1. Looking Like My Mother
LOOKING LIKE MY MOTHER is a film about family relationships and personal destiny, about realizing one's own potential and one's limitations. It traces the individual experience, showing the emptiness one can feel as well as the discovery of a sense of meaning in life. It is a very personal and courageous film that doesn’t search for scientific explanations but instead uses documentary and fictional material to weave an intimate biography. This combination of perception and memory suggests a deep reconciliation and allows tender feelings of a mother’s love to emerge.
It has an average vote of 5 on TMDB.
2. No Address
This feature-length documentary by Alanis Obomsawin examines the plight of Native people who come to Montreal searching for jobs and a better life. Often arriving without money, friends or jobs, a number of them quickly become part of the homeless population. Both dislocated from their traditional values and alienated from the rest of the population, they are torn between staying and returning home.
It has an average vote of 8 on TMDB.
3. The Eyes of Thailand
Tells the true story of one woman's quest to help two elephant landmine survivors-Motala and Baby Mosha-walk on their own four legs.
It has an average vote of 7.2 on TMDB.
4. The Hooping Life
Learn the origins and rise of modern day hula-hooping through eight extraordinary stories of hoop devotees who have embraced it as an art form, a teaching aid, and even an instrument of redemption. From the streets, to intimate clubs, to giant arenas, we alternate between self-filmed video diaries, verité documentary footage, and spectacularly filmed performances in an attempt to celebrate the healing power of movement and the spirit of human inventiveness.
It has an average vote of 8.7 on TMDB.
5. The Light in Her Eyes
Houda al-Habash, a conservative Muslim preacher, founded a Qur'an school for girls in Damascus, Syria when she was just 17 years old. Every summer, her female students immerse themselves in a rigorous study of Islam, in addition to their secular schooling. A surprising cultural shift is underway-women are claiming space within the mosque, a place historically dominated by men. Challenging tradition, Houda insists education for women is a form of worship. Using Qur'anic teachings, she encourages her students to pursue higher education, jobs, and public lives, while remaining committed to an interpretation of Islam prioritizing women's role as wives and mothers. In a world rarely seen, The Light In Her Eyes tells the story of a leader who challenges the women of her community to live according to Islam, without giving up their dreams. Shot right before the uprising in Syria erupted, the film is an exclusive look at a social movement thriving in a country controlled by a repressive regime
6. Paycheck to Paycheck: The Life & Times of Katrina Gilbert
This is the story of a year in the life of one mother whose daily struggles illuminate the challenges faced by more than 42 million American women and the 28 million children who depend on them.
It has an average vote of 5.2 on TMDB.
7. My America... or Honk If You Love Buddha
Renee Tajima-Peña takes to the road to investigate questions about Asian-American identity.
8. John Ford & Monument Valley
John Wayne, Henry Fonda and James Stewart discuss working with John Ford
It has an average vote of 1 on TMDB.
9. Diana de Santa Fe (Diana de Santa Fe)
Walking the dark, invisible passageways hidden behind Bogotá’s bright neon lights, Diana, a transgender woman becomes a crucial catalyst of the Zona Especial de Servicios de Alto Impacto . ZESAI is a social policy experiment intended to promote social integration by legalizing sex work within the residential neighborhood of Santa Fe.
10. Veteran Car Rally, Brighton
Vintage vehicles on parade in this amateur film record of the longest-running motor event in the world.
11. Election Day
Forget the pie charts, color-coded maps and hyperventilating pundits. What's the street-level experience of voters in today's America? In a triumph of documentary storytelling, ELECTION DAY combines eleven stories--all shot simultaneously on November 2, 2004, from dawn until long past midnight--into one. Factory workers, ex-felons, harried moms, Native American activists and diligent poll watchers, from South Dakota to Florida, take the process of democracy into their own hands. The result: an entertaining, inspiring and sometimes unsettling tapestry of citizens determined on one fateful day to make their votes count.
