The Film Wall » Documentary

You Don’t Like the Truth: 4 Days Inside Guantanamo (2011)

rashmeet — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 00:08:42 +0000

Canadian Omar Khadr was 15 years old, a child soldier, when he was sent by his militant father to work with the Taliban in Afghanistan, assembling mines in an Al Qaeda compound. In 2002, he was captured by U.S. forces during a raid in which he was severely wounded and an American soldier was killed by a hand grenade. Omar was sent to Guantánamo and given the choice of pleading guilty to this murder and accepting an 8-year sentence, or contesting the charge and facing the possibility of life imprisonment. “You Don’t Like the Truth” was culled from seven hours of surveillance material, taken of Omar’s questioning, recently declassified by the Canadians. It is the only interrogation footage from inside Gitmo that has ever been released. The legal, political, and psychological implications of this prisoner’s ordeal are manifold. The film forces us to take responsibility for the strange form of justice that is being meted out in the name of homeland security.

Thunder Soul (2011)

rashmeet — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 00:06:44 +0000

Presented by Jamie Foxx, “Thunder Soul” follows the extraordinary alumni from Houston’s storied Kashmere High School Stage Band, who return home after 35 years to play a tribute concert for the 92-year-old “Prof,” their beloved band leader who broke the color barrier and transformed the school’s struggling jazz band into a world-class funk powerhouse in the early 1970s.

Limelight (2011)

rashmeet — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 00:03:22 +0000

As the owner of legendary hotspots like Limelight, Tunnel, Palladium, and Club USA, Peter Gatien was the undisputed king of the 1980s New York City club scene. The eye-patch-sporting Ontario native built and oversaw a Manhattan empire that counted tens of thousands of patrons per night in its peak years, acting as a conduit for a culture that, for many, defined the image of an era in New York. Then years of legal battles and police pressure spearheaded by Mayor Giuliani’s determined crackdown on nightlife in the mid-’90s led to Gatien’s eventual deportation to Canada, and the shuttering of his glitzy kingdom.

Featuring insider interviews with famous players in the club scene as well as key informants in Gatien’s high-profile trial, Billy Corben’s (Cocaine Cowboys) exuberant documentary aims to set the record straight about Gatien’s life as it charts his rise and fall against the transformation of New York, offering a wild ride through a now-closed chapter in the history of the city’s nightlife.

Pearl Jam Twenty (2011)

rashmeet — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 23:56:05 +0000

“Pearl Jam Twenty” chronicles the years leading up to the band’s formation, the chaos that ensued soon-after their rise to megastardom, their step back from center stage, and the creation of a trusted circle that would surround them-giving way to a work culture that would sustain them. Told in big themes and bold colors with blistering sound, the film is carved from over 1,200 hours of rarely-seen and never-before seen footage spanning the band’s career. “Pearl Jam Twenty” is the definitive portrait of Pearl Jam: part concert film, part intimate insider-hang, part testimonial to the power of music and uncompromising artists.

The Whale (2011)

rashmeet — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 23:55:24 +0000

Set on the rugged western coast of Vancouver Island, “The Whale” describes what happens when Luna, a baby orca, gets separated from his family and unexpectedly starts making contact with people along a scenic fjord called Nootka Sound. Because orcas are highly social creatures who spend their lives traveling with their pods, Luna attempts to find a surrogate family among the area residents, much to their delight. But as word spreads about Luna, people become torn between their love for the lonely young whale and fears that human contact might harm him.

Luna’s saga is seen through the eyes of the colorful characters who live and work along the Sound and who fall in love with the whale — including a cook on an old freighter, a fisheries officer conflicted by what he thinks Luna needs and what he is told to do, a grandmother who is arrested for petting Luna, and a Native American elder whose tribe believes Luna is the reincarnation of a chief.

The film also describes how Parfit and Chisholm themselves, who first went to Nootka Sound on assignment for Smithsonian, grow so concerned about Luna’s fate that they get involved in trying to help him, crossing the traditional line between journalist and subject and becoming characters in the very story they are telling. Their efforts to find ways to safely give Luna the attention he seems so determined to get are a major part of the film’s climax.

