Salvation (2001)

The Hotel of Waifs

Waifs, homeless, derelicts, almsmen, others, forgettens, outcasts, unwanteds. The Hotel of Waifs; a temporary resting place far from home, an amusement in a pale fun fair, an enthusiastic trip on roundabout ways of soul.

Nightcrawlers

For five years, Stephen McCoy documented street life in Boston. This is what he captured.

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).

What You’ll Remember

Homelessness in the United States takes many forms. For Elizabeth Herrera, David Lima and their four children, housing instability has meant moving between unsafe apartments, motels, relatives’ couches, shelters, the streets and their car. After 15 years of this uncertainty, the family moved into their first stable housing — an apartment in the San Francisco Bay Area — in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.

Children in Crisis: The Story of CHIP

In the midst of a catastrophic steel industry collapse, a remarkable grassroots community effort leads to a national healthcare program that helps more than 200 million children...and counting.

49 Up

49 Up is the seventh film in a series of landmark documentaries that began 42 years ago when UK-based Granada's World in Action team, inspired by the Jesuit maxim "Give me the child until he is seven and I will give you the man," interviewed a diverse group of seven-year-old children from all over England, asking them about their lives and their dreams for the future. Michael Apted, a researcher for the original film, has returned to interview the "children" every seven years since, at ages 14, 21, 28, 35, 42 and now again at age 49.In this latest chapter, more life-changing decisions are revealed, more shocking announcements made and more of the original group take part than ever before, speaking out on a variety of subjects including love, marriage, career, class and prejudice.

The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill

A homeless musician finds meaning in his life when he starts a friendship with dozens of parrots.

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".

Dark Days

A cinematic portrait of the homeless population who live permanently in the underground tunnels of New York City.

Land Without Bread

An exploration —manipulated and staged— of life in Las Hurdes, in the province of Cáceres, in Extremadura, Spain, as it was in 1932. Insalubrity, misery and lack of opportunities provoke the emigration of young people and the solitude of those who remain in the desolation of one of the poorest and least developed Spanish regions at that time.

Cuba and the Cameraman

This revealing portrait of Cuba follows the lives of Fidel Castro and three Cuban families affected by his policies over the last four decades.

Lead Me Home

Poignant stories of homelessness on the West Coast of the US frame this cinematic portrait of a surging humanitarian crisis.

Streetwise

This documentary about teenagers living on the streets in Seattle began as a magazine article. The film follows nine teenagers who discuss how they live by panhandling, prostitution, and petty theft.

Petit Rempart

Mariem, 53, a former estate agent, has been living at a shelter for several months. Surrounded by women in far more precarious circumstances than herself, she tries to regard her unprecedented social downfall as an immersion in real life. By the time she leaves, Mariem’s view of the world will have changed forever, enriched by all the women she has met along the way.

Isle of Flowers

A tomato is planted, harvested and sold at a supermarket, but it rots and ends up in the trash. But it doesn’t end there: Isle of Flowers follows it up until its real end, among animals, trash, women and children. And then the difference between tomatoes, pigs and human beings becomes clear.

No Country for the Poor

What if democracy fails citizens by not serving them all equally? What if inequality becomes the norm and the most vulnerable citizens are left behind with no money, no home, no rights, and no country of their own? In Hungary, the government has slashed social benefits and criminalized homelessness, but a group of activists, homeless and middle class, is confronting authorities to defend social justice and their right to be citizens. After the tragic death of two of its founding members, the group feels that Hungary is growing more hostile and their struggle is more important than ever. Despite all odds, their own community keeps them going—a mini-society with democracy and solidarity at its heart, an island of hope, belonging and dignity in a society gradually shifting the other way.

Talihina Sky: The Story of Kings of Leon

A behind-the-scenes look at the rise of the American rock band, Kings of Leon.

This is an Address

Stonewall veterans (including prominent trans activist Sylvia Rivera) and HIV-positive New Yorkers take up residency on the Hudson River piers as cranes raze vacant buildings for a new skyline.

Un jour ça ira

Djibi and Ange, two teenagers living on the streets, arrive at the Archipel, an emergency shelter in the heart of Paris. This documentary is a look at the Archipel, a shelter offering an innovative way to welcome families living on the streets.

Black Pete – No, You're It

A drama-documentary film about the fatal effect of poor living conditions on health – the so-called "social inheritance." The principal characters in the film are two fourteen or fifteen-year-old children, Carl and Hanne. Covering a hundred-year period and drawing on case stories recorded by actual hospital staff, the film illustrates a number of variations of "the same old story."

La face cachée de l'aéroport CDG la nuit

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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.

Laissez-faire

A historical perspective to understand Neoliberalism and to understand why this ideology today so profoundly influences the choices of our governments and our lives.

Carts of Darkness

In the picture-postcard community of North Vancouver, filmmaker Murray Siple follows men who have turned bottle-picking, their primary source of income, into the extreme sport of shopping cart racing. Enduring hardships from everyday life on the streets of Vancouver, this sub-culture depicts street life as much more than stereotypes portrayed in mainstream media. The films takes a deep look into the lives of the men who race carts, the adversity they face, and the appeal of cart racing despite the risk.

The Mouth of the Wolf

Upon his release from prison, an ex-convict returns to his beloved city of Genoa, and to his lover.

Minimalism: A Documentary About the Important Things

How might your life be better with less? The popular simple-living duo The Minimalists examines the many flavors of minimalism by taking the audience inside the lives of minimalists from various walks of life.

Nine Lives

Several street children in Berlin talk about their daily life, referring not only to drug addiction and physical/traumatic injuries, but also to their talents and dreams.

Tie Xi Qu: West of the Tracks

A detailed look at the gradual decline of Shenyang’s industrial Tiexi district, an area that was once a vibrant example of China’s socialist economy. But industry is changing, and the factories of Tiexi are closing. Director Wang Bing introduces us to some of the workers affected by the closures, and to their families.

80 Blocks from Tiffany's

This 1979 documentary depicts the daily life of gangs in the South Bronx. It deals primarily with two African American and Puerto Rican gangs known as the "Savage Skulls" and the "Savage Nomads".

Afrique-France : le divorce ?

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American Hollow

This documentary follows the lives of the Bowling family as they fight to survive in dirt-poor Appalachia. Matriarch Iree has given birth to 13 children, but only two have left to seek better lives in Ohio while the rest have married and started their own impoverished families near home. Uneducated and unskilled, all are unemployed, and domestic violence and alcoholism pose serious problems. The filmmakers explore the family's relationships through interviews and footage of their daily lives.