12. The Future of Food
Before compiling your next grocery list, you might want to watch filmmaker Deborah Koons Garcia's eye-opening documentary, which sheds light on a shadowy relationship between agriculture, big business and government. By examining the effects of biotechnology on the nation's smallest farmers, the film reveals the unappetizing truth about genetically modified foods: You could unknowingly be serving them for dinner.
It has an average vote of 7.4 on TMDB.
13. Treyf (Treyf)
TREYF —“unkosher” in Yiddish— is an unorthodox documentary by and about two Jewish lesbians who met and fell in love at a Passover “seder”. With personal narration, real and imagined educational films, and haunting imagery, filmmakers Alisa Lebow and Cynthia Madansky examine the Jewish identity of their upbringings and its impact on their lives.
It has an average vote of 1 on TMDB.
14. Fabulous! The Story of Queer Cinema
A chronological look at films by, for, or about gays and lesbians in the United States, from 1947 to 2005, Kenneth Anger's "Fireworks" to "Brokeback Mountain". Talking heads, anchored by critic and scholar B. Ruby Rich, are interspersed with an advancing timeline and with clips from two dozen films. The narrative groups the pictures around various firsts, movements, and triumphs: experimental films, indie films, sex on screen, outlaw culture and bad guys, lesbian lovers, films about AIDS and dying, emergence of romantic comedy, transgender films, films about diversity and various cultures, documentaries and then mainstream Hollywood drama. What might come next?
It has an average vote of 5.7 on TMDB.
15. Horns and Halos
"What if someone wrote your biography? Would there be horns and halos involved?"
It has an average vote of 6.2 on TMDB.
16. In So Many Words
Lucy Daniels believes that a family secret told to her as a four year-old radically impacted the trajectory of her life, and set in motion a life-long debilitating mental illness. Born into a powerful newspaper-magnate family, from an early age Lucy defined her worth by her ability to write. Despite early success, she was struck with severe anorexia and underwent brutal treatment in mental institutions, only to survive, pen her first best-seller, and ultimately win a Guggenheim Prize in literature - all before the age of 22. The first of its kind, this hybrid documentary weaves together 'relational' recreations, animated dream sequences, constructed worlds and intimate interviews to tell a worthwhile story of survival and creativity, filtered through the eyes of filmmaker and subject.
It has an average vote of 5.2 on TMDB.
17. Misconception
For almost 50 years, the world's population has grown at an alarming rate, raising fears about strains on the Earth's resources. But how true are these claims? Taking cues from statistics guru Hans Rosling, Misconception offers a provocative glimpse at how the world—and women in particular— are tackling a subject at once personal and global. Following three individuals, director Jessica Yu focuses on the human implications of this highly charged political issue, inspiring a fresh look at the consequences of population growth. In English, Hindi, Mandarin, and Russian with subtitles.
It has an average vote of 5 on TMDB.
18. Good Grief
Good Grief is a short stop motion animated documentary that explores the lessons we learn from dealing with grief and loss. Five real people share their true stories of losing something precious and what it has taught them about living.
19. The Execution of Wanda Jean
The Execution of Wanda Jean chronicles the life-and-death battle of Wanda Jean Allen, the first black woman to be put to death in the United States in the modern era.
It has an average vote of 6 on TMDB.
20. It’s Not My Memory of It: Three Recollected Documents
“It’s not my memory of it” is a documentary about secrecy, memory, and documents. A</p><p> former CIA source recounts his disappearance through shredded classified documents that</p><p> were painstakingly reassembled by radical fundamentalist students in Iran in 1979 following</p><p> the takeover of the U.S embassy. A CIA film—recorded in 1974 but unacknowledged until</p><p> 1992—documents the burial at sea of six Soviet sailors, in a ceremony which collapses Cold</p><p> War antagonisms in a moment of death and honor. A single photograph pertaining to a</p><p> publicly acknowledged but top secret U.S. missile strike in Yemen in 2002 is the source of a</p><p> reflection on the role of images in the dynamic of knowing and not knowing.
