1. Dykes, Camera, Action!
The film examines the ways that women directors have contributed to this genre and emphasizes the role that the media play in representation of sexuality and gender, underscoring the power that film has to shape our perceptions of one another. Visually, this documentary comes to life on screen through compelling and intimate original interviews, intercut with emotionally-charged archival footage, photographs, ephemera, inspired music, and film clips.
It has an average vote of 0.5 on TMDB.
2. Los Andes Symphony Orchestra (La Sinfónica de los Andes)
The North of Cauca is the region of Colombia most affected by the internal armed conflict since 1940. There is an orchestra of ancestral music composed of young indigenous people of the Nasa ethnic group who, with their instruments, their voice and their poetry, remember Maryi Vanessa Coicue, Sebastian Ul and Ingrid Guejia, three of the hundreds of indigenous children who have died because of this eternal and useless war between leftist guerrillas, armed groups of the extreme right, drug traffickers and the Colombian State.
3. The Feminist on Cellblock Y
A convicted felon builds a feminist movement from behind bars at an all-male prison in Soledad, California.
It has an average vote of 10 on TMDB.
4. Without Getting Killed or Caught
Follow Guy Clark, Susanna Clark, and Townes Van Zandt as they rise from obscurity to reverence: Guy, the Pancho to Van Zandt’s Lefty, struggling to establish himself as the Dylan Thomas of American music, while Susanna pens hit songs and paints album covers for top artists, and Townes spirals in self-destruction after writing some of Americana music’s most enduring and influential ballads.
5. In the Land of Wolves
A portrait of a small Georgian village filmed across the seasons, that focuses on family intricacies and working the land in a timeless place of transience and refuge.
It has an average vote of 5 on TMDB.
6. China Love
A fascinating exploration of contemporary China through the pre-wedding photography industry – a billion-dollar fantasy world.
It has an average vote of 5.7 on TMDB.
7. De cendres et de braises (De cendres et de braises)
The poetic and political portrait of a working-class suburb undergoing transformation, "De Cendres et de Braises" invites us to listen to the words of the inhabitants of the Mureaux housing project, near the Renault-Flins factory. Whether they are gentle, rebellious, or sung at the foot of the project's tower blocks, at the factory entrance, or beside a fire, these words take us through the night until a new day rises.
It has an average vote of 6.1 on TMDB.
8. Long Time Comin'
There is a cultural revolution going on in Canada and Faith Nolan and Grace Channer are on the leading edge. These two African-Canadian lesbian artists give back to art its most urgent meanings--commitment and passion. Grace Channer's large and sensuous canvasses and musician Faith Nolan's gritty and joyous blues propel this documentary into the spheres of poetry and dance. Long Time Comin' captures their work, their urgency, and their friendship in intimate conversations with both artists.
It has an average vote of 3 on TMDB.
9. Untold: Deal with the Devil
Christy Martin broke boundaries and noses as she rose in the boxing world, but her public persona belied personal demons, abuse and a threat on her life.
It has an average vote of 6.9 on TMDB.
10. Untold: Caitlyn Jenner
Caitlyn Jenner's unlikely path to Olympic glory was inspirational. But her more challenging road to embracing her true self proved even more meaningful.
It has an average vote of 6.5 on TMDB.
11. MonaLisa Story
"I was born stoned". The words come from MonaLisa, who's struggling to put the heroin on the shelf. Documentary filmmaker Jessica Nettelbladt has followed the long-suffering, but far from broken, MonaLisa for eight years. The result is as honest as the raw film about a woman's struggle with herself and the world.
It has an average vote of 6.3 on TMDB.
12. Born Sweet
Arsenic-laced water has poisoned a 15 year old boy from a small, rural village in Cambodia.
It has an average vote of 4 on TMDB.
13. Turn Off the Lights (Lumea in patratele)
After years behind bars, three young men begin to rediscover lives of aggression and excess in their raucous Roma community. Among them is Alex, a captivating figure with a disturbingly blasé attitude toward violence, women, and guilt. In this absorbing documentary, offering a rare peek into contemporary Roma culture, Alex and his fellow ex-cons reconcile the outside world with the gray-shaded areas of morality with which they all struggle.
It has an average vote of 6.4 on TMDB.
14. The Three Disappearances of Soad Hosni (Les trois disparitions de Soad Hosni)
This haunting and beautifully formed documentary is a meditation on the life of Egyptian screen legend Soad Hosni, who starred in eighty-two feature films between 1959 and 1991. Hosni’s mysterious death in London in 2001 sent shockwaves through the Arab world, and this is the first film which look into her life and work. Using filmic montage, director and video artist Rania Stephan reveals the diverse modes of female representation embodied in Hosni's charismatic roles, and creates an ebullient picture of the iconic actress who captivated the modern Arab imagination.
It has an average vote of 6 on TMDB.
15. I'm My Own Dolly Parton (Jag är min egen Dolly Parton)
Five women musicians are brought together by their love for singer Dolly Parton. They all have dreams for their futures, but they are also burdened by their painful pasts. During a series of tribute concerts a warm friendship develops which leads to in-depth descriptions of the women's life stories.
It has an average vote of 5.3 on TMDB.
16. Ancestral Voices
An educational documentary spanning two continents, opening up a much-needed debate about traditional African spiritual systems; their cosmologies, ideologies and underlying ethical principles. Modern science no longer refutes the origins of mankind being in Africa and similarities in the cosmological ideologies of African esoteric systems with those found many established world religions today, suggest that it was not only people that migrated, but also concepts and themes that then provided bedrock for the formation of other systems of belief.
17. Lee Miller: A Life on the Frontline
A documentary celebrating Lee Miller, a model-turned-photographer-turned-war reporter who defied anyone who tried to pin her down, put her on a pedestal, or pigeonhole her in any way.
It has an average vote of 7.8 on TMDB.
18. Research and Crime: the Reich University of Strasbourg (Forschung und Verbrechen: die Reichsuniversität Straßburg)
Strasbourg was home to one of three Reich Universities founded by the Nazis, known as a project close to Hitler's heart. The university, founded in 1941, is infamous for the human experiments performed on KZ prisoners by the professors of the medical faculty. What did its dean, Johannes Stein, grandfather of documentarian Kirsten Esch, know of these crimes?
It has an average vote of 5 on TMDB.
19. Uferfrauen - Lesbian Life and Love in the GDR (Uferfrauen - Lesbisches L(i)eben in der DDR)
Portraits six lesbian protagonists from rural and metropolitan parts of the formerly socialist Republic and has them tell their captivating and sometimes outrageous life stories.
It has an average vote of 7 on TMDB.
20. Inside Hou8e (Dentro da Casa 8)
Stories behind the conceptual photography project HOU8E by the independent portuguese photographer Margarida Rodrigues .