Films + Events
51 NEW DOCS Titles Announced
12th & Delaware
Directors: Rachel Grady, Heidi Ewing
At a single intersection in Fort Prince, Florida, sits a microcosm of America’s most intractable ideological battle: on one side of the street an abortion clinic, on the other the pro-life Pregnancy Care Center.
Albert's Winter
North American Premiere
Directed by Andreas Koefoed
A young Danish boy spends the winter balancing the whimsy of childhood play, the demands of his education, and the omnipresence of his mother’s cancer.
Ahead of Time
Director: Bob Richman
Cinematographer Bob Richman, in his directing debut, celebrates Ruth Gruber, an intrepid scholar and journalist, now almost a hundred, who documented and participated in some of the pivotal events of the 20th century.
Ali Shan
Director: Yung Chang
In this oddly suspenseful and ethereal short film, an early morning commute leads to a surprisingly transcendent destination.
La Belle Visite (Journey's End)
US Premiere
Director: Jean-François Caissy
In this elegy filmed in a country retirement home—on a beautiful bluff in rural Quebec—two dozen seniors live out their final years to the slow rhythms of the changing seasons.
Book of Miri
US Premiere
Director: Katrine Philp
A tender meditation on identity and the search for belonging, this is a portrait of Miri, a Korean-Swedish librarian who finds refuge in her blog, where she diligently records her fashion adventures and intimate thoughts.
Born Sweet
Director: Cynthia Wade
Vinh is a Cambodian boy sick from arsenic poisoning who knows he may not have long to live but dreams of falling in love and becoming a karaoke star.
Capital
World Premiere
Director: Maxim Pozdorovkin
Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan, sprouted almost overnight in the middle of the Central Asian steppe. Now celebrating the city’s tenth anniversary, its sanguine yet skeptical inhabitants offer glimpses of life in a modern utopia gone somewhat askew.
CASINO JACK and the United States of Money
Director: Alex Gibney
An invigorating examination of the greed and corruption that led to lobbyist Jack Abramoff’s arrest in 2007.
Countryside 35x45
North American Premiere
Director: Evgeny Solomin
A slightly salacious Siberian photographer prone to chronic small talk meticulously ensures all the men are appropriately attired and the women properly coiffed for their photos—after all, it is their passport for life, yes?
The Darkness of Day
Director: Jay Rosenblatt
An artistic exploration of suicide presented with a paradoxically uplifting cinematic lyricism.
Diary of a Times Square Thief
Director: Klaas Bense
This intriguing film documents the search for the author of a diary whose account of life at a dive hotel in pre-Giuliani Times Square includes many memorable characters, some of whom are tracked down and interviewed here.
Dirty Business
World Premiere
Director: Peter Bull
Rolling Stone reporter Jeff Goodell exposes the real cost of coal in this enlightening and very timely feature.
The Edge of Dreaming
North American Premiere
Director: Amy Hardie
When one of filmmaker Amy Hardie's disturbing dreams manifests in real life, she is left to wonder if her most recent premonition - that she will die in the upcoming year - will also come true.
Enemies of the People
Directors: Rob Lemkin, Thet Sambath
A Cambodian reporter investigates who gave the order to kill millions during the Khmer Rouge regime. After ten years, he gains the trust of the only person who knows the truth.
Family Affair
Director: Chico Colvard
Chico David Colvard untangles a deep and disturbing family mystery in this profound, unflinching tale of sexual abuse and forgiveness.
Garbo: The Spy
Director: Edmon Roch
Did a Catalonian double agent almost single-handedly divert Nazi troops from Normandy on D-Day to secure Allied victory? Decide for yourself if the man whom the British code-named Garbo was truly the greatest actor in the world.
Generation Exile
World Premiere
Director: Rodrigo Dorfman
The tales of five displaced characters, including the filmmaker, intermingle in this boldly paced film to evoke, both through narrative and poetic technique, the exile’s experience of alienation and moral dilemma.
Genius Within: The Inner Life of Glenn Gould
US Premiere
Directors: Michèle Hozer, Peter Raymont
This beautifully crafted portrait of the extraordinary pianist Glenn Gould delves deep into his work and beyond his public persona through never-before-seen footage and interviews with those who knew him best.
