Browse Movies : 2012 : Documentary

A first-ever big-screen look at the international superstar’s life both on and off stage.

Starting with a searing examination of the police investigation into the 1993 murders of three, eight year old boys Christopher Byers, Steven Branch and Michael Moore in the small town of West Memphis, Arkansas, the film reveals the story from the inside. West of Memphis uncovers new evidence surrounding the arrest and conviction of the other three victims of this shocking crime – Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley; all three of whom were teenagers at the time of their arrests and all three of whom were imprisoned for crimes they did not commit.

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.

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

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.

Despite a lack of obvious similarities between Siberia and Tokyo, a thriving model industry connects these distant regions. Girl Model follows two protagonists involved in this industry: Ashley, a deeply ambivalent model scout who scours the Siberian countryside looking for fresh faces to send to the Japanese market, and one of her discoveries, Nadya, a 13-year-old plucked from her rustic home in Russia and dropped into the center of bustling Tokyo with promises of a profitable career. After Ashley's initial discovery of Nadya, they rarely meet again, but their stories are inextricably bound. As Nadya's optimism about rescuing her family from financial hardship grows, her dreams contrast against Ashley's more jaded outlook about the industry's corrosive influence.

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.

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.

2016 Obama's America takes audiences on a journey into the heart of the world’s most powerful office to reveal the struggle of whether one man's past will redefine America over the next four years. The film examines the question, "If Obama wins a second term, where will we be in 2016?"

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.

The film showcases the richness of Mexican music both young and old, from traditional music to pop rock and rap blended with interviews from Diego Luna, Lila Downs and many more leading personalities.

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 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.

Kumare is a wise guru from the East who indoctrinated a group of followers in the West. Kumare, however, is not real--he is the alter ego of American filmmaker Vikram Gandhi, who impersonated a spiritual leader for the sake of a social experiment designed to challenge one of the most widely accepted taboos: that only a tiny "1%" can connect the rest of the world to a higher power. Concealing his true identity from everyone he meets, Kumare forges profound and spiritual connections with people from all walks of life. At the same time, in the absurdity of living as an entirely different person, Vikram, the filmmaker, is forced to confront difficult questions about his own identity. At the height of his popularity, Kumare unveils his true identity to a core group of disciples who are knee-deep in personal transformation.

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.

Join Keanu Reeves on a tour of the past and the future of filmmaking in Side by Side. Since the invention of cinema, the standard format for recording moving images has been film. Over the past two decades, a new form of digital filmmaking has emerged, creating a groundbreaking evolution in the medium. Reeves explores the development of cinema and the impact of digital filmmaking via in-depth interviews with Hollywood masters, such as James Cameron, David Fincher, David Lynch, Christopher Nolan, Martin Scorsese, George Lucas, Steven Soderbergh, and many more.

Puts a very human face on the debate around health care by taking us behind the doors of Oakland's Highland Hospital, a safety-net hospital fighting for survival while weathering the storm of a persistent economic downturn. The film, employing a composite day-in-the-life structure offers a raw, intimate, and often uplifting look at how patients, staff and caregivers cope with disease, bureaucracy, frustration, hope and hard choices.

Just days before Bernard Madoff captured headlines as the largest Ponzi schemer in U.S. history, Marc Dreier, a prominent Manhattan attorney, was arrested for orchestrating a massive fraud scheme that netted hundreds of millions of dollars from hedge funds. Brazen forgeries and impersonations branded the white collar crime spree remarkable. "Unraveled" is set in the purgatory of house arrest -- an Upper East Side penthouse -- where the Court has ordered Dreier confined until his sentencing day. The film weaves Dreier's struggle to prepare for the possibility of life imprisonment with first-person flashbacks, which reveal his audacious path of destruction. Destroyed by his own hubris, Dreier attempts to grasp his tragic unraveling. With unprecedented access, "Unraveled" exposes a mastermind of criminal deception.