1. Unknown Soldier: Searching for a Father
From HBO's "America Undercover." On June 30, 1969, Lt. Jack Hulme was killed in Vietnam, having never met his newborn son. Thirty years later, filmmaker John Hulme finally seeks out what happened to his father, and who he really was. From family members and childhood friends to the soldiers who fought beside him, John tracks down everyone, chasing his fathers ghost across the country. What he discovers is a life that mirrored a generations struggles...husbands vs. wives, soldiers vs. protestors, America vs. Vietnam. But he also finds wounds that are painfully fresh, especially his mothers. Together, using the accounts of first-hand witnesses, they travel back to Vietnam, to the place where Jack spent the last few moments of his life so they can finally come to terms with his death.
It has an average vote of 9 on TMDB.
2. While You're Still You (Mientras seas tú)
After 50 years in theatre, film and television, Carme Elias is diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease. Together with Claudia Pinto, a director and friend, they decide to record her last conscious voyage. The characters played by Carme accompany this difficult period, while the borders between fiction and reality disappear. While You're Still You is a constant game of mirrors, a pact of love and friendship.
It has an average vote of 7 on TMDB.
3. Prayer for a Lost Mitten (Prière pour une mitaine perdue)
The night is falling and Montreal is under the snow. People line up at the lost and found office of the city’s transit company. They all have lost something, which, upon reflection, becomes the symbol of a deeper loss. Prayer for a Lost Mitten is a creative documentary by turns melancholic and festive, yet ever compassionate. A film that helps us get through the winter.
4. The Future Tense
Staged as a series of voiceover sessions, written with gloriously off-balanced precision and dipped in the color green, THE FUTURE TENSE unfolds as a poignant tale of tales, exploring the filmmakers’ own experiences in aging, parenting, mental illness, along with the brutal history that lies submerged beneath Ireland’s heavy, moist earth.
It has an average vote of 6.7 on TMDB.
5. L'Épopée des gueules noires (L'Épopée des gueules noires)
(L'Épopée des gueules noires)
It has an average vote of 8 on TMDB.
6. Papa s'en va (Papa s'en va)
Pauline Horovitz has been filming her father since 2009. In this new chapter with hints of a bittersweet documentary comedy, the hero, a former doctor “programmed” to work, takes advantage of his retirement to become an actor. Following the first steps of this liberating new life, the daughter-filmmaker watches her “creature” escape her…
7. Peace of Mind
The story of Christina Lau and her relationship with her parents as she recounts the happy and traumatic memories of her childhood and adolescence. She shares the ways in which the tragic demise of her father and mother have affected her and shaped who she is today. Her story is powerful, tragic, and demonstrates the importance of strong family ties when overcoming hardship. The documentary is directed by her eldest daughter, Robyn Mae, and includes stunning animations created by her youngest daughter, Tammy-Ann.
8. Mechanical (Maquinal)
Memory is a ghost. Lucio, a printing press worker, takes one last walk around the machines with whom he shared everything. He remembers when his mechanisms used to move and through that mechanical movement he reflects about his own life.
9. Aranzazú, a memory of ruins (Aranzazú, un recuerdo de ruinas)
The celebration of a city is held every year and nostalgia is the main guest. Around the city there is nothing but ruins and in the distance, four men walk the streets of a city that was once great.
10. All My Fathers (Alle meine Väter)
Jan's father is not his father at all. The directors knows this and takes this fact as the starting point for a very personal documentary film project about the search for his biological father.
11. Lenin kam nur bis Lüdenscheid - Meine kleine deutsche Revolution (Lenin kam nur bis Lüdenscheid - Meine kleine deutsche Revolution)
(Lenin kam nur bis Lüdenscheid - Meine kleine deutsche Revolution)
It has an average vote of 7 on TMDB.
12. Mudder's Hands
A dash of youth, a pinch of age, and an unrecorded recipe: Mudder's Hands is a charming documentary conversation about arthritis, centered around the tradition of baking Newfoundland raisin bread.
13. 81.92
"A l likeness is a gift... it avoids... or confuses time if your prefer." said John Berger. Following this premise, 81.92 is a structuralist inquiry into the notion of presence and absence as it reveals archival radio broadcasts from former Montreal radio host Mike Wolkow. The former is left invisible while the later seeks to find the missing elements that trace the passage of this vocal presence. Past and present interplay in this piece that shifts between epochs, thus mimicking a radio signal that is being tuned in.
14. The Last Daughter
Brenda’s first memories were of growing up in a loving white foster family, before she was suddenly taken away and returned to her Aboriginal family. Decades later, she feels disconnected from both halves of her life, so she goes searching for the foster family with whom she had lost contact. Along the way she uncovers long-buried secrets, government lies, and the possibility of deeper connections to family and culture.
15. Minha Porto Alegre '50 (Minha Porto Alegre '50)
(Minha Porto Alegre '50)
16. Tongue (Tongue)
Tracing the life of activist Costis Achniotis, the film develops within the history of the Cypriot radical Left and the bicommunal movement for reunification. In parallel quests between the past and present and with an auto-ethnographic approach, the filmmakers bring together personal artifacts, new and archival material, exploring the dialectics and poetics of the ethnic clash and division in Cyprus.
17. I forgive you, Mama
Maya is Ayaibex's daughter, an addict in recovery that feels a blame for damages that caused her daughter, Maya decides to remember her mother's childhood experiences in her world of addiction to seek the redemption of the weight that her mother has loaded for 20 years and get both to forgiveness.
18. My Uncle Manolo (Mi Tío Manolo)
Focused on the experiences of Manuel "Manolo" Díaz Caballero, who was a local police officer in Malaga for more than 30 years, his memories of those years are the subject of this documentary.
It has an average vote of 7.3 on TMDB.
19. The Magical Life of Long Tack Sam
Long Tack Sam was an internationally renowned Chinese acrobat and magician. He overcame isolation, poverty, cultural and linguistic barriers, extreme racism and world wars to become one of the most successful vaudeville acts of his time. His showmanship was unrivalled, yet he refused to appear in movies because of the way Chinese were portrayed at the time. A celebration of the spirit of Long Tack Sam's magic and art, this richly textured first person road movie is an exhilarating testament to his legacy and a prismatic tour through the 20th Century. It all begins in a small village in China...</p><p> https://www.nfb.ca/film/the_magical_life_of_long_tack_sam/
20. Kelly (Kelly)
(Kelly)
