Pasta (2018)

Cocaine: History Between the Lines

Cocaine has always gotten a bad rap, and for a reason. It is a drug used by the rich and the poor legally and illegally, Mexican cartels fought over it with Colombia once associated with the brutal cocaine wars, and a source of tension between the American and Mexican borders on the people who are illicitly bringing in cocaine from one side of the border to another and will do anything to do it. So it can be surprising at times to the viewer throughout the course of the documentary special, that it was never always like this.

Elton John: Never Too Late

Sir Elton John looks back on his life and the astonishing early days of his 50-year career in this emotionally charged, full-circle journey. As he prepares for his final concert in North America at Dodger Stadium, Elton takes us back in time and recounts his struggles with adversity, abuse, and addiction, and how he overcame them to become the icon he is today.

Faya Dayi

A spiritual journey into the highlands of Harar, immersed in the rituals of khat, a leaf Sufi Muslims chewed for centuries for religious meditations – and Ethiopia’s most lucrative cash crop today. A tapestry of intimate stories offers a window into the dreams of youth under a repressive regime.

Crack: Cocaine, Corruption & Conspiracy

A cheap, powerful drug emerges during a recession, igniting a moral panic fueled by racism. Explore the complex history of crack in the 1980s.

The Fight for the Soul of Seattle

“The Fight for the Soul of Seattle” examines the role of Seattle’s City Council in allowing the situation to reach what many experts consider epidemic levels under the guise of a compassionate approach to people who suffer from substance addiction and who commit crimes to feed their habit. It documents the heartbreaking condition of people on the streets, and the crushing decisions Seattle entrepreneurs are forced to contemplate as their life savings and dreams are destroyed by theft, vandalism and a dwindling customer base. This documentary also explores potential bold solutions to treat those living on the streets and pair them with agencies and assistance that can provide a clear path away from the endless circle of addiction and crime.

Dosed

The documentary follows one woman's quest to overcome anxiety, depression, and opioid addiction through the use of psychedelic medicines.

Methadonia

Shot over the course of 18 months in New York City's Lower East Side, METHADONIA sheds light on the inherent flaws of legal methadone treatments for heroin addiction by profiling eight addicts, in various stages of recovery and relapse, who attend the New York Center for Addiction Treatment Services (NYCATS).

Let's Get Lost

Documentary about jazz great Chet Baker that intercuts footage from the 1950s, when he was part of West Coast Cool, and from his last years. We see the young Baker, he of the beautiful face, in California and in Italy, where he appeared in at least one movie and at least one jail cell (for drug possession). And, we see the aged Baker, detached, indifferent, his face a ruin. Includes interviews with his children and ex-wife, women companions, and musicians.

The Salt Mines

Explores the lives of Sara, Gigi and Giovanna, three Latino transvestites who for years have lived on the streets of Manhattan supporting their drug addictions through prostitution. They made their temporary home inside broken garbage trucks that the Sanitation Department keeps next to the salt deposits used in the winter to melt the snow. The three friends share the place known as "The Salt Mines".

Be Here to Love Me

Chronicles the fascinating and often turbulent life of Townes Van Zandt.

Reindeerspotting: Escape from Santaland

Reindeerspotting is a documentary film of a group of young guys living in Rovaniemi, Arctic Circle, dabbling in petty crime and hard drugs. One of them, Jani, has lost five years of his life and two fingers to his debotators. He wants to leave Lapland and his old life behind. Robbing a supermarket is a start for his getaway. A few years back a documentarist, Joonas Neuvonen, was a young men living on social welfare, using drugs on daily basis. He started to film his friends and their life. This is the story of Jani.

The Smashing Machine

A stunning and provocative look at Mark Kerr's career from late '99 through the 2000 Pride Grand Prix, fighting with his own personal demons that rival the men he encounters in the ring.

Heroin(e)

This documentary follows three women — a fire chief, a judge, and a street missionary — as they battle West Virginia's devastating opioid epidemic.

Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story

The life and career of the hailed Hollywood movie star and underappreciated genius inventor, Hedy Lamarr.

Elton John: A Singular Man

An in-depth portrait of British composer, pianist and singer Elton John, pop star and myth of modern culture.

Dope Sick Love

Two heroin-addicted couples lead hard and stressful lives on the streets of New York.

Hookers at the Point

From the sultry streets of Hunts Point in the South Bronx, comes the rawest, realest and truest documentation of the world's oldest profession ever captured on video. From Brent Owens, the director of Pimps Up, Ho's Down, comes the first two in a series of five films. Hookers At The Point focuses on the business of sex and the people involved in it. As a special bonus we have included Hookers At The Point: Going Out Again, where we follow up on the personalities from the first film and see where "The Life" has led them.

