Films / Programs

Documentary

Be they hard-hitting or lyrical, political or personal, timely or timeless, narrowly focused or wide-ranging, SDFF documentaries shed all kinds of light on the world’s treasures and tragedies.

The Iran Job
Germany , 2012 , 93 min. African-American basketball player Kevin Sheppard moves to Shiraz, Iran, where he takes on more than just his new teammates’ lack of skills and their league opponents, befriending a group of oppressed Iranian women.... more
The American Scream
USA , 2012 , 91 min. From the director of Best Worst Movie (SDFF 32) comes this documentary about “home haunters,” dedicated folk who spend all year transforming their homes into neighborhood haunted houses for Halloween.... more
Art of Conflict
Ireland , 2012 , 73 min. UPDATE: The John Cassavetes Award presentation will take place on Saturday, November 10 at the Art of Conflict screening at ELLIE CAULKINS OPERA HOUSE. Additional tickets available!... more
Bay of All Saints
USA , 2012 , 74 min. Nicknamed “The Capital of Happiness,” Bahia, Brazil, is anything but for residents of the palafitas, slum dwellings perched on stilts above mounds of garbage in the filthy bay. Bay of All Saints director Annie Eastman spent six years documenting their plight.... more
Bestiaire
Canada , 2012 , 72 min. Denis Côté looks at the fascinating interplay of human beings and exotic animals in this partially staged documentary, filmed at Quebec’s Parc Safari. He suggests a kind of loneliness we may not grasp—and that the creatures are curious about us, too.... more
Special Earth Day Presentation: Bidder 70
USA , 2012 , 73 min. Special Earth Day screening Monday, April 22nd at 7pm Activist Tim DeChristopher live via Skype for a post film Q&A Digital presentation - Tim DeChristopher, an environmental activist, will be released from prison on 4/21. On 4/22 (Earth Day) we’re holding a one-night nationwide scr... more
Butch Walker: Out of Focus
USA , 2012 , 82 min. You may not know the name, but you’ve almost certainly heard the music of the man in the documentary Butch Walker: Out of Focus. The personal film portrays the compelling life of one man’s love for his family and his pursuit of great music.... more
Call Me Kuchu
USA , 2012 , 87 min. The struggle for gay rights in Uganda is played out in the life and death of David Kato, that country’s first openly gay man. He goes up against a homophobic establishment trying to enact the death penalty for engaging in homosexual acts.... more
Casting By
USA , 2012 , 89 min. A love letter to legendary casting director Marion Dougherty, featuring the likes of Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Woody Allen, Glenn Close, and Martin Scorsese, plus a wealth of great clips. You don’t have to be a film buff to love this engaging doc.... more
The Children Next Door
USA , 2012 , 36 min. On October 13, 2006, in the hills of Tennessee, Brad Waldroup brutally attacked his wife Penny with a gun and machete and murdered her best friend, all in front of their four children.... more
El Huaso
Canada , 2011 , 78 min. Chilean-Canadian filmmaker Carlo Guillermo Proto documents his family’s struggle to come to terms with the fact that his father may have inherited his mother’s Alzheimer’s and that he intends to commit suicide, despite the love of those around him.... more
Évocateur: The Morton Downey Jr. Movie
USA , 2012 , 90 min. Before Beck and Limbaugh, another populist reigned supreme. Re-meet Morton Downey Jr., the original f**king loudmouth. Lower the safety bar for a roller-coaster ride through Downey’s euphoric ascent to fame and nauseating plummet to infamy.... more
Gregory Crewdson: Brief Encounters
USA , 2012 , 77 min. MUST END Thursday, January 10th! Winner! Maysles Brothers Best Documentary Award - 35th Starz Denver Film Festival! An acclaimed photographer with the eye of a filmmaker, Gregory Crewdson has created some of the most gorgeously haunting pictures in the history of the medium. His meticulousl... more
Informant
USA , 2012 , 82 min. Activist-turned-informant Brandon Darby gained fame in radical left-wing circles after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans’s Ninth Ward. A trip to Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela led him to rethink his views.... more
Intersexion
New Zealand , 2012 , 68 min. Male or female? Check the box, unless you’re the one in every 2,000 people born with indecisive chromosomes. Intersexion delves into the secrecy, shame, and mystery surrounding this not-so-rare condition.... more
Jason Becker: Not Dead Yet
United Kingdom , 2012 , 87 min. Jesse Vile’s documentary about Jason Becker, a metal guitarist and decades-long survivor of Lou Gehrig’s disease, tells of a man’s indomitable spirit. Surrounded by family and friends, Becker continues to compose by means of computer technology.... more
Journey to Planet X
USA , 2012 , 78 min. Scientists Eric Swain and Troy Bernier moonlight as amateur science-fiction filmmakers. Journey to Planet X chronicles the making of their latest low-budget “epic.” Their contagious enthusiasm will have viewers rethinking just what defines art.... more
La Camioneta
USA , 2012 , 71 min. A document of the beauty, joy, fear, and danger that surround an ordinary vehicle. An American school bus auctioned off for a few thousand dollars finds new life in the hills of Guatemala, where organized crime rules the lives of all who pass through.... more
The Life and Times of Paul the Psychic Octopus
USA , 2012 , 72 min. Octopus as oracle? So say believers in Paul the psychic cephalopod, who correctly predicted the winners of eight 2010 World Cup matches. Director Alexandre O. Philippe (The People vs. George Lucas) explores Paul’s rise to celebrity status.... more
Liv & Ingmar
Norway , 2012 , 75 min. Based on Liv Ullmann’s 1977 book Changing, this touching doc is a love letter to acclaimed Swedish director Ingmar Bergman from his lover, muse and longtime friend. Their 45-year relationship is revealed through film clips, photos and letters.... more
Long Distance Revolutionary: A Journey with Mumia Abu-Jamal
