A blending of documentary and experimental narrative strategies, combining stunning 16mm landscape cinematography with a bold, lyrical voice-over to share two San Francisco stories: the history of the Golden Gate Bridge as "suicide landmark," and the story of a butch dyke in San Francisco searching for love and self-discovery. The Joy of Life is a film about landscapes, both physical and emotional.

In 2001, Andrew Bagby, a medical resident, is murdered not long after breaking up with his girlfriend. Soon after, when she announces she's pregnant, one of Andrew's many close friends, Kurt Kuenne, begins this film, a gift to the child. Friends, relatives, and colleagues say warm and loving things about Andrew, home movies confirm his exuberance. Andrew's parents, Kathleen and David, move to Newfoundland, Canada where the ex-girlfriend has gone. They await an arrest and trial of the murderer. They negotiate with the ex-girlfriend to visit their grandchild, Zachary, and they seek custody. Is there any justice; is Zachary a sweet and innocent consolation for the loss of their son?

2008 American documentary film directed by Kurt Kuenne

In old Betamax footage, the Polish-American artist Stanislav Szukalski (1893-1987) speaks animatedly about his life and work. Art aficionado Glenn Bray filmed his elderly friend in the last years of his life to document his remarkable career and personality before it was too late. In this wide-ranging portrait, Bray explains how he met Szukalski by chance in 1971 when he came across one of his expressionist drawings and discovered that its maker lived only a few miles away from him. The man leading a modest, anonymous life in Burbank, California turned out to have been a well-known avant-garde artist in Chicago and pre-war Poland. Szukalski created a mythology entirely of his own in his drawings and paintings, as well as an extensive manuscript. After his return to the United States, a group of artists and art lovers gathered around Szukalski, among them George DiCaprio and his son Leonardo, who jointly produced this documentary. The interviews and archive footage tell the extraordinary life story of a man who seemed to have been born for great things, but who lost virtually all his artwork in the Second World War. His past also includes a dark chapter that the filmmakers didn't discover until their documentary was in production.

2018 documentary film by Ireneusz Dobrowolski

Without words, cameras show us the world, with an emphasis not on "where," but on "what's there." It begins with morning, natural landscapes and people at prayer: volcanoes, water falls, veldts, and forests; several hundred Balinese Hindu men perform kecak, the monkey chant. Indigenous peoples apply body paint; whole villages dance. The film moves to destruction of nature via logging, blasting, and strip mining. Images of poverty, rapid urban life, and factories give way to war, concentration camps, and mass graves. Ancient ruins come into view, and then a sacred river where pilgrims bathe and funeral pyres burn. Prayer and nature return. A monk rings a huge bell; stars wheel across the sky.

A group of citizens in West Virginia challenges a powerful corporation to be more environmentally responsible.

The film begins with the idea that 25 percent of the people in the world who are incarcerated are incarcerated in the U.S. Although the U.S. has just 5% of the world's population. "13th" charts the explosive growth in America's prison population; in 1970, there were about 200,000 prisoners; today, the prison population is more than 2 million. The documentary touches on chattel slavery; D. W. Griffith's film "The Birth of a Nation"; Emmett Till; the civil rights movement; the Civil Rights Act of 1964; Richard M. Nixon; and Ronald Reagan's declaration of the war on drugs and much more.

Notorious killer whale Tilikum is responsible for the deaths of three individuals, including a top killer whale trainer. Blackfish shows the sometimes devastating consequences of keeping such intelligent and sentient creatures in captivity.

2013 documentary film by Gabriela Cowperthwaite

With aerial footage from fifty-four countries, 'Home' is a depiction of how Earth's problems are all interlinked.

2009 documentary film directed by Yann Arthus-Bertrand

What do you get when you ask the people of the world to chronicle a single day in their lives? You get 80,000 submissions, 4500 hours of footage, from 192 countries. Kevin Macdonald has taken this raw material, all shot on July 24, 2010, and created a 90-minute paean to what it means to be human in the world today.

2011 crowdsourced drama/documentary film directed by Kevin Macdonald

2008 documentary film directed by James Marsh

Juan lives a solitary existence on a remote farm ever since he witnessed a UFO event. Filmmaker Alan Stivelman -together with the help of famous astrophysicist Jacques Vallée- begin an epic journey to help Juan in understanding the deep meaning of his close encounter. This true story shows the long-term consequences of close encounters, proving that no one is exempt from a potential contact.

This is a story about clothing. It's about the clothes we wear, the people who make them, and the impact the industry is having on our world. The price of clothing has been decreasing for decades, while the human and environmental costs have grown dramatically. The True Cost is a groundbreaking documentary film that pulls back the curtain on the untold story and asks us to consider, who really pays the price for our clothing?

The World's largest environmental organizations are failing to address the single most destructive force facing the planet today. Follow the shocking, yet humorous, journey of an aspiring environmentalist, as he daringly seeks to find the real solution to the most pressing environmental issues and true path to sustainability.

2014 documentary film exploring the impact of animal agriculture on the environment.

This film gathers information from many sources and puts it together in a way that shows it is possible for people to be manipulated by large institutions, governments and economic powers. It is divided into 3 parts. 1. Religion: Pagan astrological beliefs compared to modern and ancient religions. (9:35-35:53) 2. 9/11: An overview of the numerous questionable aspects of this immensely important event. (35:54-1:09:16) 3. The Federal Reserve Bank: A history of its formation and ability to control the economy. (1:09:17-1:56:23) With many news clips from tragic events in history, audio excerpts from those who believe people are being misled about the level of freedom they have.

Using hidden cameras and never-before-seen footage, Earthlings chronicles the day-to-day practices of the largest industries in the world, all of which rely entirely on animals for profit.

Upending the conventional wisdom of why we gain weight and how to lose it, Fed Up unearths a dirty secret of the American food industry-far more of us get sick from what we eat than anyone has previously realized. Filmmaker Stephanie Soechtig and TV journalist Katie Couric lead us through this potent exposé that uncovers why-despite media attention, the public's fascination with appearance, and government policies to combat childhood obesity-generations of American children will now live shorter lives than their parents did.

documentaries

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