Amy

A documentary on the life of Amy Winehouse, the immensely talented yet doomed songstress. We see her from her teen years, where she already showed her singing abilities, to her finding success and then her downward spiral into alcoholism and drugs.

Kids On Ice

Quiet towns across rural Australia are in the grip of an Ice epidemic. Major international drug cartels are working with local outlawed motorcycle gangs to push crystal meth to a captive market of children.

Wadd: The Life & Times of John C. Holmes

Friends, enemies, acquaintances, and family of porn star John Holmes recall their experiences with him, from his childhood to his eventual death from AIDS in 1988.

Safe Place

A Southern Indiana man endures a fatal night of torture after being arrested for a routine traffic stop.

OG: The Harry Jumonji Story

'OG' is a film about a legendary, Brazilian born, NYC skateboarder, Harry Jumonji. In the course of telling his story, through his triumphs and travails, Jumonji emerges in this portrait as an adolescent innocent, much like skateboarding itself. He is irrepressible, manically energetic and ultimately, pure. He has a transcendent presence, well beyond charm or charisma, of such unalloyed joy that nothing he does is unforgiveable. This is fortunate because, as a drug addict, unsurprisingly, he lies, cheats and steals. Harry is rendered as the poet, the sprite, the artist and the street saint he is.

Milli Vanilli: From Fame to Shame

The crazy story of two fancy boys, a French and a German, models and dancers, who won a Grammy award in 1990 just by moving their lips: the rise and fall of the Milli Vanilli duo. Playback singers, lies and video clips.

North by Current

Filmmaker Angelo Madsen Minax returns to his rural Michigan hometown following the death of his infant niece and the subsequent arrest of his brother-in-law as the culprit. Using the audio-visual approaches of essay film, first-person cinema vérité, staged actions, and decades of home movies, Madsen navigates a town steeped in opioid addiction, economic depression, and religious fervor, while using the act of filmmaking to rebuild familial bonds and reimagine justice. Posing empathy as a tool for creating a more just world, North By Current does not seek to investigate a crime, but creates a relentless portrait of an enduring pastoral family, poised to reframe and reimagine narratives about incarceration, addiction, trans embodiment, and ruralness.

Katka

“You bet on someone in the beginning of the process and then you wait and see what life does with them.” This is how Czech director Helena Trestikova explains her long-term documentaries. Following on from the European Film Academy Award winning RENE (2008), Trestikova brings us KATKA – 14 years in the life of a drug addict. KATKA is an extraordinarily raw and uncensored character portrait of a troubled young woman living on the edge of human existence, desperately searching for love and salvation. Will she find it in the rehab? Will she find it in the arms of the man she loves? Or in the first cry of her long-desired baby? Tagging along with her through the back streets and squalors of Prague, Trestikova gets deep under the skin of a person most of us would cross the road to avoid, and shows us Katka’s profoundly human face. You might be angry with Katka, or your heart may go out to her. One thing is certain – you will never forget her.

Richard Pryor: Omit the Logic

Mike Epps, Richard Pryor Jr. and others recount the culture-defining influence of Richard Pryor - one of America's most brilliant, iconic comic minds.

Kamikaze Hearts

Porn stars Sharon Mitchell and Tigr navigate the ups and downs of being in love while working in the sex industry.

Hookers on Davie

Filmmakers Holly Dale and Janis Cole explore the culture of Davie Street, located in the underbelly of Vancouver, where dozens of prostitutes work and live every day. Surprisingly, they find that the sex trade there is stable and largely non-violent, and that the women who work on Davie Street meet daily to discuss safety and health issues and don't use pimps. The film also includes candid interviews with the prostitutes and footage of negotiations with potential clients.

Bliss

After a tragic series of events in his life, Rob discovers the over-the-counter drug known as codeine. The effects of the pill are so strong and addictive, that soon, Rob becomes dependant and consumes them daily. But the less he feels the more he misses, as his life degrades into a deep, dangerous, oblivion of bliss.

SORDOS

Experimental Short Film Documentary made during the social outbreak, follows 2 Deaf people walking through the outbreak in Plaza Dignidad.

Seattle is Dying

KOMO Anchor Eric Johnson takes an in-depth look at the impact the drug and homelessness problem is having on our city and possible solutions in "Seattle is Dying," a news documentary that aired on KOMO-TV in March, 2019.

Adriana's Pact

Lissette's favorite aunt Adriana, who lives in Australia, is arrested in 2007 while visiting her family in Chile and accused of having worked for dictator Pinochet's notorious secret police, the DINA, and of having participated in the commission of state crimes. When Adriana denies these accusations, Lissette begins to investigate her story in order to film a documentary about her.

Love in the Time of Fentanyl

An intimate portrait of a community fighting to save lives and keep hope alive in a neighborhood ravaged by the overdose crisis.

