1. Adolescence (Adolescence)
"This wonderful age in life where every thought strives toward an ideal, toward work, toward the future." Sahia Studios propaganda flick about how adults and their "those darn kids" attitudes affect adolescents.
It has an average vote of 6 on TMDB.
2. Abuelos (Abuelos)
A personal journey in search of two grandfathers: Remo, a self taught Ecuadorian doctor who wants to discover immortality, and Juan, communist militant who was assassinated during the Chilean military dictatorship in 1973. A granddaughter who grows between exile and a magical universe. Two stories, a close one and a buried one. Two dreams reflected in two landscapes: one with leafy mountains; the other, arid and deserted.
It has an average vote of 8 on TMDB.
3. The Man who Discovered Egypt
Ancient Egypt was vandalised by tomb raiders and treasure hunters until one Victorian adventurer took them on. Most of us have never heard of Flinders Petrie, but this maverick genius underook a scientific survey of the pyramids, discovered the oldest portraits in the world, unearthed Egypt's prehistoric roots - and in the process invented modern field archaeology, giving meaning to a whole civilisation.
It has an average vote of 6 on TMDB.
4. Angano... Angano... Tales from Madagascar (Angano... Angano... nouvelles de Madagascar)
Venerable storytellers recount for the camera and their listeners the founding myths of Malagasy culture.
It has an average vote of 5 on TMDB.
5. Kurosawa's Way (Kurosawa, la voie)
Eleven major film makers from Europe, America and Asia talk about Akira Kurosawa and discover surprising influences on their own work.
It has an average vote of 5.4 on TMDB.
6. Letters from Baghdad
Gertrude Bell, the most powerful woman in the British Empire in her day, shaped the destiny of Iraq after WWI in ways that still reverberate today.
It has an average vote of 6.9 on TMDB.
7. Further Beyond
In their debut documentary Christine Molloy and Joe Lawlor take as their point of departure the compelling 18th Century figure, Ambrose O'Higgins, and attempt to retrace his remarkable journey from Ireland to Chile.
It has an average vote of 5.7 on TMDB.
8. The Fountain
A filmmaker makes a film about a young woman who baths in a public fountain, casting herself in the role.
It has an average vote of 3 on TMDB.
9. Gringo: The Dangerous Life of John McAfee
The strange story of John McAfee, who went from millionaire software mogul to yogi, Kurtz-like jungle recluse to potential murderer, and most recently a prospective presidential candidate for the American Libertarian Party.
It has an average vote of 6.6 on TMDB.
10. Women and Water
The documentary tells four stories by drawing parallels between the cycles of water and the cycles of life. Its main characters belong to the most representative part of rural and urban Indian society
It has an average vote of 6 on TMDB.
11. Bastards
At 14 Rabha El Haimer was an illiterate child bride, beaten, raped and then rejected. Ten years later, she is a single mother, fighting to legalise her sham marriage and secure a future for her illegitimate daughter. With unprecedented access to the Moroccan justice system, “Bastards” follows Rabha’s fight from the Casablanca slums to the high courts.
It has an average vote of 5.5 on TMDB.
12. Passing Quietly Through
A blunt and human encounter between a nurse and an aging man.
13. Cycling the Frame
In 1988, Tilda Swinton toured round the Berlin Wall on a bicycle - starting and ending at the Brandenburg Gate - accompanied by filmmaker Cynthia Beatt. As Swinton travels through fields and historic neighborhoods, past lakes and massive concrete apartment buildings, the Wall is a constant presence.
It has an average vote of 7.1 on TMDB.
14. Research Project X-15
The X-15 was the last in a line of manned rocket-powered research airplanes built during the 1950s to explore ever-faster and higher flight regimes. Nineteen years before Space Shuttle, the X-15 showed it was possible to fly into, and out of, space. Launched from the wing of a modified B-52 bomber, the ship rocketed higher and faster than any manned aircraft of the time. There had never been anything like the X-15; it had a million-horsepower engine and could fly twice as fast as a rifle bullet. In the joint X-15 hypersonic research program that NASA conducted with the Air Force, the Navy, and North American Aviation the aircraft flew over a period of nearly 10 years and set unofficial speed and altitude records, in a program to investigate all aspects of piloted hypersonic flight. Information gained from the highly successful X-15 program contributed to the development of the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo piloted spaceflight programs as well as the Space Shuttle program.
15. Daughters of the Forest
A small group of girls in one of the most remote forests left on earth attend a radical high school where they learn to protect the threatened forest and forge a better future for themselves. Set in the untamed wilds of the Mbaracayu Reserve in rural Paraguay, this intimate verite documentary offers a rare glimpse of a disappearing world where timid girls grow into brave young women even as they are transformed by their unlikely friendships with one another.
16. Scar Tissue
Scar Tissue by Su Friedrich is a filmic version of a white canvas or a silent music piece.The fact that Friedrich never really shows the whole body, but rather plays off of body parts could be read as a desire to show less of the people on the screen, so that the viewer's reading can be generalized. If the "characters" existed as people, the images would inevitably read to be telling a story about these people. The legs and torsos do not signify people; it is the experience of these body parts and the rhythm with which they are portrayed that constitute the work.
17. Warrior of Light (Kriegerin des Lichts)
A feature-length documentary on Yvonne Bezerra de Mello, award-winning artist and human-rights activist who has gained international recognition for her work with street children in Rio. The film recounts how a woman turned her back on a wealthy lifestyle, driven into action by the execution of 8 streetkids by military police in 1993. In subsequent years Yvonne's struggle to better the lives of endangered and abandoned children has led her to found "Projeto Uere" a radical project committed to protection and education of kids who live in the streets and slums of Rio which has brought her into conflict with Brazil's wealthy elite.
18. The Pimp and His Trophies (Der Zuhälter und seine Trophäen)
(Der Zuhälter und seine Trophäen)
It has an average vote of 7 on TMDB.
19. Prisoners of War (Prigionieri della guerra)
This haunting film comprises of footage shot during WWI from opposite sides of the conflict: Czarist Russia and the Austro-Hungarian empire. The filmmakers tinted the material with sensual colors from sepia to red, blue, and purple and slowed the footage to analyze the material. The total absence of commentary renders the material eloquent and disturbing. - MoMA
It has an average vote of 6 on TMDB.
20. Lo specchio di Diana (Lo specchio di Diana)
In 1926 the remains of two ships built by the Emperor Caligula were found at the bottom of Lake Nemi, near Rome. Mussolini had the lake drained and established a museum as a celebration of the imperial origins of Fascism, but the museum and ships were destroyed by fleeing Nazis in 1944. The film commemorates these events. - MoMA
It has an average vote of 6.2 on TMDB.
