Boats & Brides (2024)

Waltz with Bashir

An Israeli film director interviews fellow veterans of the 1982 invasion of Lebanon to reconstruct his own memories of his term of service in that conflict.

World War C

It's war. War against an invisible enemy that is not as deadly as we are told. The world is changing rapidly. Disproportionate measures are taken worldwide that disrupt society as a whole. A dichotomy in society forced vaccinations and restrictions on freedom. Have we had the worst? Or is there something more disturbing to awaiting us.

Recovery

Jean-Claude walks his dog in a neighborhood forever stuck in reconstruction. On his trip, he wonders about life, mortality, and 'what if' scenarios while remembering fragments from the direct impact of the second that almost cost him his life on August 4. At the moment of the explosion, the end of the world, bodies, buildings, roads, and cities may shatter. Perhaps the universe itself breaks apart. But the most severe fragmenting remains that of memory. A picture here and a sound there are vaguely reconstituted. Can a future be built from such a memory? Can it rebuild what was lost? Is it time to leave?

Edge of the Valley

A nine-year-old Syrian refugee girl contemplates her increasingly bleak future after being forced to drop out of school in the midst of Lebanon’s unprecedented economic collapse and battle with Covid-19.

Yalla, Baba!

Lebanese director Angie Obeid embarks on a road trip with her father, Mansour, retracing a journey he made 42 years ago. She tries to reach out to the young Mansour, understand the decisions he made when he was her age, and find common ground. The film explores the challenges and opportunities that arise when navigating the boundaries between tradition and modernity, family and individuality, home and the wider world.

The Lady of the Palace

Sayedat Al-Kasr traces the history of the Joumblatt family of Mount Lebanon from the 17th century to the present, focusing on early 20th century leader and politician Nazira Joumblatt. Born in 1889, Nazira ascended the throne of the Moukhtara palace in 1923, following the assassination of her husband Fouad and the resignation of her brother Aly Joumblatt. She presided over the region as Lady of the Palace for twenty-five years while raising her son Kamal, preparing him to take his place in a long line of Jumblatt leaders. Famous for her wisdom and strong personality, Nazira boldly entered the Lebanese political scene at a time when this field was entirely dominated by men. Unwavering, she contributed to maintaining peace and stability in Lebanon for many years, earning the respect of men and women, whether Druze or Maronites.

The Lebanese Rocket Society

Lebanon's brief flirtation with space travel in the 1960s becomes a poignant metaphor for the Arab world's utopian dreams in this riveting documentary.

Líban, retrat de l'empoderament

Plot unavailable

Kaab l Dayaa

Intimate discussion with the inhabitants of Kfarbaal, a village tucked in the mountains above Byblos. We hear them share their experiences, deceptions and dreams.

Greetings to Kamal Jumblatt

Tribute to the Druze Kamal Jumblatt, Minister of Economy and Agriculture (1946) and founder of the Progressive Socialist Party (PSP) in 1949. He was one of the architects of the departure of President Bechara el-Khoury (1952), before playing a major role in the events of 1958. From 1960 to 1964, Kamal Jumblatt assumed, under the presidency of Fouad Chehab, various ministerial functions . . After the conflict of June 1967, he gradually approached the Palestinian organizations. In 1969 he became Minister of the Interior; in August 1970, he supported the election of Soleiman Frangié as President of the Republic. Following the Lebanese-Palestinian clashes of May 1973, he took sides against the head of state, established himself as the leader of the National Movement in 1975 and engaged in a revolutionary armed struggle against the Lebanese Front. Hostile to Syria's intervention in Lebanon, he broke with it (March 1976). He was assassinated near a Syrian checkpoint in 1977.

Kamal Joumblatt, Witness and Martyr

Kamal Jumblatt, the Master of Moukhtara Castle, recounts the major events of his life until his assassination on March 16, 1977. The film takes us on a global journey from Lebanon to India, in the footsteps of Kamal Jumblatt, the founder of the PSP (Progressive Socialist Party), the leader, the rebel, the reformer, the thinker, the poet, the Yogi … Kamal Jumblatt (1917-1977) becomes the last witness... of his own life.

Memory Box

Maia, a single mother, lives in Montreal with her teenage daughter, Alex. On Christmas Eve, they receive an unexpected delivery: notebooks, tapes, and photos Maia, from 13 to 18 years old, sent from Beirut to her best friend who left for Paris to escape the civil war. Maia refuses to open the box or confront its memories, but Alex secretly begins diving into it. Between fantasy and reality, Alex enters the world of her mother’s tumultuous, passionate adolescence during the Lebanese civil war, unlocking mysteries of a hidden past.

