Perween Rahman: The Rebel Optimist (2016)

Jane by Charlotte

Charlotte Gainsbourg looks at her mother Jane Birkin in a way she never did, overcoming a sense of reserve. Using a camera lens, they expose themselves to each other, begin to step back, leaving space for a mother-daughter relationship.

Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain

An intimate, behind-the-scenes look at how an anonymous chef became a world-renowned cultural icon. This unflinching look at Anthony Bourdain reverberates with his presence, in his own voice and in the way he indelibly impacted the world around him.

Gulpilil: One Red Blood

An hour-long documentary on the life and career of actor David Gulpilil.

Sisis Erben - Die Kinder der Kaiserin Elisabeth

A mother figure idealized by the cinema, Empress Elisabeth of Austria did not flourish with her four children. What kind of mother was the rebellious Sissi?

Unraveled: The Kaitlyn Howard Story

A deep dive into the creative mind of University of South Carolina student fashion designer, Kaitlyn Howard.

Grizzly Man

Werner Herzog's documentary film about the "Grizzly Man" Timothy Treadwell and what the thirteen summers in a National Park in Alaska were like in one man's attempt to protect the grizzly bears. The film is full of unique images and a look into the spirit of a man who sacrificed himself for nature.

Thomas Hardy: Fate, Exclusion and Tragedy

A portrait of the British writer Thomas Hardy (1840-1928), who, although he had radical instincts, hated hypocrisy, was of great poetic brilliance, had a tragic perception of life and a calm outward appearance, was at heart a man of seething and somber darkness.

A Brief History of Time

This shows physicist Stephen Hawking's life as he deals with the ALS that renders him immobile and unable to speak without the use of a computer. Hawking's friends, family, classmates, and peers are interviewed not only about his theories but the man himself.

Becoming Cary Grant

For the first time one of Hollywood's greatest stars tells his own story, in his own words. From a childhood of poverty to global fame, Cary Grant, the ultimate self-made star, explores his own screen image and what it took to create it.

Frank Sinatra: The Voice of the Century

Acknowledged as one of the greatest singers of the twentieth century, Arena explores the rise of the legendary crooner Frank Sinatra from his early family background to overwhelming show business success. Interviews with friends, family and associates reveal a star-studded career in music and film alongside a fascinating private life of four marriages, liaison with the Kennedy family, Las Vegas business interests and an alleged association with the Mafia

I Am a Dancer

Documentary about the dancer Rudolf Nureyev.

Chris Brown: Welcome to My Life

This compelling Documentary moves beyond the spotlight and past the attention-grabbing headlines to give pop superstar Chris Brown a chance to tell his own story. New interviews with the international phenomenon reveal long-awaited answers about his passion for making music, his tumultuous and much publicized relationships, and the pitfalls of coming of age in the public eye. Also included is new concert footage, behind-the-scenes access, and special interviews from Usher, Jennifer Lopez, DJ Khaled, Mike Tyson, Jamie Foxx and others.

Batman & Bill

Everyone thinks that Bob Kane created Batman, but that’s not the whole truth. One author makes it his crusade to make it known that Bill Finger, a struggling writer, actually helped invent the iconic superhero, from concept to costume to the very character we all know and love. Bruce Wayne may be Batman’s secret identity, but his creator was always a true mystery.

The Fabulous Allan Carr

Armed with a limitless Rolodex and a Benedict Canyon enclave with its own disco, Allan Carr threw the Hollywood parties that defined the 1970s. A producer, manager, and marketing genius, Carr built his bombastic reputation amid a series of successes including the mega-hit musical film "Grease," until it all came crashing down after he produced the 1989 Academy Awards, a notorious debacle.

Vana: The Biggest Race Is the Life Itself

A documentary portrait of a legendary Czech jockey, Josef Vána, reveals his inner world of thoughts. His unique way of life can't be described in words, and this is a first, really original view into his daily life around horses, terrifying accidents, and also stories about his family.

Clint Eastwood: The Last Legend

The portrait of the last cowboy Hollywood legend dives into the 65 years of an extraordinary career in Hollywood, highlighted iconic films like The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, as well as Million Dollar Baby, Mystic River and Gran Torino all the way to Cry Macho in 2021. It is no small task to cover more than 60 years of cinema history, especially when it is trying to surveyed with such breadth and diversity: TV star, international star, controversial icon, contested director, filmmaker with a capital F, Eastwood has been through it all, experienced it all, and it is first of all this romantic trajectory, this true American pastoral that the documentary wants to tell with all the passion it possibly can.

Diana: In Her Own Words

Using home videos recorded by her voice coach, Diana takes us through the story of her life.

Deep Water

DEEP WATER is the stunning true story of the fateful voyage of Donald Crowhurst, an amateur yachtsman who enters the most daring nautical challenge ever – the very first solo, non-stop, round-the-world boat race.

