Play It Loud! How Toronto Got Soul

In early 1960s Toronto, a white, Anglo-centric city, an underground music scene emerged from the Jamaican diaspora, led by newcomers like Jackie Mittoo, Wayne McGhie, and a young Jay Douglas. Battling racism and indifference, they left a lasting but underrecognized mark on Canadian music and culture. Nearly 60 years later, Jay Douglas still champions Jamaican music and is finally receiving long-overdue recognition. Play It Loud is a feature documentary that tells the little-known story of how Jamaican music became a vital, unlikely part of Canadian culture. It traces a cultural migration that made Canada a global hub for Jamaican music - celebrated abroad but overlooked at home. Told through the life and music of beloved singer Jay Douglas, born Clive Pinnock in rural Jamaica, the film follows his journey from teen performer to enduring icon.

Ballplayer: Pelotero

Two top baseball prospects in the Dominican Republic face fierce competition and corruption as they chase their big league dreams.

The Last Turtle

The Last Turtle documents the work of the Dominica Sea Turtle Conservation Organisation (DomSeTCO). Illegal poaching, plastic pollution and climate change are the main challenges facing Dominica's endangered sea turtle populations.

Ghost Town to Havana

A rampant, street level story of mentorship and everyday heroism in tough circumstances. An inner city coach's son, estranged in his youth from his father, spends five years on ball fields in inner city Oakland and Havana, following the lives of two extraordinary youth baseball coaches, Roscoe in Oakland and Nicolas in Havana. The coaches meet on videotape and two years of red tape later, Coach Roscoe and nine Oakland players travel to Havana to play Coach Nicolas' team. For one week, the players and coaches eat, dance, swim, argue and play baseball together. But when the parent of an Oakland player is murdered back home, it brings back the inescapable reality and challenges of life in an American inner city.

Below Deck: An Interactive History Of Pirates

Montserrat: Emerald of the Caribbean

In the late 1990s, massive volcanic eruptions destroyed Montserrat’s infrastructure and leveled the island’s capital, Plymouth. Today, Montserrat’s 4,000 citizens are still coming to terms with this traumatic event. "Montserrat: Emerald of the Caribbean" explores how shared values—community, hope, faith—and traditions serve as sources of strength and identity for Montserratians as they rebuild their lives together. The film culminates in a portrayal of the sights and sounds of Montserrat’s annual St. Patrick’s Day Festival, a commemoration of African slaves who rebelled against their Irish slave masters on Saint Patrick’s Day, 1768. A unique blend of African, Caribbean, and Irish traditions, the Saint Patrick’s Day Festival represents the past, present, and future of a resilient people.

Massacre River

Pikilina is a Dominican-born woman of Haitian descent. Racial and political violence erupts when the country of her birth, the Dominican Republic, reverses birthright citizenship and she and 200,000 others are left stateless.

Exploring Bloody Bay Wall

What is the value of ocean biodiversity? Bloody Bay Wall is the top of a five thousand foot underwater cliff. A group of divers - including scientists and photographers - gather at Little Cayman Island in the Caribbean Sea to explore this spectacular underwater feature. Motivated by questions of human biology, coral reef ecosystems, and the stunning imagery of this marine park, their collaborations help illuminate the range of what rich marine life offers to humanity: now, and in the future.

Spawning Hope

Coral biologists are concerned about the genetic health of many endangered coral. This short film follows a team of Smithsonian scientists as they attempt to use cryopreserved coral sperm to introduce DNA to new populations of elkhorn coral. If this technique works, it could have lasting impacts on how we are able to protect and restore endangered coral species from near extinction.

Ocean

Tamara Drakulić sets off with her fiancé on a cargo ship headed to Hawaii to scatter her friend Tony’s ashes into the Pacific Ocean. After crossing the Atlantic Ocean, ancient limit to what was once the known world, the ship reaches the Caribbean Island of Guadalupe.

And the Dish Ran Away with the Spoon

A documentary about the domination of Caribbean television by programs from the North, primarily the US. Proceeding from the observation that television in the Caribbean is overwhelmed by US and French programs, this film ambitiously weaves together interviews, indigenous poetry and music with clips from imported French and US television programs to show how Caribbean viewers receive a distorted view of the world that alienates them from their own cultural heritage. Also included is a glimpse of how Cuba has tackled the problem, featuring an interview with Cuban film director Tomás Gutiérrez Alea, and the US response in the form of Radio and TV Marti. This is part of the Developing Stories Series on Environment and Development. Starweek Magazine called it "An astonishingly searing look at TV."

DOUBOUT OUBIEN MÔ

Since August 2024, in Martinique, a popular protest movement against the high cost of living has been reemerging under the leadership of the RPPRAC (Rassemblement Pour La Protection Des Peuples Et Des Ressources Afro-Caribéens – Gathering for the Protection of Afro-Caribbean Peoples and Resources). On the island, food prices are on average 54% higher than in mainland France.* Through various cultural figures, the people of Martinique are expressing their anger and seeking concrete solutions. *Source: Kiprix, Price comparison between supermarkets in the French overseas territories and mainland France.

21 Days

21 Days, based on the story of six young fishermen who left Gros-Islet fishing village on a routine fishing expedition and simply vanished. The young men disappeared on February 15, 1985, after they set out on a fishing expedition.

