Jewel of the Pacific (2018)

The Ants and the Grasshopper

Anita Chitaya has a gift: she can help bring abundant food from dead soil, she can make men fight for gender equality, and maybe she can end child hunger in her village. Now, to save her home in Malawi from extreme weather, she faces her greatest challenge: persuading Americans that climate change is real. Traveling from Malawi to California to the White House, she meets climate sceptics and despairing farmers. Her journey takes her across all the divisions that shape the USA: from the rural-urban divide, to schisms of race, class and gender, and to the American exceptionalism that remains a part of the culture. It will take all her skill and experience to help Americans recognise, and free themselves from, a logic that is already destroying the Earth.

Valldaura: A Quarantine Cabin

A group of young architects, confined to a forest in Barcelona during the COVID crisis, explore the problems generated by the ambition of wanting to be completely self-sufficient.

Young At Heart

Documents the true story of the final weeks of rehearsal for the Young at Heart Chorus in Northampton, MA, and many of whom must overcome health adversities to participate. Their music goes against the stereotype of their age group. Although they have toured Europe and sang for royalty, this account focuses on preparing new songs for a concert in their hometown.

Arise

A film that captures the portraits and stories of extraordinary women around the world who are coming together to heal the injustices against the earth, weaves together poetry, music, art, and stunning scenery to create a hopeful and collective story that inspires us to work for the earth. The list of impassioned, indefatigable female environmental activists featured in this film includes Winona LaDuke, a Native American who has championed the use of solar and wind power on reservations; Theo Colborn, head of The Endocrine Disruption Exchange, who fights against toxic chemicals in our water supplies; Beverly Grant, who’s created a vibrant farmer’s market in a black neighborhood of Denver, Colo.; Dana Miller, who spearheads an “urban agriculture movement” in the same city; and Vandana Shiva, who champions organic farming in India.

Baraka

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

The Pool

Bondi Icebergs is the most photographed pool in the world. This is where generations of children have learnt to swim, where the diehard have braved the frigid waters of one hundred winters, where the young and beautiful have come to bond and bake in the hot sun. THE POOL is a stunning cinematic experience with a soundtrack that harks back to the 1960s and a cast of characters who each have a story to tell. It speaks to the enduring power of community and our collective longing to find it. No matter your background or where you’re at – everyone is equal in their swimsuits.

Lions in the Corner

In the rural mountains of Virginia, "Scarface" starts a fight club in his backyard to end gang violence. He calls it Streetbeefs.

The Donut King

Cambodian refugee Ted Ngoy builds a multi-million dollar empire by baking America's favourite pastry: the doughnut.

Making Dust

Making Dust is an essay film, a portrait of the demolition of Ireland's second largest Catholic Church, the Church of the Annunciation in Finglas West, Dublin. Understanding this moment as a 'rupture', the film maps an essay by architectural historian Ellen Rowley on to documentation of the building's dismantling. Featuring oral interviews recorded at the site of the demolition and in a nearby hairdressers, the film invites viewers to pause and reflect on this ending alongside the community of the building. The film is informed by Ultimology, and invites its audience to think about the life cycles of buildings and materials, how we mourn, what is sacred, how we gather, what we value and issues of sustainability in architecture.

Micropubs - The New Local

Inspired by the original micropub craze in Kent, three entrepreneurial Londoners decide to open their very own micropub and revitalise their high streets through a love of real ale, conversation and community spirit.

Flag Wars

Filmed over four years, this documentary focuses on the impacts of gentrification as gay white professionals move into a largely black working-class neighborhood in Columbus, Ohio.

Appartement proche Paris, charme atypique

Five floors. Forty apartments. Rats, leaks and debts. In Pantin, I live in a building with a danger order. Under court order, we have to renovate it. Between Dantesque arguments, missing money and humor as a fire extinguisher, I film our collective rescue.

Berlin Babylon

A documentary focusing on the rebuilding projects in Berlin after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

The Story of a Slough

When the Tanana River bridge was installed in Salcha, Alaska, the community worried about the levee's effects on fish wildlife. Salcha Elementary School, along with the help of Tanana Valley Watershed Association, conducted a 10-year scientific project with students to study the effects the levee had on Piledriver Slough. Tori Brannan - the filmmaker's mother - is a retired principal at Salcha Elementary and was the project's centerpiece. She shares her experiences with the project, the community, and how her daughter's involvement strengthened their relationship.

Fathers Are Sons Too

After the loss of his father, Sammy embarks on a journey to understand him better through the stories of various men. "Fathers Are Also Sons" is a visual testament of this personal journey toward connection.

