Why We Cube (2018)

Spellbound

This documentary follows 8 teens and pre-teens as they work their way toward the finals of the Scripps Howard national spelling bee championship in Washington D.C.

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.

Mad Hot Ballroom

Eleven-year-old New York City public school kids journey into the world of ballroom dancing and reveal pieces of themselves and their world along the way. Told from their candid, sometimes humorous perspectives, these kids are transformed, from reluctant participants to determined competitors, from typical urban kids to "ladies and gentlemen," on their way to try to compete in the final citywide competition.

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.

Air Guitar Nation

If your bedroom has become too small a stage for your air guitar antics, take inspiration from the competitors featured here as they battle their way from the inaugural U.S. Air Guitar Championship to the world championship in Oulu, Finland. Along the way, filmmaker Alexandra Lipsitz documents the fierce rivalries that develop as would-be rock legends vie for top honors in technical accuracy, stage presence and "airness."

Baraka

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

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 King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters

In this hilarious arcade showdown, a humble novice goes head-to-head against the reigning Donkey Kong champ in a confrontation that rocks the gaming world to its processors! For over 20 years, Billy Mitchell has owned the throne of the Donkey Kong world. No one could beat his top score until now. Newcomer Steve Wiebe claims to have beaten the unbeatable, but Mitchell isn't ready to relinquish his crown without a fight. Go behind the barrels as the two battle it out in a vicious war to earn the title of the true King of Kong.

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 Man on the Bar Masturbating with Rage and Nerve

Dance and prostitution play the same role for Cristhian’s body. Virtuosity, desire, technique, and sex intertwine, granting coherence to a way of life that offers many answers to few questions. A leitmotiv that reconciles opposites and contradictions. Answers that are sometimes painful, like all truths.

Strokes of Genius

The film intertwines Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal's lives with their famed 2008 Wimbledon championship - an epic match so close and so reflective of their competitive balance that, in the end, the true winner was the sport itself.

Pumping Iron

Amateur and professional bodybuilders prepare for the 1975 Mr. Olympia and Mr. Universe contests as five-time champion Arnold Schwarzenegger defends his Mr. Olympia title against Serge Nubret and the shy young Lou Ferrigno.

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.

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.

Every Little Step

Follows the plight of real-life dancers as they struggle through auditions for the Broadway revival of A Chorus Line and also investigates the history of the show and the creative minds behind the original and current incarnations.

Old Fashioned: The Story of the Wisconsin Supper Club

Supper club restaurants were the hot dinning trend in the mid twentieth century. They provided a place for people to spend their evenings enjoying cocktails, home cooked, high quality food and entertainment. The supper club scene slowly faded from the rest of the country, but kept a strong hold in Wisconsin due to a culture that allowed it to thrive. Around for decades, supper clubs in Wisconsin have been able to hold their own style and traditions. While chain restaurants continue to expand and threaten their future, supper clubs are fighting to survive while continuing to offer the same exceptional dinning experience and a personal touch that is not seen in the modern lifestyle of dine and dash. Old Fashioned: The Story of the Wisconsin Supper Club takes you into this uniquely Wisconsin institution.

Afghan Star

This documentary on the effect the talent competition "Afghan Star" has on the incredibly diverse inhabitants of Afghanistan affords a glimpse into a country rarely seen. Contestants risk their lives to appear on the television show that is a raging success with the public and also monitored closely by the government.

Free to Play

Follow three professional video game players as they overcome personal adversity, family pressures, and the realities of life to compete in a $1,000,000 tournament that could change their lives forever.

Dust to Glory

An action-adventure documentary chronicling the most notorious and dangerous race in the world--the Tecate SCORE Baja 1000. Rivaling the Indy 500 and 25 Hours of Daytona, the race across Baja's peninsula is unpredictable, grueling and raw--just like the uncharted American West of yesteryear.

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.

Tom Daley: Illegal to Be Me

Tom Daley visits the most homophobic countries in the Commonwealth to explore how gay athletes are facing extreme persecution. What can the Commonwealth Games do to help?

Sounds Like Teen Spirit

A 2008 documentary and debut feature film of Bafta-Award nominated director Jamie Jay Johnson. It follows the lives of the participants of the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2007, specifically the entrants from Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus and Georgia. The film sees them proceed from the national finals that saw them crowned the representatives of their country through to the international song festival itself held in Rotterdam, the Netherlands where they each compete against 16 other acts.