USA , 2012 , 120 min. Mumia Abu-Jamal joined the Black Panther Party at age 15 and reported on the revolutionary movement until his arrest for murder in 1981. Even on death row, his voice would not be silenced. This doc focuses on his writing, politics, and perseverance.... more
Persistence of Vision
USA , 2012 , 83 min. Driven to make his own masterpiece, animator Richard Williams (Who Framed Roger Rabbit) devoted more than 25 years to a film based on Persian folktales before having his crowning achievement stripped away by corporate entities.... more
Private Universe
Czech Republic , 2012 , 83 min. Veteran Czech documentarian Helena Treštíková, the master of a time-lapse filming method she calls “time collection,” charts 37 years in the lives of the working-class Kettner family.... more
The Revisionaries
USA , 2012 , 92 min. MUST END Thursday, December 20th! Digital presentation - In Austin, Texas, fifteen people influence what is taught to the next generation of American children. Once every decade, the highly politicized Texas State Board of Education rewrites the teaching and textbook standards for its... more
Ricky on Leacock
France , 2012 , 89 min. In pioneering lightweight cameras with their own sound systems, Richard Leacock was a seminal figure in documentary filmmaking. His protégé, Jane Weiner, used Leacock’s own innovations over several decades to capture his life, his work, and his teaching.... more
Rising from Ashes
USA , 2012 , 82 min. When cycling legend Jock Boyer moves to Rwanda to build a professional team, he and the cyclists—survivors of that country’s 1990s genocide—are given a second chance. Actor Forest Whitaker narrates this inspirational story of hope.... more
Saving Face
USA , 2012 , 40 min. Winner of the 2012 Oscar for Best Documentary Short, Saving Face follows the lives of several Pakistani women who have survived acid attacks to the face, and their subsequent attempts to bring their attackers to justice.... more
The Story of Film: An Odyssey Part 1
United Kingdom , 2011 , 122 min. Film historian Mark Cousins spent six years assembling this history of the cinema, which includes interviews with and about the greats of film, explorations of moviemaking around the world, and hundreds of clips from over 100 years of celluloid.... more
The Story of Film: An Odyssey Part 2
United Kingdom , 2011 , 122 min. Film historian Mark Cousins spent six years assembling this history of the cinema, which includes interviews with and about the greats of film, explorations of moviemaking around the world, and hundreds of clips from over 100 years of celluloid.... more
The Story of Film: An Odyssey Part 3
United Kingdom , 2011 , 122 min. Film historian Mark Cousins spent six years assembling this history of the cinema, which includes interviews with and about the greats of film, explorations of moviemaking around the world, and hundreds of clips from over 100 years of celluloid.... more
The Story of Film: An Odyssey Part 4
United Kingdom , 2011 , 122 min. Film historian Mark Cousins spent six years assembling this history of the cinema, which includes interviews with and about the greats of film, explorations of moviemaking around the world, and hundreds of clips from over 100 years of celluloid.... more
The Story of Film: An Odyssey Part 5
United Kingdom , 2011 , 122 min. Film historian Mark Cousins spent six years assembling this history of the cinema, which includes interviews with and about the greats of film, explorations of moviemaking around the world, and hundreds of clips from over 100 years of celluloid.... more
The Story of Film: An Odyssey Part 6
United Kingdom , 2011 , 122 min. Film historian Mark Cousins spent six years assembling this history of the cinema, which includes interviews with and about the greats of film, explorations of moviemaking around the world, and hundreds of clips from over 100 years of celluloid.... more
The Story of Film: An Odyssey Part 7
United Kingdom , 2011 , 122 min. Film historian Mark Cousins spent six years assembling this history of the cinema, which includes interviews with and about the greats of film, explorations of moviemaking around the world, and hundreds of clips from over 100 years of celluloid.... more
The Story of Film: An Odyssey Part 8
United Kingdom , 2011 , 62 min. Film historian Mark Cousins spent six years assembling this history of the cinema, which includes interviews with and about the greats of film, explorations of moviemaking around the world, and hundreds of clips from over 100 years of celluloid.... more
The Watching Hour: My Amityville Horror
USA , 2012 , 89 min. Screens Friday & Saturday, March 22nd & 23rd at 10pm in The Watching Hour! Digital presentation - In 1975 the Lutz family vacated their home of 28 days at 112 Ocean Avenue in Amityville, New York. Leaving behind all their belongings, the family claimed to be the victims of a terrifyin... more
Virgin Tales
Switzerland , 2012 , 87 min. Randy Wilson, founder of the Purity Ball in Colorado Springs, believes young women’s bodies belong to God until the right man comes along. Virgin Tales documents two years with his evangelical Christian family as they promote chastity.... more
We Are Legion: The Story of the Hacktivists
USA , 2012 , 95 min. Computer hackers known as “Anonymous” practice civil obedience online. Their targets range from a racist radio talk-show host to Scientology to PayPal. We are Legion: The Story of the Hacktivists documents these cyber warriors’ evolution... more
When the Iron Bird Flies: Tibetan Buddhism Arrives in the West
USA , 2012 , 96 min. A chronicle of the transformation of ancient Buddhist teachings from the caves of Tibet to meditation centers in the Western world. Actor Richard Gere and teacher Chögyam Trungpa promote the merits of meditation.... more
Whitney Houston & Her Family: Voices of Love
USA , 2012 , 76 min. Director Gary Keys’s documentary pays homage to the late singer and her gospel roots. The film deftly balances the sorrow over her untimely death in February with the “joyful noise” created by her musical family.... more

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