Google Baby
Director: Zippi Brand Frank
In a global economic chain linking the United States to India to Israel, the incredibly intimate act of baby making has been outsourced.
Hanasaari A
US Premiere
Directors: Hannes Vartiainen, Pekka Veikkolainen
In this experimental short, time-lapse photography transforms the demolition of a coal-fired power plant into a stunning work of art.
Hranica (The Border)
North American Premiere
Director: Jaroslav Vojtek
The residents of Slemence wake up one morning to find half their village in Slovakia and the other half in the Ukraine, the random new border dividing family members and friends for the next 60 years.
I am Secretly an Important Man
World Premiere
Director: Peter Sillen
Through the assembly of brilliant 16mm streetscapes, performance footage, and illuminating interviews with those closest to the subject, Peter Sillen offers a portrait of Steven J. Bernstein (aka Jesse Bernstein) as strikingly lyrical as the writings and spoken-word theatrics of the late artist himself.
In the Matter of Cha Jung Hee
Director: Deann Borshay Liem
Filmmaker Deann Borshay Liem arrived in the U.S. at the age of eight under another girl’s name, and so began a tale of deception and amnesia that led her back to South Korea forty years later in search of the “real” Cha Jung Hee.
The Invention of Dr. Nakamats
Director: Kaspar Astrup Schröder
A character sketch of Yoshiro Nakamatsu, Japanese inventor extraordinaire, this film takes us on a rollicking exploration of the human capacity for creativity and invention.
La isla – Archives of a Tragedy
US Premiere
Director: Uli Stelzner
A sudden explosion in a police training barrack uncovers a secret archive housing thousands of records amassed by the Guatemalan police and army from the 1930s through the end of the civil war in 1996.
Ito – A Diary of an Urban Priest
North American Premiere
Director: Pirjo Honkasalo
Follow Fujioka, boxing-champion-turned-Buddhist-monk, as he takes a hypnotic journey through Tokyo’s underbelly, hearing confession from all quarters.
Jaffa, The Orange’s Clockwork
US Premiere
Director: Eyal Sivan
This layered examination of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict unfolds through the history of the Jaffa orange. A small fruit with sizeable significance, the orange originated in Palestine and later became an Israeli brand name.
Last Train Home
Director: Lixin Fan
Every year Yang and Suquin Zhang take part in the world’s largest human migration, traveling alongside another 130 million Chinese migrant workers to return home to their family for the New Year’s Holiday.
Life Extended
Director: Bigert & Bergström
Can we really live forever? And would we want to? Through interviews with monks, physicists and everyone in between, this film explores the human need to control life and death.
Maria's Way
Director: Anne Milne
Along a famed pilgrimage route to Santiago de Compostela in Spain, one woman’s calling is to sit by the narrow thoroughfare greeting and counting the travelers as they pass by.
The Mirror
Director: David Christensen
This beautifully shot film blends the absurdism of Fellini and the generosity of DeSantis as it closely observes a remote village in the Italian Alps whose mayor lights upon an ingenious solution to a seemingly insurmountable dilemma: for three months of the year, the village is plunged into the shadow of a nearby mountain.
My Enschede
North American Premiere
Director: Astrid Bussink
In May 2000, a fireworks storage room exploded in the east Netherlands city of Enschede. The tragic accident killed twenty-three people and injured another thousand. Filmmaker Astrid Bussink, who was living there at the time, returns to the city, gauging the many ways the explosion continues to resonate within the community.
My Perestroika
Director: Robin Hessman
Following five classmates who came of age during the collapse of the Soviet Union, this film offers a personal and nuanced look at Russia, from the Iron Curtain to today.
Notes on the Other
Director: Sergio Oksman
Every summer a surprising number of bearded men flock to Key West to take part in the annual Ernest Hemingway look-alike contest, imitating a famous author who himself donned the persona of fearless adventurer.
The Oath
Director: Laura Poitras
The stories of brothers-in-law Abu Jandal and Hamdan—Osama bin Laden’s bodyguard and driver respectively—converge and diverge in ways that shed light on a part of the world too few understand.