We Beg to Differ

In the underground world of diffing, a community finds solace in their passion, as they navigate personal struggles and challenges both on and off the road.

Shelter

At the Covenant House, located on the outskirts of the French Quarter in New Orleans, Louisiana, the doors never close, and there is always room for one more. On any given day, a constant stream of young people carrying everything they own in plastic garbage bags fills the courtyard. The prospective residents are just teenagers, but have already been labeled drug addicts, schizophrenics, criminals and outcasts. As one staff member puts it, “the most damaged population of youth that exists in society today”. Filming over the course of a full year, brothers Brent and Craig Renaud tell the raw and emotional stories of the incredible kids who seek shelter at the Covenant House, and the staff struggling to work miracles everyday on their behalf.

back home

In 1999, 11-year-old Nisha Platzer lost her older brother, Josh, to suicide. Twenty years later, her search for a specialized medical treatment leads her to the door of someone who was once exceptionally close to Josh. And so it is that she finally has the chance to truly know her brother through his chosen family. Captured over five years in which synchronicities continually manifested, Platzer’s documentation of these encounters gently asserts that both grieving and healing are meant to be communal experiences.

El apagón: Aquí vive gente

“El apagón: Aquí vive gente” is a 23-minute film that explores the socio-economic challenges in Puerto Rico, focusing on the effects of power outages and gentrification driven by the real estate and energy sectors. Through visuals and personal stories, the documentary highlights the experiences of Puerto Rican communities facing these issues.

We Met in Virtual Reality

Filmed entirely inside the world of virtual reality (VR), this immersive and revealing documentary roots itself in several unique communities within VR Chat, a burgeoning virtual reality platform. Through observational scenes captured in real-time, in true documentary style, the film reveals the growing power and intimacy of several relationships formed in the virtual world, many of which began during the COVID-19 lockdown, while so many in the physical world were facing intense isolation.

Rom Boys: 40 Years of Rad

When a tragedy strikes the worlds most unique skate park, a dogged group of old school skaters, BMXers and street artists team up to fight for its survival.

A Kingdom of Tea & Strangers

At L'Abri, a short-term "hospitality community" in the English countryside, five strangers spend a summer together exploring their big questions about faith, being human, and finding belonging back home.

Century of Smoke

Laosan, a young family man, spends all his time smoking opium. For his community, lost in the heart of the Laotian jungle, opium farming is the only way to survive. But opium is also the poison that puts men to sleep and kills their desires.

Ballymanus

10 May 1943. Something is spotted drifting ashore off the coast of Northwest Donegal, Ireland. Something that would change the lives of the local people forever.

Bubble

A tropical fish shop in the East End of London, the last of what used to be many. Tiny, watery dramas inside fish tanks accompany the thoughts of local fish-keepers, while father and son Big Tel and Little Tel work to keep the shop alive.

Tupac Amaru, algo está cambiando: something is changing

Plot unavailable

Pit Dhuwur

In the heart of Yogyakarta, a tall bike enthusiast takes a stand against the city's lacklustre cycling infrastructure in the city with the "Bicycle Friendly City" label.

Cruel Architecture, a Tool of Gentrification

A short documentary shot in November 2021 in Berkeley. It reflects on the ethos of privatization in American culture and how public spaces are being built to exclude people through cruel architecture. The context used is the gentrification circle around the University of California Berkeley intended to build student housing. An eye-opening journey that explores structures and elements you would never have stopped at.

Oyler

A Cincinnati public school fights to break the cycle of poverty in its Urban Appalachian neighborhood, where senior Raven Gribbins aims to become the first in her troubled family to graduate and go to college. When Principal Craig Hockenberry's job is threatened, it becomes clear it's a make-or-break year for both of them.

Berlin Utopiekadaver

A taxi drives through the city of Berlin. Its driver is a punk, left and a well-known figure in the autonomous scene. The stations of his trip are the most important places of the autonomous scene: all in the struggle for survival. The last evictions have not yet been processed and the next ones are coming right up.

Reimagining A Buffalo Landmark

The Richardson Olmsted Campus, a former psychiatric center and National Historic Landmark, is seeing new life as it undergoes restoration and adaptation to a modern use.

We Can Be Heroes

Sometimes, finding your tribe requires a bit of magic. For attendees of a live action role-playing (LARP) camp in upstate New York, the deeply accepting environment has given neurodivergent, queer, and self-proclaimed "nerdy" teenagers the space and community for self-discovery that they have never found anywhere else. As the campers immerse themselves in this imaginative world, they discover inner strength, heal from past traumas, and emerge as the heroes they are meant to be, both in the fantasy realm and in real life.