A Palestinian activist's fight for freedom draws a Japanese American filmmaker into confrontation with detention regimes of past and present.
Social & External
With the most tech startups and venture capital per capita in the world, Israel has long been hailed as The Startup Nation. WIRED’s feature-length documentary looks beyond Tel Aviv’s vibrant, liberal tech epicenter to the wider Holy Land region – the Palestinian territories, where a parallel Startup Nation story is emerging in East Jerusalem, Nazareth, Ramallah and other parts of the West Bank, as well as in the Israeli cybersecurity hub of Be’er Sheva. And we will learn how the fertile innovation ecosystem of Silicon Wadi has evolved as a result of its unique political, geographical and cultural situation and explore the future challenges – and solutions – these nations are facing.
From Scotland to Ecuador, passing through Canada, Spain and Angola, 21 young Cubans who grew up in 9 countries outside the island tell their experiences of adaptation living between two cultures and the survival of the Cuban identity despite their stories of familial rupture and alienation.
Going behind the usual images of war-torn Gaza, Swiss documentarian Nicolas Wadimoff offers this look at how people survive despite constant threat of danger. Children still play, rappers still create music and families still love one another. In addition to visiting the United Nations Food Distribution Center, Wadimoff films at a derelict amusement park and profiles the DARG TeaM rappers, whose politically charged music proclaims their defiance.
After two intifadas and the construction of the Israeli wall, the only Palestinian zoo is still there and is now seeking for international recognition and to replace their lost giraffes.
A sci-fi documentary that follows the rise and fall of Lyd — a 5,000-year-old metropolis that was once a bustling Palestinian town until it was conquered when the State of Israel was established in 1948. As the film unfolds, a chorus of characters creates a tapestry of the Palestinian experience of this city and the trauma left by the massacre and expulsion.
Boys on Film presents ten encounters from across the globe, where the dangerous allure of a risky attraction yields emotional results — proving that the age-old adage of taking the plunge is as relevant — and sexy — as ever before. The 10 short films are: My Uncle's Friend [O Amigo do Meu Tio] (2021); Budapest, Closed City [Budapest, zárt város] (2021); Eden (2020); Chaperone (2022); Break Me [Knus meg] (2018); By His Will [שעשני כרצונו] (2021); Red Ants Bite (2019); Jim (2022); Hornbeam (2022); Too Rough (2022).
This Ukrainian-Jewish teenager immigrated to San Francisco as a young child. Now on the brink of adulthood, she interviews her grandparents about their new lives yearning to see her American world through their eyes. Yelena understands that life in the US has changed her profoundly.
An unusual friendship in an agitated political context.
Gaza Fights for Freedom depicts the ongoing Great March of Return protests in the Gaza Strip, occupied Palestine, that began in 2018.
Sebastia, a small archaeological town, sits on top of a hill Northwest of Nablus, Palestine surrounded by Shavei Shomron, an illegal Israeli settlement and confiscated agricultural fields of olive groves and apricot trees. This ancient site was excavated multiple times over the last century by colonial archaeologists funded by Zionist individuals and institutions. The first excavation of 1908 led by Harvard University took advantage of Sebastia locals including women, men, and children as cheap labor digging their own land for the sake of biblical archaeology. Each excavation extracted soil and artifacts from the ground, taking what they considered valuable to their home institutions and leaving pottery shards and rubble on the surface. Today, what’s left of the archaeological monuments is contested by the nearby settlement as well as the Israeli military. The Roman Forum is a battlefield, but the locals are incredibly resilient.
Somewhere between documentary and fiction, this is an essay on questions of territory and human displacements made during an excursion from southern Spain to northern Morocco. Travelling on the Mediterranean rim, we hear immigrants tell their stories.
Despite their children's reluctance, Radi and Mounira, a 65-year-old puppeteer couple, set off on tour between Israel and Palestine in their outdated van. They are exhausted from having to set up and take down the stage, from performing three shows in a row in front of hundreds of wild children under a burning sky. Lost in Jericho, frightened by the bombs falling near Majd Al Shams, destabilized by the Bedouin children of the Negev unable to determine their own identity, they no longer know if their mission is still relevant. Safeguarding the identity of their people through their shows, but at what cost? A quest for Palestinian identity.
This deeply affecting documentary follows a small number of Israelis and Gazans through the most dramatic and tragic year of their lives. Using personal and previously unseen footage, it tells the story of the war in Gaza and the October 7 attacks through deeply emotional stories from both sides of the conflict. In Gaza, the film follows three individuals from reaction to the October 7th attacks to the start of the bombing by the Israeli military and to the loss of family members that all three suffer. In Israel, we witness footage of the Israeli characters, as they and their family members are attacked by Hamas on October 7th and then follow their stories through the year.
The Israeli filmmaker Shai Corneli Polak records the building of the 'security wall' through Palestinian territory at the village of Bil'in. The villagers protest mostly peacefully, while the Israeli army doesn't react peacefully. By now the Israeli High Court has ruled that the building of the wall was illegal.
Montage film by Aymeric Caron, broadcast at the French National Assembly on May 29, 2024. “Is it a dream or a reality? » demands a little girl stunned by her injuries. It is a nightmare, without a doubt, and nothing can justify it, neither the crimes of October 7 nor the detention of Israeli hostages by Hamas. Condemning all the crimes of October 7, before and after, condemning anti-Semitism and all forms of racism is common sense. However, it seems that this needs to be clarified. Everyone present normally wishes that the surviving hostages can one day be reunited with their families and that the massacre in Gaza stops immediately. But to follow through with the process is to see things face to face, to see what has been happening in Gaza since October 7, what the Israeli army is doing, what the television channels are not showing.