Photo and Copyright by G.P. Fieret
North American Premiere
Director: Frank van den Engel
Friends and former models fondly recall Gerard Petrus Fieret, the eccentric Dutch photographer whose life’s work is now hotly desired by the art market.
Photograph of Jesus
Director: Laurie Hill
Stop-motion animation whisks viewers through card catalogs and filing cabinets to reveal the bizarre and impossible photo requests that cross an archivist’s desk.
The Player
North American Premiere
Director: John Appel
Spurred by his own father’s gambling, filmmaker John Appel deftly traces the overlapping psychology and compulsions of three characters: a bookie, a poker player, and an incarcerated swindler.
The Poodle Trainer
Director: Vance Malone
Irina Markova loves training poodles, large and small, under the circus big top, creating a glittery symbiosis between herself and her fluffy cream and caramel colored dogs.
The Poot
North American Premiere
Director: Elham Asadi
A pure visual treat, The Poot traces the production of beautiful, handmade Persian rugs from sheep to market.
Regretters
North American Premiere
Director: Marcus Lindeen
Born men, once women, and now men again, Orlando and Mikael dig deep into the psychology behind the one regret they share, offering a thoughtful exploration of identity and expectations.
Restrepo
Directors: Sebastian Junger, Tim Hetherington
An unblinking look at American soldiers on a long deployment in the dangerous Korengal Valley of Afghanistan, where they exchange fire with the Taliban almost every day.
Seltzer Works
Director: Jessica Edwards
With its thirst-inducing series of images and sounds, this charming, nostalgic short takes us into the last seltzer factory in New York.
The Space You Leave
Director: James Newton
A somber look into the lives of three parents whose children have gone missing, this short film strikes a strong emotional chord.
Summer Pasture
World Premiere
Directors: Lynn True, Nelson Walker, Tsering Perlo
At once exotic and oddly familiar, this is a deeply satisfying, visually compelling story of a young nomadic Tibetan family struggling to survive on the revenues of caterpillar fungus and yak herding.
Surviving Hitler: A Love Story
World Premiere
Director: John-Keith Wasson
This riveting love story, anchored in a plot to kill Hitler during the height of his power, offers an eye-opening look at life under the Third Reich.
Thunder Soul
Director: Mark Landsman
Former members of Houston’s renowned Kashmere Stage Band, arguably the nation's best high-school jazz and funk band in the 1970s, get together for a reunion concert in honor of beloved band director Conrad Johnson in this fast-paced, toe-tapping funk celebration.
Today Is Better Than Two Tomorrows
Director: Anna Rodgers
Inseparable eleven-year-old cousins and best friends, Leh and Bo, face a harsh reality: one will go to a monastery and one will go to school, sequestered from each other and their families. Filmmaker Anna Rodgers spent four years in Laos with the boys as they grew up and apart.
War Don Don
Director: Rebecca Richman Cohen
A riveting war crimes trial in Sierra Leone is closely watched by a healing nation.
Weapon of War
North American Premiere
Directors: Ilse van Velzen, Femke van Velzen
Over years of civil war, it’s estimated that over 150,000 women have been raped in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. This harrowing document includes direct interviews with current and former soldiers involved in the policy of systematic sexual terrorism.
Full Frame Announces 14 Films for 2010 Invited Programming
And Everything is Going Fine
Director: Steven Soderbergh
Spalding Gray made a living from revealing himself. Collaborator Steven Soderbergh honors the monologist’s literally storied career with a fitting tribute comprised of performance excerpts and interviews that further reveal the varied shades of Gray.
Do It Again
Director: Robert Patton-Spruill
Facing a mid-life crisis, an intrepid reporter sets out to reunite the notoriously rancorous band the Kinks, collecting spontaneous performances of British Invasion classics by some of rock’s royalty along the way.
How to Fold a Flag
Directors: Michael Tucker, Petra Epperlein
Four soldiers who fought together in Iraq come home to resume their normal lives—with very different results. As one of them says, "We went to war as a unit and came home alone."
In My Mind
World Premiere
Director: Gary Hawkins
Prodigy composer Jason Moran revisits bebop jazz great Thelonious Monk’s historic 1959 Town Hall big band concert in this sizzling film.