Bots High

Bots High is an exciting documentary following the adventures of three high school robotics teams battling for first place at a national robotics competition in Miami, Florida. It's a no-holds-barred fight to the death with robot carnage everywhere you look. Genius inventor Will builds robots so powerful they're unstoppable...if only they don't destroy themselves first. The Mechanical Misfits are an all girls team stumbling through their first foray into combat robotics and Elizabeth and Danielle are a formidable pair looking to reign supreme during their last year of high school. Bots High follows these students as they design, build and compete at Nationals - all while surviving high school, first love and teenager procrastination. A FilmBuff Presentation.

Persecution Blues: the Battle for the Tote!

In 2010, the iconic Tote Hotel – last bastion of Melbourne’s vibrant music counterculture – was forced to close by unfair laws. Filmed over 7 years, “Persecution Blues” depicts the struggle of more than 20,000 fans – and the bands who inspire them – to preserve their history and protect their future, and puts the audience on the front line of an epic-scale culture war.

War in Telecom: The Four Colours of Capitalism

This film tells the competition in the telecommunication sector over the last years, in order to make us understand its stakes and the industrial and commercial logics. The story is told by its four main characters : Martin Bouygues, Stéphane Richard, Xavier Niel and Patrick Drahi.

The Speed Cubers

This documentary captures the extraordinary twists and turns in the journeys of Rubik's Cube-solving champions Max Park and Feliks Zemdegs.

Ariane: A Space Epic

The history of the Ariane rocket is a space epic that has seen Europeans unite and innovate to make a place for themselves in the space race. Faced with Soviet and then American supremacy, men and women from the four corners of Europe have achieved the impossible. Ariane has become a true monument, thanks to the passion of those who dreamed of it and to their tenacity in the face of the various obstacles that stood in their way. This undeniable European success is now at a turning point in its history. The new Ariane 6 program is currently being developed to meet the challenges of tomorrow: will it be able to meet the challenges of a more competitive environment than ever before?

Mass-market retailing: The end of a system?

The supermarket chains used to seem unbeatable, capturing the lion’s share of the grocery market. But for some years now they have been in crisis. In the wake of a fierce price war, retailers are resorting to increasingly aggressive commercial negotiation methods at the expense of suppliers, farmers and producers. Further competition is coming from the tech giants as Amazon and Alibaba invest in the food industry. What are the implications of all these changes on working conditions, the quality of our food and the future of our planet?

Acts of Reparation

Two friends, one Black and one white, journey to their Southern ancestral homes, exploring reparations' meaning. Their travels uncover opportunities that transform their bond, communities, reclaiming and reckoning with their roots.

Joe Lycett: Summer Exhibitionist

Art-loving comedian Joe Lycett joins artists hoping to make it onto the walls of the RA Summer Exhibition 2022, the world’s largest open-submission art contest.

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.

Hands on a Hardbody: The Documentary

Filmmaker S.R. Bindler profiles Texas contestants trying to win a truck by keeping one hand on it longer than everyone else.

Kings of Pastry

The collar awarded to the winners of the Meilleur Ouvrier de France (Best Craftsman in France) is more than the ultimate recognition for every pastry chef - it is a dream and an obsession. The 3-day competition includes everything from delicate chocolates to precarious six foot sugar sculptures and requires that the chefs have extraordinary skill, nerves of steel and luck. The film follows Jacquy Pfeiffer, founder of The French Pastry School in Chicago, as he returns to France to compete against 15 of France's leading pastry chefs. The filmmakers were given first time/exclusive access to this high-stakes drama of passion, sacrifice, disappointment and joy in the quest to have President Sarkozy declare them one of the best in France.

Senna

The remarkable story of Brazilian racing driver Ayrton Senna, charting his physical and spiritual achievements on the track and off, his quest for perfection, and the mythical status he has since attained, is the subject of Senna, a documentary feature that spans the racing legend's years as an F1 driver, from his opening season in 1984 to his untimely death a decade later.

Sinatra in Palm Springs

Palm Springs, a small desert oasis 100 miles East of Los Angeles was Sinatra's true home for 50 years. During his brief yet turbulent marriage to Ava Gardner his Palm Springs home was center stage. For the rest of his life, the Rancho Mirage compound on Frank Sinatra Drive, was the home he called "My Heaven". Palm Springs still feels the ghost of Frank Sinatra.