Keiko Kishi, Eternally Rebellious

Born in 1932, Keiko Kishi has been one of the first Japanese actresses known worldwide. Her decision to move to France and to marry director Yves Ciampi in 1957 – after he filmed her in Typhoon Over Nagasaki starring Jean Marais and Danielle Darrieux – caused a huge scandal in Japan. Despite this transgression, Keiko Kishi continued acting in her home country with Kon Ichikawa, Yasujiro Ozu, Masaki Kobayashi… building unique bridges between Japanese and European cultures. Free and rebellious, she emancipated herself from the many obstacles she encountered in the film industry, and created her own production company in her early twenties. Let’s look back at the story of a pioneer, an inspiration for many generations.

Who's Afraid of Kathy Acker?

Documentary tracing the extreme life of outlaw writer, performance artist and punk icon, Kathy Acker. Through animation, archival footage, interviews and dramatic reenactments, director Barbara Caspar explores Acker's colorful history, from her well-heeled upbringing to her role as the scribe of society's fringe.

Dalida pour toujours

French pop diva Dalida candidly discusses a number of the songs that made her a phenomenal success across Europe, the Middle East and Japan in this celluloid chronicle of the beguiling singer. Dalida -- who earned 45 gold records -- talks about "J'attendrai," "Besame Mucho," "Paroles Paroles" and other hits. The video also includes previously unreleased pictures shot in exotic locales and footage spanning the singer's 30-year career.

Who was Hitler

Hitler's biography told like never before. Besides brief historical localizations by a narrator, only contemporaries and Hitler himself speak: no interviews, no reenactment, no illustrative graphics and no technical gadgets. The testimonies from diaries, letters, speeches and autobiographies are assembled with new, often unpublished archive material. Hitler's life and work are thus reflected in a unique way in interaction with the image of the society in the years 1889 to 1945.

Hare Krishna! The Mantra, the Movement and the Swami Who Started It All

"Hare Krishna!" is a documentary on the life of Srila Prabhupada, the 70-year-old Indian Swami who arrives in America without support or money and ignites a worldwide spiritual phenomenon, now known as the Hare Krishna Movement.

Billie

‘Lady Day’ was one of the greatest jazz vocalists the world ever heard. In 1971, journalist Linda Lipnack Kuehl set out to write the definitive biography of Billie Holiday. Before her mysterious death in 1978, Lipnack Kuehl had taped over 200 hours of interviews. The tapes have never been heard. Now they form the basis of an atmospheric, multi-layered documentary that captures the many complex facets of a proud black woman, violent drug addict, loyal friend, vindictive lover and unforgettable singer of ‘God Bless The Child’, ‘Saddest Tale’ and the haunting ‘Strange Fruit’.

The Last Man on the Moon

The 1960s was an extraordinary time for the United States. Unburdened by post-war reparations, Americans were preoccupied with other developments like NASA, the game-changing space programme that put Neil Armstrong on the moon. Yet it was astronauts like Eugene Cernan who paved the uneven, perilous path to lunar exploration. A test pilot who lived to court danger, he was recruited along with 14 other men in a secretive process that saw them become the closest of friends and adversaries. In this intensely competitive environment, Cernan was one of only three men who was sent twice to the moon, with his second trip also being NASA’s final lunar mission. As he looks back at what he loved and lost during the eight years in Houston, an incomparably eventful life emerges into view. Director Mark Craig crafts a quietly epic biography that combines the rare insight of the surviving former astronauts with archival footage and otherworldly moonscapes.

Barbra Streisand: Becoming an Icon 1942–1984

Barbra Streisand grew up in working class Brooklyn, dreaming of escape from her tough childhood. A stellar student, she resisted the pressure to go to college as her sights were firmly set on Broadway. She was determined to become an actress and landed her first role aged 16, but it was two years later, when she started to sing, that her career took off. Subverting stereotypes and breaking glass ceilings, this programme looks at her rise to stardom and the remarkable achievements of her early career.

Jack Kerouac's Road: A Franco-American Odyssey

Part documentary, part drama, this film presents the life and work of Jack Kerouac, an American writer with Québec roots who became one of the most important spokesmen for his generation. Intercut with archival footage, photographs and interviews, this film takes apart the heroic myth and even returns to the childhood of the author whose life and work contributed greatly to the cultural, sexual and social revolution of the 1960s.

Standout: The Ben Kjar Story

Standout tells the powerful story of Ben Kjar, born with Crouzon Syndrome, a rare craniofacial disorder. From birth, doctors warn that his life will be overshadowed by limitations. Ben yearns for an ordinary life free from the harsh scrutiny he faces daily. However, each experience of adversity, including relentless bullying and a series of painful surgeries, ignites a fire within him. Wrestling becomes his proving ground, a place where he learns to transform his facial difference into a source of power. Determined to succeed, he pushes himself relentlessly, breaking through physical, social, and even romantic barriers that once seemed insurmountable. But as unexpected challenges arise and ridicule resurfaces, Ben finds himself at a defining crossroads: fade into the background of a “normal” life, or fully embrace his unique path and boldly stand out.

