products associated with that philanthropy--permeates our culture, providing assurance that we are engaged in a successful battle against this insidious disease. But the campaign obscures the reality and facts of breast cancer: more and more women are diagnosed with breast cancer every year, and they face the same treatment options they did 40 years ago. Yet women also are the most influential market group, buying 80 percent of consumer products and making most major household purchasing decisions. So then who really benefits from the pink ribbon campaigns - the cause or the company? And what if the very companies and products that profit from their association have actually contributed to the problem?

Francis is a successful crime writer who moves to Venice to work on his next novel. When he meets model-turned-real-estate-agent Judith, he is instantly infatuated. Francis and Judith eventually marry and move to a remote house on Torcello Island, but Francis' newfound happiness hinders his writing. Obsessing over what Judith does while at work, he hires a young ex-convict to investigate. As Judith's sexual past is revealed both men become increasing fixated on the mysterious woman.

Wake in Fright is the story of John Grant (Gary Bond), a bonded teacher who arrives in the rough Australian outback mining town of Bundanyabba, planning to stay overnight before catching the plane to Sydney. But, as his one night stretches to five, he plunges headlong toward his own destruction. When the alcohol-induced mist lifts, the educated John Grant is no more. Instead there is a self-loathing man in a desolate wasteland, dirty, red-eyed, sitting against a tree and looking at a rifle with one bullet left.

Follows the story of Melville, a cardinal who suddenly finds himself elected as the next Pope. Never the front runner and completely caught off guard, he panics as he's presented to the faithful in St. Peter's Square. To prevent a world wide crisis, the Vatican's spokesman calls in an unlikely psychiatrist who is neither religious or all that committed, played by Moretti, to find out what is wrong with the new Pope. As the world nervously waits outside, inside the therapist tries to find a solution. But Cardinal Melville is adamant: he does not want the job, or at least needs time to think it over. What follows is a marvelous insight into the concept of a human being existing behind the title of God's representative on Earth.