Nahla

After the battle of Kfar Chouba in Lebanon in January 1975, Larbi Nasri, a young Algerian journalist, was caught in the whirlwind of events preceding the civil war. Linked to Maha, Hind, Raouf and Michel who surround Nahla, he witnesses the construction of the myth of Nahla, a singer adored by the Arab population. One day Nahla loses her voice on stage. The atmosphere of crisis that reigns around her is spreading like an infection. Larbi, fascinated, loses his footing and gets bogged down.

Lovely Day

Alain and Virginie are getting married today, but Alain is on the verge of a nervous breakdown. The impending reunion of his divorced parents has plunged him into deep anxiety, only made worse by the shady schemes of his cousin and best man Edouard, who seems determined to get him involved. The groom now has only one ambition: to survive the happiest day of his life.

Ransomed

In Beirut 1986, during the Lebanese civil war a Korean diplomat is taken hostage without a trace. Two years pass and long forgotten, a young diplomat Min-jun receives a phone call proving that the hostage is still alive. With the given mission, Min-jun is sent to Beirut to save the hostage with a bag of ransom money.

Perhaps Today...

Oum Karim, a 60-year-old Beiruti lady, is used to preparing Lahm Bi Ajin (Lebanese ham pie) once per week.

Deaf

Beirut, Lebanon. Hassan is assembling wooden boards. His wife is dead. He is building her coffin. Tamara and Rami, the children, in their twenties, are helping him as best they can to fulfill her last wish: to be buried in her childhood village, abandoned for more than 20 years.

I Don’t Like My Car Anymore

Two lovers. Both are immigrants. Their relationship is the last thing that they kept from home, the last rope they are attached to. Marc holds that rope dearly, Léa wants to cut it. Her love of Paris has taken over the love of Marc

Alitisal (The Call)

As a deadly explosion shatters Lebanon three immigrant siblings living abroad confront their mental health struggles amid uncertainty about their parents' fate.

Full Stop

Wajdi and Maia are spending their last days together before Wajdi travels to a new start away from the Lebanese situation.

The Boy Who Wore the Sun

David, a 21-year-old guy who wears a scoliosis plastic corset, hides a shameful circular scar on his stomach. one night, before one month of his skin graft surgery, he’s put in an uncomfortable skinny dipping situation with his friends at the beach. what will he do?

Sicko

A documentary about the corrupt health care system in The United States who's main goal is to make profit even if it means losing people’s lives. "The more people you deny health insurance the more money we make" is the business model for health care providers in America.

La memoria inmortal

Plot unavailable

Olhos Recuperados

Plot unavailable

The Menendez Brothers

Serving life in prison for murdering their parents, Lyle and Erik Menendez speak out in this documentary explaining the shocking crime and ensuing trials.

House of Cardin

The life and design of Pierre Cardin, including exclusive access to his archives and unprecedented interviews from Mr. Cardin.

Searching for Valentina: The World of Guido Crepax

1965: Paris, London and Milan all move at the same fast pace, fueled by a fresh creative and rebellious impetus. Guido Crepax picks up on this energy and transfers it to a comic strip in which art, music, design, film and fashion all blend together, breaking with traditional narrative structure. The dreamy photographer Valentina becomes Crepax' alter ego: as lovely as Louise Brooks, as disturbing as one of Lucio Fontana's slashed canvases, as knowing as Bob Dylan's lyrics, and as freewheeling as Charlie Parker's compositions.

Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and The Band

A confessional, cautionary, and occasionally humorous tale of Robbie Robertson's young life and the creation of one of the most enduring groups in the history of popular music, The Band.

Western Stars

The incomparable Bruce Springsteen performs his critically acclaimed latest album and muses on life, rock, and the American dream, in this intimate and personal concert film co-directed by Thom Zimny and Springsteen himself.

The Great Green Wall

An epic journey along Africa's Great Green Wall — an ambitious vision to grow a wall of trees stretching across the entire continent to fight against increasing drought, desertification and climate change.

The Deported

The Deported follows four long term residents of the United States, each with an Order of Deportation over their head, and their families as they have to make critical decisions that will either keep their family together and separate them. Their choices are: 1. to self-deport. 2. To take sanctuary in a church. 3. To fight back legally. 4. To fall into denial and do nothing.