The Spencer Tracy Legacy: A Tribute by Katharine Hepburn

In this tribute to her frequent co-star and longtime love, Katharine Hepburn hosts a behind-the-scenes look at Spencer Tracy's personal and professional life that features intimate personal accounts, interviews and clips from his most acclaimed work on the silver screen.

The Pretenders: Chrissie Hynde or Rock Life

A journey through the artistic life of the British-American rock band The Pretenders, formed in 1978, and a portrait of its leader, the charismatic singer and songwriter Chrissie Hynde.

Becoming Black

In the 1960s, a white couple living in East Germany tells their dark-skinned child that her skin color is merely a coincidence. As a teenager, she accidentally discovers the truth. Years before, a group of African men came to study in a village nearby. Sigrid, an East German woman, fell in love with Lucien from Togo and became pregnant. But she was already married to Armin. The child is Togolese-East German filmmaker Ines Johnson-Spain. In interviews with Armin and others from her childhood years, she tracks the astonishing strategies of denial her parents, striving for normality, developed following her birth. What sounds like fieldwork about social dislocation becomes an autobiographical essay film and a reflection on themes such as identity, social norms and family ties, viewed from a very personal perspective.

Max Gimblett: Original Mind

Max Gimblett: Original Mind documents the life and process of eccentric, creative genius Max Gimblett. One of New Zealand’s most successful and internationally prominent living painters, Gimblett has been working in America since 1962. The filmmakers spent a week in Gimblett’s Soho loft where he and his devoted studio assistants generously revealed the techniques and philosophy behind his beautiful art.

Hannibal Hopkins & Sir Anthony

Hopkins’ career has spanned several decades, which is why we will also use many interviews that he gave throughout his life, allowing us to put him back into the context of each period and will be helpful in understanding his role in the history of cinema, because he was far from following the trends. He never belonged to any film movement; he is a chameleon that has always preferred natural acting, ‘non-acting’ when method acting was the fashion.

David Hurn: A Life in Pictures

Documentary celebrating the life and career of world-renowned Magnum photographer David Hurn, possibly Wales's most important living photographer.

Migliaccio: O Brasileiro em Cena

The documentary Migliaccio - O Brasileiro em Cena follows the path of those who take risks for the art, either as directors, as writers, as scenographers and even as costume designers. The Oscarito trophy received by Flávio Migliaccio in 2014 Gramado Film Festival crowns a career enmeshed by many threads. Since Migliaccio has performed in different fields of art - from cinema and theater to literature and drawing -, the documentary creates varied visual interventions to enchain the narrative, in addition to the interviews and archive pictures, such as a shadow play to represent his humble childhood, and to the cartoons the artist drew to portray his existential questions in his ranch in Rio Bonito (State of Rio de Janeiro). Images and stories that aim to show a professional and personal life pervaded by possibilities and attitudes, both artistic and political.

Stanisław Lem: Autor Solaris

An account of the life and work of the Polish writer Stanisław Lem (1921-2006), a key figure in science fiction literature involved in mysteries and paradoxes that need to be enlightened.

Great Homes of Rochester

Travel through the streets of Rochester and you’ll find some extraordinary architecture. From California bungalows to English Tudors, French colonials to Victorians, the Flour City is home to so many beautiful dwellings. WXXI takes you on a private tour inside some of these exquisite house in Great Homes of Rochester.

Kokoschka: Work and Life

Painter, poet and playwright, teacher and freethinker, lover and traveler, Austrian artist Oskar Kokoschka (1886-1980) was a rare individual who remained lucid and passionate throughout his long life.

Jim Morrison: The End

Paris, Rue Beautreillis, July 3, 1971. The corpse of rock star Jim Morrison is found in a bathtub, in the apartment of his girlfriend Pamela Courson. The chronicle of the last months of the life of the poet, singer and charismatic leader of the American band The Doors, one of the most influential in the history of rock.

Sepultura Endurance

The long awaited documentary about Sepultura's incredible journey from Brazil to the world.

Taylor Swift: From the Heart

After having released her fourth album "Red" in October 2012, Taylor Alison Swift continues to tear up the charts. In this film we learn how Swift becomes one of America's biggest Country and Pop music artists.

Pandora Peaks

A dialogue-free documentary on former magazine model Pandora Peaks, with narration by Peaks and Meyer.

What The Durrells Did Next

Hosted by Keeley Hawes, star of the popular television series The Durrells, this documentary reveals the adventures of the eccentric Durrell family once they left Corfu, Greece.