The Weird World of Blowfly (2011)

rashmeet — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 23:54:46 +0000

Acclaimed Miami musician Clarence Reid could easily be your cranky grandfather… until he puts on the gold-spangled superhero costume of his alter ego, Blowfly, and starts singing some of the filthiest songs you’ve ever heard in your life. A major force in the Miami soul scene of the 60s and 70s, Reid wrote Top-10 songs for some of the greatest R&B acts of the era, while at the same time, his X-rated recordings and stage antics as Blowfly made him a star of the “party record” scene. Having changed the game in 1965 with what might be the world’s first rap song, Blowfly has shocked and grooved audiences for over forty years since. Today, he is still on tour, struggling for success and recognition after 50 years of making music. An intimate and revealing portrait, “The Weird World of Blowfly” celebrates Reid’s musical and cultural significance, and paints a picture of an unheralded, hilarious, and stunningly profane man that is as touching as it is obscene.

We Were Here (2011)

rashmeet — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 19:05:13 +0000

“We Were Here” is the first documentary to take a deep and reflective look back at the impact of the AIDS epidemic in San Francisco when it was first identified 30 years ago this year. It explores how the city’s inhabitants were affected by, and responded to the calamitous epidemic. Reaching beyond San Francisco and the human toll of AIDS itself, it inspirationally speaks to the human capacity of individuals to rise to the occasion, and to the incredible collective power of a community coming together with love, compassion, and determination.

Jane’s Journey (2011)

rashmeet — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 19:02:45 +0000

It would be hard to name anyone who has had more of an impact in the realm of animal research and wildlife conservation than Jane Goodall, whose 45 year study of wild chimpanzees in Africa is legendary. In “Jane’s Journey,” we travel with her across several continents, from her childhood home in England, to the Gombe National Park in Tanzania where she began her groundbreaking research and where she still returns every year to enjoy the company of the chimpanzees that made her famous. Featuring a wide range of interviews and spectacular footage from her own private collection (including her years in Gombe), “Jane’s Journey” is an inspiring portrait of the private person behind the world-famous icon.

Where Soldiers Come From (2011)

rashmeet — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 18:27:04 +0000

From a snowy small town in Northern Michigan to the mountains of Afghanistan and back, “Where Soldiers Come From” follows the four-year journey of childhood friends, forever changed by a faraway war.

A documentary about growing up, “Where Soldiers Come From,” is an intimate look at the young men who fight our wars and the families and town they come from. Returning to her hometown in Michigan’s Upper Penninsula, director Heather Courtney gains extraordinary access following these young men as they grow and change from restless teenagers to 23-year-old veterans facing the struggles of returning home.

Enticed by a $20,000 signing bonus and the college tuition support, best friends Dominic and Cole join the National Guard after graduating from their rural high school. After persuading several of their friends to join them, the young men are sent to Afghanistan, where they spend their days sweeping for roadside bombs. By the time their deployment ends, they are no longer the carefree group of friends they were before enlisting; repeated bombs blowing up around their convoys have led to the new silent signature wound of the Afghan war, Traumatic Brain Injury, and they have all become increasingly disillusioned about their mission.

The challenges really begin to surface when they return to their families and communities in Michigan and try to fit back into their daily routines. “Where Soldiers Come From” looks beyond the guns and policies of an ongoing war to examine the war’s effect on parents, loved ones and the whole community when young people go off to fight.

Laugh at My Pain (2011)

rashmeet — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 17:54:34 +0000

Funnyman Kevin Hart is BACK and starring in the theatrical version of his 2011 “Laugh at My Pain” comedy tour that swept the nation and earned more than $15,000,000 in ticket sales! The 90-city “Laugh at My Pain” tour is one of the most successful Comedy Concerts in history. Hart’s 2-day performance of “Laugh at My Pain” (at LA Live’s Nokia Theatre), raised the bar and broke Eddie Murphy’s long standing record of being the first African-American Comedian to surpass over $1.1 million two-day live Comedy show ticket sales.

