Browse Movies : 2012 : Documentary

Richard Garriott's quest to become the first second-generation astronaut, from making his fortune to spending $30 million to reach the International Space Station via Russian rocket.

Told from Harry’s point of view, the film charts his life from a boy born in New York and raised in Jamaica, who returns to Harlem in his early teens where he discovers the American Negro Theater and the magic of performing.

A documentary that looks behind the curtain on Le Crazy Horse de Paris, a landmark that has prided itself as "the best nude dancing show in the world" since 1951.

Ian Cheney moves from Maine to New York City and discovers an urban sky almost completely devoid of stars. The film poses a deceptively simple question, "What do we lose, when we lose the night?" and leads viewers on a quest to understand how light pollution affects people and the planet.

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.

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 people of Meredith, in upstate New York, deal with a wind developer that promised to supplement the rural farm town's failing economy with 40 industrial wind turbines.

Features interviews with people who knew Bruce intimately, along with a broad array of international icons from the entertainment and athletic fields combined with rarely seen archival footage and classic photos.

Nashi is an increasingly popular political youth organization with direct ties to The Kremlin. Officially, its goal is to support the current political system by creating a future elite among the brightest and most loyal Russian teenagers. But their agenda is also to keep the political opposition from spreading their views among the Russians.

Set in the inner-city of Memphis, Undefeated chronicles the Manassas Tigers' 2009 football season, on and off-the-field, as they strive to win the first playoff game in the high school's 110-year history. A perennial whipping boy, in recent decades Manassas had gone so far as to sell their home games to the highest bidder, but that all changed in the spring of 2004 when Bill Courtney, a former high school football coach turned lumber salesman, volunteered to lend a hand. When he arrived, the team consisted of 17 players, some timeworn equipment and a patch of grass masquerading as a practice field. Focusing more on winning young men than football games, the football program nevertheless began resurrecting itself and, in 2009, features the most talented team Manassas has ever fielded; a team that seems poised to end the playoff jinx that has plagued the school since time immemorial.

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 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.

The story of 85 year-old Jiro Ono, considered by many to be the world's greatest sushi chef. He is the proprietor of Sukiyabashi Jiro, a 10-seat, sushi-only restaurant inauspiciously located in a Tokyo subway station. Despite its humble appearances, it is the first restaurant of its kind to be awarded a prestigious 3 star Michelin review, and sushi lovers from around the globe make repeated pilgrimage, calling months in advance and shelling out top dollar for a coveted seat at Jiro's sushi bar. For most of his life, Jiro has been mastering the art of making sushi, but even at his age he sees himself still striving for perfection, working from sunrise to well beyond sunset to taste every piece of fish; meticulously train his employees; and carefully mold and finesse the impeccable presentation of each sushi creation. At the heart of this story is Jiro's relationship with his eldest son Yoshikazu, the worthy heir to Jiro's legacy, who is unable to live up to his full potential in his father's shadow.

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.

Following five kids and families over the course of a school year, the film confronts bullying’s most tragic outcomes, including the stories of two families who’ve lost children to suicide and a mother who waits to learn the fate of her 14 –year-old daughter, incarcerated after bringing a gun on her school bus. With rare access to the Sioux City Community School District, the film also gives an intimate glimpse into school busses, classrooms, cafeterias and even principles offices, offering insight into the often-cruel world of children, as teachers, administrators and parents struggle to find answers.

The legacy of the American Beats in Paris during the heady years between 1957 and 1963, when Allen Ginsberg, Peter Orlovsky and Gregory Corso fled the obscenity trials in the United States surrounding the publication of Ginsberg’s poem Howl. They took refuge in a cheap no-name hotel they had heard about at 9, Rue Git le Coeur and were soon joined by William Burroughs, Ian Somerville, Brion Gysin, and others from England and elsewhere in Europe, seeking out the freedom that the Latin Quarter of Paris might provide.

A feature documentary that will follow seven people from around the world as they travel to Comic-Con in San Diego.

Follows Half-a-Mill and his Brooklyn crew, The Godfia Criminals, as they struggle to launch Milion, in an effort to attain money, success and recognition through music.

In this world of wonders there are still places that have not been smoothed over with the shallow surfaces of Western commercialism. This film is a personal Valentine to a life filled with amazing, exotic, beautiful and fearsome places for the world. The amazing thing is not just the visual demonstration of how fleeting life is, but a meditation on how the decisions that seem momentous on our time scale are flickering snapshots of life on this planet, too small to be observed by most. Somehow the music combined with technology becomes a personal experience that makes the earth and its inhabitants seem touchingly fragile and full of wonder.

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.