The Kids Grow Up
North American Premiere
Directors: Doug Block
A personal documentary about the emotional reality of having your only child grow up and leave home, this film is also a window into modern-day parenting made possible by the age of digital videography.
Kings of Pastry
US Premiere
Directors: Chris Hegedus, DA Pennebaker
Concocting all manner of sweet delights, from gold foil-bedecked chocolates to towering sculptures of blown sugar, sixteen chefs compete for the French pastry world’s highest honor–the Meilleur Ouvrier de France–in a contest of unbelievable artistry and tension.
The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant
Directors: Steven Bognar, Julia Reichert
A chronicle of the final months at a GM plant in Ohio as heartbroken workers prepare for the closing of the factory.
The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Paper
Directors: Judith Ehrlich, Rick Goldsmith
The fascinating story of Daniel Ellsberg, the former Marine and State Department analyst who served as an architect of the Vietnam War while also protesting it—living two lives until he made the fateful and historic decision to smuggle the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times.
No Crossover: The Trial of Allen Iverson
Director: Steve James
Filmmaker Steve James returns to his hometown of Hampton, Virginia, to explore the lasting polarization surrounding the 1993 trial of Allen Iverson, then a high school basketball star three years away from the NBA.
PELADA
Directors: Luke Boughen, Rebekah Fergusson, Gwendolyn Oxenham, Ryan White
Two former college athletes, one male and one female, travel the world looking for pickup soccer games, meeting an extraordinary range of people who play for the love of the game.
Racing Dreams
Director: Marshall Curry
Meet Annabeth, Brandon, and Josh, pre-teens from different regions and circumstances sharing a common goal: to win a World Karting Championship. Street Fight director Marshall Curry follows the exceptional young drivers and their families during a season of challenges and surprises.
Strange Powers: Stephin Merritt and the Magnetic Fields
Directors: Kerthy Fix, Gail O’Hara
A captivating film about one of America’s greatest (and most reclusive) songwriters, Strange Powers is the film you never thought you’d see about the band you’ve always loved - or the film you absolutely must see about the band you’ve always meant to check out.
Videocracy
Director: Erik Gandini
What happens when a nation’s leader also owns its most popular television stations? Director Erik Gandini exposes the startling effects of Silvio Berlusconi’s generation-long influence on Italian politics and culture.
Waking Sleeping Beauty
Director: Don Hahn
Like all good fairy tales, the inside story of Disney animation’s stunning comeback after years of box-office disappointments features princesses, princes, and villains, as well as love, laughter, and tears.
Full Frame Announces Career Award Programming
American Hollow
Director: Rory Kennedy
It's a hardscrabble existence that many would flee, but the Bowling clan of Mudlick Hollow in Eastern Kentucky feels the gravitational pull of family, and especially of its tenacious matriarch, Iree Bowling.
A Boy's Life
Director: Rory Kennedy
This film chronicles two years in the turbulent life of Robert Oliver, a little boy whose deeply disturbed, even violent, behavior at home in the questionable care of his grandmother contrasts sharply with his conduct at school, where he makes the honor roll.
The Execution of Wanda Jean
Director: Liz Garbus
This gripping account of the battle to save the life of a woman on death row challenges the morality of the death penalty in general, but particularly when race, mental health, and sexuality come into play.
The Farm: Angola, USA
Director: Liz Garbus
Life at the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola, the largest maximum security prison in the United States, as seen through the eyes of both its prisoners—most of whom will die there—and its wardens, bears a disturbing resemblance to plantation life.
The Fence (La Barda)
Director: Rory Kennedy
A $3.1-billion, 700-mile fence built along our Mexico border to keep out illegal immigrants, drugs, and terrorists proves absurdly ineffective.
Ghosts of Abu Ghraib
Director: Rory Kennedy
Through a series of in-depth interviews with American guards who engaged in torture, higher-ranking officers, and detainees, Ghosts of Abu Ghraib reveals that far from the dissenting action of a few, the abuses perpetrated there were inextricably linked to U.S. government policies enacted after 9/11.
Shouting Fire: Stories from the Edge of Free Speech
Director: Liz Garbus
A compelling story about the First Amendment's past and future shown through several gripping case studies about the limits of free speech in today's America.
