Grasshopper Film (Firm)
Description
The incredible true story of Reality Winner in her own words. Filmed over five years, this is the only documentary about the young NSA whistleblower who exposed Russian interference in U.S. elections and went to jail for it. With exclusive access to Reality Winner and the media outlet involved in her arrest, this film also reveals FBI evidence never before released. Would you risk your freedom to protect democracy?
Description
A Mexican-American teenage farmworker dreams of graduating high school. When ICE raids her community, it threatens to separate her family and forces her to become her family's breadwinner. FRUITS OF LABOR is a lyrical, coming-of-age documentary feature about adolescence, nature and how ancestors paved the way. Director Emily Cohen Ibáñez documents life guided by the spirit world through her hardships and joys in modern America.
Description
Henry Glassie has made a life out of studying folk artists and the marvels they create. Over the past 50 years, the renown US scholar has travelled to five continents, conducting fieldwork with an obsessive thoroughnes. Each project Glassie undertakes requires at least a decade. Brimming with insights into the artistic impulse—and how every culture manifests its own standard of beauty and meaning—this poetic portrait of Glassie doubles as a travelogue,...
Description
His profile takes us inside the life, struggles, philosophy and humor of a man who credits his success to the deliciousness of peanut butter. Featuring delightful animated interludes and interviews from colleagues, editors and his nine children, this look at Stevenson’s life - who is also a noted writer of children's books and a columnist for The New York Times - is a testament to observing the world from an original perspective.
Description
A stirring and beautiful documentary from Academy Award-nominated director James Longley (Iraq in Fragments), Angels Are Made of Light traces the lives of young students and their teachers at a school in the old city of Kabul. Interweaving the modern history of Afghanistan with present-day portraits, the film offers an intimate and nuanced vision of a society living in the shadow of war.
Description
Written and directed by Ukranian filmmaker Alisa Kovalenko, We Will Not Fade Away is a tender and emotional multi-portrait of five Ukrainian teenagers, trapped in the war zone in Donbas, who dream of freedom and discovering the world outside. Andriy, Lisa, Ruslan, Lera and Illia grew up in small coal mining towns, right on the front line. They fight against the boredom and the multiple frustrations of finding out who you are.
9) The broker
Description
Inside this traditional Iranian dating agency, the manager, Mrs. Sadri, and her female employees are determined to find their clients a husband regardless of their personal feelings or preferences.
Description
From the makers of Gaza, and executive produced by Hillary and Chelsea Clinton, this documentary penetrates deep below the surface of Beirut, a still beautiful, yet deeply troubled city on the brink of financial collapse. Through intimate, character driven storytelling, the stark reality of life for the protagonists of the film is symbolic of the hundreds of thousands of others who fight for survival in the most diverse country in the Middle East....
11) Hamtramck, USA
Description
Once a city that was 90% Polish, Hamtramck became the first Muslim majority city in America. Now, this new wave of immigrants aim to gain representation in city hall. HAMTRAMCK, USA follows Kamal Rahman, a Bangladeshi candidate for Mayor, Fadel al-Marsoumi, a 23 year old Iraqi immigrant running for City Council, as well as the current mayor, Karen Majewski, Hamtramck’s first female mayor in the city's 100 year lineage of Polish mayors. Throughout...
Description
For 18 months Pacho Velez and Courtney Stephens traveled the US to document sections of the wall that are on display in over 75 locations, ranging from the serious (Fort Benning) to the bizarre (Main Street Station Casino in Las Vegas) and even the campus of nearby Capital University. Along the way, interviews with unusual characters who own, maintain, and interact with pieces of the wall offer a window into American culture, and through the film...
16) Union
Description
Through intimate cinema vérité, UNION chronicles the extraordinary efforts of an unlikely group of warehouse workers as they launch a grassroots union campaign at an Amazon fulfillment center in Staten Island, New York. Led by the charismatic but underestimated Chris Smalls, the diverse band of workers start the Amazon Labor Union (ALU) and embark on a journey against one of the largest and most powerful companies in the world.
17) Sweetgrass
Description
Lawrence Allestad and family were among the last of the traditional sheepherders of the American West. Under a public grazing permit that had been handed down in his Norwegian-American family for generations, Allestad was the final rancher to drive his herds into Montana's rugged Absaroka-Beartooth range north of Yellowstone to fatten on sweet summer grass. The family members and their hired hands conducted the drives much as their pioneer forebears...
18) Kwaku Ananse
Description
Drawing upon the rich mythology of Ghana, this magical short film combines semi-autobiographical elements with local folklore to tell the story of a young American woman who returns to West Africa for her father’s funeral, only to discover his hidden double identity.
Description
DEVIL PUT THE COAL IN THE GROUND is a holistic look at the suffering and devastation brought on by the coal industry and its decline, and a cautionary tale of the ravages of extractive industry and corporate power, as it has affected the people, communities and the environment of West Virginia. Consciously eschewing exploitative filmmaking around the opioid epidemic or poverty, the film focuses on its people – all linked by the love of their home...
Description
""In 1946, my great-grandfather murdered a black man named Bill Spann and got away with it." So begins Travis Wilkerson's critically-acclaimed, immensely powerful documentary, which takes us on a journey through the American South to uncover the truth behind a horrific incident and the societal mores that allowed it to happen." -- Container.

