Class Acts

Behind the Looking Glass

2024

Behind The Looking Glass is a film about the lives of women whose partners have or want to ‘transition’. While we hear a great deal of “stunning and brave” stories of men, there is a deadly silence when it comes to the stories of the wives or partners. This film will be the first of its kind in collecting such experiences of women from around the world.

44 Pages

2018

A portrait of Highlights Magazine following the creation of the cultural phenomenon's 70th Anniversary issue, from the first editorial meeting to its arrival in homes, and introducing the quirky people who passionately produce the monthly publication for "the world's most important people,"...children. Along the way, a rich and tragic history is revealed, the state of childhood, technology, and education is explored, and the future of print media is questioned.

Bala

1976

A documentary about the aging prima ballerina Balasaraswati (popularly known as "Bala"), the most famous exponent of the Bharatanatyam dance.

Wer 4 Sind

2019

What is the secret of Germany's most successful hip-hop band? What makes them different? How did they make their mark in German pop culture and develop over the years? A behind-the-scenes look at a band that has written German music history and continues to do so.

Everything at Once (Paco & Manolo's Gaze)

2021

Paco and Manolo are two Catalan photographers from the outskirts of Barcelona who have been working together for thirty years as if they were a single person, capturing their images in Kink magazine, a very personal photography fanzine with a homoerotic aesthetic of Mediterranean essence.

David Harewood on Blackface

2023

At its peak, The Black and White Minstrel Show was watched by a Saturday night audience of more than 20 million people. David Harewood goes on a mission to understand the roots of this strange, intensely problematic cultural form: where did the show come from, and what made it popular for so long? With the help of historians, actors and musicians, David uncovers how, at its core, blackface minstrelsy was simply an attempt to make racism into an art form - and can be traced back to a name and a date.

Bringing Godzilla Down to Size: The Art of Japanese Special Effects

2008

A look at the unrecognized work of the talented artists and craftsmen who've maintained the tradition of Japanese special-effects. Highlighted is Yasuyuki Inoue along with various crew members who crafted meticulously detailed miniatures and risked life and limb as suit actors. All done to bring to life some of film's most iconic monsters through a distinct Japanese artform.

Every Day After

2023

Growing up in Masbate Province in the Philippines, Jary is neglected and shunned since the moment of his birth for one reason-- his appearance. His older sister, Jessa protects Jary through his early years, then takes him in as a young teen, to raise him alongside her own two children in a fragile house on a hill. Jessa seeks out the medical care Jary has been denied since birth. And more, the support to begin his physical and emotional recovery. Every Day After is a 35-minute documentary film that provides a more nuanced look at the complexities of the healing process we don’t often see. And honors the invisible labor of a sister whose love and action make it possible for Jary to experience the everyday joys and struggles of growing up.

The before and after of John Frusciante - VPRO 1994

1994

Inside Chernobyl with Ben Fogle

2021

Ben Fogle spends a week living inside the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, gaining privileged access to the doomed Control Room 4 where the disaster first began to unfold.

Singapore GaGa

2005

Singapore GaGa is a 55-minute paean to the quirkiness of the Singaporean aural landscape. It reveals Singapore's past and present with a delight and humour that makes it a necessary film for all Singaporeans. We hear buskers, street vendors, school cheerleaders sing hymns to themselves and to their communities. From these vocabularies (including Arabic, Latin, Hainanese), a sense of what it might mean to be a modern Singaporean emerges. This is Singapore's first documentary to have a cinema release. With English and Chinese subtitles.

Des Amandiers aux Amandiers

2022

A free and intimate portrait behind the scenes of Valeria Bruni Tedeschi's creation. In front of the camera, she transmits to today’s young actors the memory of the 1980s.

The Thinnest Line

2022

A fist-person story of the director of the documentary, who talks about the loneliness that entails living with an eating disorder and her vision now thar she is entering into adulthood.

Girls State

2024

What would American democracy look like in the hands of teenage girls? In this documentary, young female leaders from wildly different backgrounds in Missouri navigate an immersive experiment to build a government from the ground up.

Quentin Tarantino: From a Movie Buff to a Hollywood Legend

2021

Who has ever compared Reservoir Dogs? What are “Open Road” and “New World Disorder”? Why is Harvey Keitel a fairy and how did we all almost become diehard fans of Paul Calderon? Here’s a story about Quentin Tarantino. The director who needs no introduction.