October 7, 2023 was one of the deadliest days of fighting ever in Israel, with around 1,200 people killed after Hamas launched its attack and 250 taken hostage – many of whom have either died in captivity or not yet released. The project features testimony from four victims and first responders, who witnessed the massacre and its aftermath: a farmer who helped rescue young people, a young survivor of the Nova music festival who took refuge in a shelter only to witness friends being murdered, an ultra-orthodox musician who volunteered to identify victims, and a mother whose son was kidnapped and taken to Gaza. A sentence uttered by the musician, who had seen 100 dead bodies in a single day, was the inspiration behind the title.
After Hamas kidnapped 251 people from Israel on October 7, and as Israel’s war in Gaza unfolded, a conflict thousands of miles away erupted on New York’s walls. TORN captures the emotional fallout of the now-iconic “KIDNAPPED” poster campaign - a grassroots act of solidarity that quickly became a flashpoint, igniting fierce confrontations between pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian New Yorkers. Through the voices of artists, activists, and hostage families, the film unpacks the motivations behind those putting up and tearing down the posters, exposing a complex proxy war fought in stickers, slogans, and torn paper. By revealing how a distant war fractured daily life in one of the world’s most diverse cities, the film forces a reckoning with identity, free speech, and empathy in an age of polarization.
In the Realms of the Unreal is a documentary about the reclusive Chicago-based artist Henry Darger. Henry Darger was so reclusive that when he died his neighbors were surprised to find a 15,145-page manuscript along with hundreds of paintings depicting The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What is Known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glodeco-Angelinnian War Storm, Cased by the Child Slave Rebellion.
Over seven decades, actor and activist George Takei journeyed from a World War II internment camp to the helm of the Starship Enterprise, and then to the daily news feeds of five million Facebook fans. Join George and his husband, Brad, on a wacky and profound trek for life, liberty, and love.
Documentarians Justine Shapiro and B.Z. Goldberg traveled to Israel to interview Palestinian and Israeli kids ages 11 to 13, assembling their views on living in a society afflicted with violence, separatism and religious and political extremism. This 2002 Oscar nominee for Best Feature Documentary culminates in an astonishing day in which two Israeli children meet Palestinian youngsters at a refugee camp.
A documentary on the expletive's origin, why it offends some people so deeply, and what can be gained from its use.
Using the book 'Fragments', which collects Marilyn Monroe's poems, notes and letters, and with participation from the Arthur Miller and Truman Capote estates who have contributed more material, each of the actresses will embody the legend at various stages in her life.
The remarkable story of The Weather Underground, radical activists of the 1970s, and of radical politics at its best and most disastrous.
A detailing of the rise to prominence and global sporting superstardom of six supremely talented young Manchester United football players (David Beckham, Nicky Butt, Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes, Phil and Gary Neville). The film covers the period 1992-1999, culminating in Manchester United's European Cup triumph.
An impressionistic portrait of the iconic actor Harry Dean Stanton comprised of intimate moments, film clips from some of his 250 films and his renditions of American folk songs.
When Allied forces liberated the Nazi concentration camps in 1944-45, their terrible discoveries were recorded by army and newsreel cameramen, revealing for the first time the full horror of what had happened. Making use of British, Soviet and American footage, the Ministry of Information’s Sidney Bernstein (later founder of Granada Television) aimed to create a documentary that would provide lasting, undeniable evidence of the Nazis’ unspeakable crimes. He commissioned a wealth of British talent, including editor Stewart McAllister, writer and future cabinet minister Richard Crossman – and, as treatment advisor, his friend Alfred Hitchcock. Yet, despite initial support from the British and US Governments, the film was shelved, and only now, 70 years on, has it been restored and completed by Imperial War Museums under its original title "German Concentration Camps Factual Survey".
A documentary examining the decade of the 1970s as a turning point in American cinema. Some of today's best filmmakers interview the influential directors of that time.
A documentary on the life of John Lennon, with a focus on the time in his life when he transformed from a musician into an antiwar activist.
An unprecedented and intimate look at the life, work and enduring legacy of British actress Audrey Hepburn (1929-1993).
An in-depth look at the prison system in the United States and how it reveals the nation's history of racial inequality.
Brilliant, long in-the-works story of the life and art of the world's greatest comedian and the cinema's first genius, Charlie Chaplin. Produced, written and directed by renowned film critic Richard Schickel.
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.
A documentary chronicling Queen and Lambert's incredible journey since they first shared the stage together on "American Idol" in 2009.
Five broken cameras – and each one has a powerful tale to tell. Embedded in the bullet-ridden remains of digital technology is the story of Emad Burnat, a farmer from the Palestinian village of Bil’in, which famously chose nonviolent resistance when the Israeli army encroached upon its land to make room for Jewish colonists. Emad buys his first camera in 2005 to document the birth of his fourth son, Gibreel. Over the course of the film, he becomes the peaceful archivist of an escalating struggle as olive trees are bulldozed, lives are lost, and a wall is built to segregate burgeoning Israeli settlements.
Martin Scorsese’s portrait of writer and social commentator Fran Lebowitz, celebrated for her sharp wit and observations on modern life. Filmed at New York’s Waverly Inn and intercut with archival footage and interviews, the documentary captures Lebowitz’s distinctive worldview through her spontaneous monologues and public appearances.
Al Pacino's deeply-felt rumination on Shakespeare's significance and relevance to the modern world through interviews and an in-depth analysis of "Richard III."
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.