Dixie Chicks: Shut Up and Sing

Shut Up and Sing is a documentary about the country band from Texas called the Dixie Chicks and how one tiny comment against President Bush dropped their number one hit off the charts and caused fans to hate them, destroy their CD’s, and protest at their concerts. A film about freedom of speech gone out of control and the three girls lives that were forever changed by a small anti-Bush comment

Dark Side of the Moon

A French documentary or, one might say more accurately, a mockumentary, by director William Karel which originally aired on Arte in 2002 with the title Opération Lune. The basic premise for the film is the theory that the television footage from the Apollo 11 Moon landing was faked and actually recorded in a studio by the CIA with help from director Stanley Kubrick.

The Story Of Pakt

A short student-made documentary that details the creation and operation of the Cornish underground event management business "Pakt Events"

Winter Portrait

A misty afternoon returns a Mapuche couple to their wedding video. In their civil ceremony, they are noted as one of only two couples married in the indigenous language of Mapudungun.

Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer

British documentarian Nick Broomfield creates a follow-up piece to his 1992 documentary of the serial killer Aileen Wuornos, a highway prostitute who was convicted of killing six men in Florida between 1989 and 1990. Interviewing an increasingly mentally unstable Wuornos, Broomfield captures the distorted mind of a murderer whom the state of Florida deems of sound mind -- and therefore fit to execute. Throughout the film, Broomfield includes footage of his testimony at Wuornos' trial.

The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant

The inside story of the last days of a General Motors plant in Moraine, Ohio, as lived by the people who worked the line.

Last Stand of the 300

This is the true and astounding saga of the Spartans at Thermopylae. It is among the greatest tales of war ever recounted. All the glory and grit of these warriors' last stand is captured in this exceptional documentary. It is almost impossible to understand how 300 Spartans managed to hold off the million-man Persian army for even a moment, much less seven days. To a man they paid with their lives but their stunning Last Stand assured that their sacrifice would resonate throughout history. Transporting dramatizations and incisive graphics put you in the heat of the battle and show the lay of the land. The complications and strategies of the conflict are revealed through careful analysis, and critical moments are reconstructed to show exactly what happened. Discover what the Spartans were fighting for, what made them capable of such heroics and what drove them to such sacrifice.

Scala!!!

This feature-length big screen documentary tells the riotous inside story of the infamous sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll repertory cinema which inspired a generation during Britain's turbulent Thatcher years.

Hurry and Wait

Plot unavailable

Twenty Two

Follow the lives of the elderly survivors who were forced into sex slavery as “Comfort Women” by the Japanese during World War II. At the time of filming, only 22 of these women were still alive to tell their story. Through their own personal histories and perspectives, they tell a tale that should never be forgotten to generations unaware of the brutalization that occurred.

Heaven is a Traffic Jam on the 405

56-year-old artist Mindy Alper has suffered severe depression and anxiety for most of her life. For a time she even lost the power of speech, and it was during this period that her drawings became extraordinarily articulate.

Gladiators of the Desert

In Chile, where European football (i.e., soccer) is the dominant sport, Coach Carlos Zuniga offers at-risk teenage boys a unique opportunity to learn and play American-style football. He struggles through a grueling season trying to balance teaching the unfamiliar game to his players while fighting for recognition and funding from city officials who have no interest in the sport.

Caligula with Mary Beard

What is true and what is false in the hideous stories spread about the controversial figure of the Roman emperor Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus (12-41), nicknamed Caligula? Professor Mary Beard explains what is accurate and what is mythical in the historical accounts that portray him as an unbalanced despot. Was he a sadistic tyrant, as Roman historians have told, or perhaps the truth about him was manipulated because of political interests?

So Help Me God

Some 20 years ago, two sex workers were murdered in an upper-class Brussels neighborhood. Celebrated Belgian magistrate Anne Gurwez decides to revisit this cold case, pouring over the evidence with the use of new technologies and tracking down then-suspects.

The Phantom

Carlos DeLuna was arrested in 1993 aged 21 for the murder of Wanda Lopez, and protested his innocence until his execution, declaring that it was another Carlos who committed the crime.

Nightshave

A narrator recounts a story about his missing friend, the downfall of a sheep shearing gang and sightings of a hairy beast in 1980s rural New Zealand.

The Land

Documentary showing the poor state that American agriculture had fallen into during the Great Depression.