What Did You Take?

Stresses recognition and treatment of drug abuse emergencies, accurate identification of symptoms, and immediate clinical procedures. Presents scenes of actual cases in the emergency room and adjoining physician's offices of Beth Israel Medical Center in New York City. Viewers observe emergency treatment of patients in the major classes of drugs commonly abused, opiates, depressants, stimulants, and hallucinogens. The film demonstrates to health professionals that successful management of drug overdoses can save most lives and avert additional organic and psychiatric complications.

Through a Blue Lens

This documentary, set in the Lower East End of Vancouver's downtown core, is a pretty honest account of life on the streets in urban Canada. It is aimed at educating high school kids on the dangers of addiction to hard drugs and is the brainchild of a group of city police officers who videotape their interactions with local homeless personalities.

DJ Punk: The Photographer Daniel Josefsohn

Nobody captured the atmosphere of 1990s Berlin better than German photographer Daniel Josefsohn, who died in 2016 at the age of 54, leaving his mark in advertising with his irreverent aesthetic and punk sensibility. It was his spontaneous, imperfect images shot for an MTV campaign in 1994 that first made him famous.

The Self-Destruction of Gia

Filmmaker JJ Martin explores Gia Carangi's life through rare home movies and photos, previously unseen interviews with Gia, and contemporary interviews with family, friends, and associates.

Our American Family

Addiction is an all-encompassing force, in not only the lives of the afflicted, but also those around them. Our American Family provides an honest, unfiltered look at a close-knit Philadelphia family dealing with generational substance abuse.

Meth Storm

As police and DEA agents battle sophisticated cartels, rural, economically-disadvantaged users and dealers–whose addiction to ICE and lack of job opportunities have landed them in an endless cycle of poverty and incarceration–are caught in the middle.

Storia di Filomena e Antonio: Gli anni '70 e la droga a Milano

Documentary on the penetration of drugs in Milan in the 70s. Filomena is only 24 years old and recounts with a lucidity that takes her breath away her journey as a child locked up in boarding school, ran away from home, taken back by her family and treated as a lost woman. She talks about her marriage to a boy who emigrated to Germany, and her inability to adapt to this new situation. She narrates the arrival in Milan, the meeting with Antonio and the one with drugs. A dialogue for two voices traces the ruthless picture of drug addiction, the daily search for the dose and the attempts to get out of it. It is a poignant document, above all for the lucidity, measure, maturity and intelligence of two unforgettable figures.

Un crime à Abidjan

Plot unavailable

Under Blue Skies

In the 1980s the breathtaking scenery of the Engadine is the setting of a social tragedy. The local youth rejects the rigid rules of traditional society. Along with juvenile get-togethers, heroin appears in the mountain valley. As more and more die from overdose, society reacts to the crisis by isolating itself and averting its eyes. The film lifts the veil on the stories untold. Can the memories of this bleak past become part of the Engadine’s acknowledged heritage?

Karalahti

Documentary movie about a Finnish professional ice hockey player, Jere Karalahti. More than 50 people have been interviewed for the documentary film, such as Jere's family, coaches, journalists, fellow players and childhood friends. A profound documentary consists of archive material and dramatized scenes in addition to interviews.

Slavery In The 70's

Heroin anti-drug educational film

HairKutt

In this chilling documentary about the power of addiction, three friends take their fourth longtime pal Bryant "HairKutt" Johnson to a remote cabin in the Tennessee woods, hoping to force him to kick his heroin habit. The group must cut short their trip when HairKutt's body begins to fail without the drug, and after rushing him to a hospital, the friends are dismayed to find that he quickly returns to his old ways.

Mamma

It's Christmas Eve, and Synnøve is searching for her drug-addicted daughter Michelle in an almost desolated city. During the course of the evening, she'll find herself in an impossible situation where she's forced to choose.

Subject: Narcotics

Educational film about drug addiction.

Desolate Rome

Chronicles of a male homosexual drug addict in 1980's in voice-over with long take scenes from Rome, television snippets of news of Gulf War and commercials.

Matthew Perry: Not just Friends

Plot unavailable

The Fix

Junior, a young father trying to turn his life around after years of heroin addiction, joins forces with a group of fellow hepatitis-C-infected former junkies in the Bronx to fight the disease in their community. Knitting personal narratives together with a profile of innovative programs at a methadone clinic, the film explores the concept of storytelling as an instrument of change and gives a powerful voice to marginalized members of society.

Hrana – 4 filmy o Marekovi Brezovskom

Plot unavailable

Outside

The film explores the turbulent lives of homeless persons in Cologne, Germany. Through their personal belongings the homeless share with the viewer their memories and emotions, and provide insight into the secrets of survival on the street.