By Her Hand

In this inspirational documentary we witness the contributions of nine remarkable women to the island of Aruba. Driven by their love of family and a passion for making a difference, they strive relentlessly to improve the socio-economic and cultural landscape of their beloved homeland. All without expecting anything in return.

Plymouth Montserrat: The Latter Day Pompeii

On July 18th of 1995, Montserrat's sleeping volcano rumbled back to life after hundreds of years of dormancy. This is the ten year story of that eruption and it's effects on the people of, 'The Emerald Isle of the Caribbean'.

On Dolphin Terms: The Story of Dean & JoJo

The true story of naturalist Dean Bernal and his efforts to protect his friend JoJo: a wild, sociable dolphin in the Turks and Caicos Islands.

The Wind That Blows

In the mid 19th century, Yankee whalers taught the sailors on the tiny island of Bequia in the West Indies how to catch whales. The once proud American tradition has been kept alive and cherished by Bequians generation after generation. For the last few decades outside pressures, overt and covert, have conspired against the whale hunters and those who rely on them. The stouthearted whalers simply seek sustenance for their community but also provide something else: identity.

Uncivilized

Disenchanted by the modern world, Michael Lees heads into the forest of Dominica with some basic survival gear, religious texts and a camera. "Why did man ever leave the forest? And what makes for a good life?" Just as he starts to acclimatize to his new life - the unexpected; Category 5 Hurricane Maria, one of the top ten strongest Atlantic hurricanes in history, makes a direct landfall. Michael is caught out in the open in a palm leaf and bamboo hut. With the nation in ruins, the forest destroyed, and essential services knocked out islandwide, the entire country must now return to a past way of life if they hope to survive.

La República Dominicana

Images of everyday life in the poorest sectors of Dominican society.

Grenada 1940

The waterfront and agriculture of the Caribbean island of Grenada in the 1940's.

Fuck

A documentary on the expletive's origin, why it offends some people so deeply, and what can be gained from its use.

Being James Bond

Daniel Craig candidly reflects on his 15 year adventure as James Bond. Including never-before-seen archival footage from Casino Royale to the upcoming 25th film No Time To Die, Craig shares his personal memories in conversation with 007 producers, Michael G Wilson and Barbara Broccoli.

No Half Measures: Creating the Final Season of Breaking Bad

A documentary about the making of season five of the acclaimed AMC series Breaking Bad.

Naqoyqatsi

A visual montage portrait of our contemporary world dominated by globalized technology and violence.

Anthropocene: The Human Epoch

Documentary on psychedelic potash mines, expansive concrete seawalls, mammoth industrial machines, and other examples of humanity’s massive, destructive reengineering of the planet.

Listen to Me Marlon

With exclusive access to his extraordinary unseen and unheard personal archive including hundreds of hours of audio recorded over the course of his life, this is the definitive Marlon Brando cinema documentary. Charting his exceptional career as an actor and his extraordinary life away from the stage and screen with Brando himself as your guide, the film will fully explore the complexities of the man by telling the story uniquely from Marlon's perspective, entirely in his own voice. No talking heads, no interviewees, just Brando on Brando and life.

The Curious Birth of Benjamin Button

A documentary about the making of David Fincher's 2008 film THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON. Virtually every element in the evolution of the Fincher's film is documented here, from the project's attachment to numerous other directors during the 1990s, to its shoot in 2006 and 2007 in New Orleans, to its complex, CGI-intensive postproduction process.

God Grew Tired of Us

Filmmaker Christopher Quinn observes the ordeal of three Sudanese refugees -- Jon Bul Dau, Daniel Abul Pach and Panther Bior -- as they try to come to terms with the horrors they experienced in their homeland, while adjusting to their new lives in the United States.

Ex Libris: The New York Public Library

A documentary about how a dominant cultural and demographic institution both sustains their traditional activities and adapts to the digital revolution.

A Plastic Ocean

A documentary focused on plastic pollution in the world's oceans.

Interstellar: Nolan's Odyssey

A look behind the lens of Christopher Nolan's space epic.

13th

An in-depth look at the prison system in the United States and how it reveals the nation's history of racial inequality.

As I Was Moving Ahead, Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty

A compilation of over 30 years of private home movie footage shot by Lithuanian-American avant-garde director Jonas Mekas, assembled by Mekas "purely by chance", without concern for chronological order.

Girl Rising

Nine filmmakers each profile a young girl from a different part of the world to weave a global tapestry of youth in the 21st century.

Sidney

This revealing documentary honors the legendary Sidney Poitier—iconic actor, filmmaker, and civil rights activist. Featuring interviews with Denzel Washington, Spike Lee, Halle Berry, and more.

Baraka

A paralysingly beautiful documentary with a global vision—an odyssey through landscape and time—that attempts to capture the essence of life.

Heart of a Dog

Lyrical and powerfully personal essay film that reflects on the deaths of her husband Lou Reed, her mother, her beloved dog, and such diverse subjects as family memories, surveillance, and Buddhist teachings.

The Kid Stays in the Picture

Documentary about legendary Paramount producer Robert Evans, based on his famous 1994 autobiography.

My Mom Jayne

Through deeply personal interviews with her siblings and an examination of the photographs, letters, and belongings left behind, Mariska assembles a new portrait of her mother Jayne Mansfield, an extraordinary and complex woman.

Marina Abramović: The Artist Is Present

Performance artist Marina Abramovic prepares for a major retrospective of her work at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.