Experience “Laugh at My Pain,” the show that quickly became a national phenomenon. Catch the original, never-before-seen Raw and Uncut backstage footage, and travel back to Philly with Kevin Hart where he began his journey to become one of the funniest and most successful comedians of all time.

Get an up-close and personal look at Kevin Hart and get ready to laugh ’til it hurts.

The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceausescu (2011)

rashmeet — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 17:15:21 +0000

The masterwork by Romanian filmmaker Andre Ujica, which concludes his trilogy that began with the groundbreaking Videograms of a Revolution. An official selection of the Cannes, New York and Toronto Film Festivals, “The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceausescu” is a genre-shattering cinematic work of the “new non-fiction” that culls decades of propaganda films from the Romanian national archives, synthesizing them into a taught, tragic, sprawling epic that seems recounted from the megalomaniacal point of view of the brutal 20th century dictator himself. Opening with the chilling mock trial of Ceaucescu and his wife Elena just before their execution in 1989, the film drifts back in time to glean the leader’s rise from the son of a backwater peasant to international statesman, surreally embraced with high pageantry and pomp by world leaders of every political denomination, including Queen Elizabeth, Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, Charles de Gaulle, Kim Jong Il and Mao Tse-tung. We witness the demolition of downtown Bucharest to make way for a colossal presidential palace, the vast, failed construction projects of the ’70s and ’80s, glimpses of Kodachrome home movies from Black Sea vacations and the silent torture of Rumanian people and politicians enduring Ceaucescu’s rambling, disconnected speeches in a famished land where dissent is punishable by death. Ujica breaks the bounds of traditional documentary form revealing this draconian autocrat’s fabricated cinematic version of a nation’s reality as a delusional, scathing and dreamlike self-portrait.

Resurrect Dead: The Mystery of the Toynbee Tiles (2011)

rashmeet — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 16:48:56 +0000

Strangeness is afoot. Most people don’t notice the hundreds of cryptic tiled messages about resurrecting the dead that have been appearing in city streets over the past three decades. But Justin Duerr does. For years, finding an answer to this long-standing urban mystery has been his obsession. He has been collecting clues that the tiler has embedded in the streets of major cities across the U.S. and South America. But as Justin starts piecing together key events of the past he finds a story that is more surreal than he imagined, and one that hits disturbingly close to home.

Limelight (2011)

rashmeet — Sun, 24 Jul 2011 11:39:20 +0000

Chasing Madoff (2011)

rashmeet — Sun, 24 Jul 2011 11:36:15 +0000

“Chasing Madoff” is the compelling story of Harry Markopolos and his team of investigator’s ten-year struggle to expose the harrowing truth behind the infamous Madoff scandal. Throughout the decade long investigation, Markopolos pieced together a chain of white-collar predators consisting of bankers, lieutenants, and henchmen, all linked to the devastating Ponzi scheme. With risk and danger apparent, Markopolos and his loyal team relentlessly continued to pursue the frightening truth. Finding himself trapped in a web of epic deceit, the once unassuming Boston securities analyst turned vigilante investigator now feared for his life and the safety of his family, as he discovered no one would listen.

Programming the Nation? (2011)

rashmeet — Sun, 24 Jul 2011 11:33:31 +0000

A powerful and provocative look at the history of subliminal messaging in America and the ways in which we are being manipulated subconsciously by advertisers, pop-culture, corporations, our military, and politicians. Filmmaker Jeff Warrick leads this journey through the subconscious mind while examining the reported history, scientific research and potential effects of such techniques on society. With eye-opening footage, revealing interviews, humorous anecdotes, and an array of visual effects, the film categorically explores the alleged usage of subliminals in advertising, music, film, television, political propaganda, military psychological operations, and even advanced weapons development. As a result, Warrick makes it his personal mission to determine if these manipulative tactics have succeeded. Or, if subliminal programming belongs in the category of what many consider urban legend.