The Ventures: Stars on Guitars

A spiritual journey into the highlands of Harar, immersed in the rituals of khat, a leaf Sufi Muslims chewed for centuries for religious meditations – and Ethiopia’s most lucrative cash crop today. A tapestry of intimate stories offers a window into the dreams of youth under a repressive regime.

This short documentary records Anne Cools’ 1978 run for the Liberal Party nomination in Rosedale, one of Toronto's largest and socially most diverse federal ridings. The film records her bid for political power, and explains the nomination contest, a basic step in the Canadian electoral process. Because she was competing against the Liberal Party's preferred candidate, the nomination battle in Rosedale turned into one of the most innovative and fascinating in the history of Canadian politics.

The parallel lives of writer Truman Capote (1924-84) and playwright Tennessee Williams (1911-83): two friends, two geniuses who, while creating sublime works, were haunted by the ghosts of the past, the shadow of constant doubt, the demon of addictions and the blinding, deceptive glare of success.

A film essay that intertwines the director's gaze with that of her late mother. Beyond exploring mourning and absence as exclusively painful experiences, the film pays tribute to her mother through memories embodied by places and objects that evidence the traces of her existence. The filmmaker asks herself: What does she owe her mother for who she is and how she films? To what extent does her film belong to her?

The Inner and Outer World of Shahrukh Khan is the release title for a pair of documentaries about Bollywood superstar Shahrukh Khan, both directed by the London-based writer and producer/director Nasreen Munni Kabir, an authority on Hindi cinema.

An animated feature-length documentary telling the story of the life of Crulic, a 33 year-old Romanian accused of having stolen a wallet from an important Polish judge. Crulic was brought to the Krakow Detention Center Custody prison. He decided to start a hunger strike from the day he was arrested, demanding a meeting with somebody from the Romanian Consulate.

Facing a sex obsessed culture, a mountain of stereotypes and misconceptions, and a lack of social or scientific research, asexuals - people who experience no sexual attraction - struggle to claim their identity.

We live in a new age. We are always rushing, rushing for no reason, rushing for nothing. As though time had sped up. Everything implies speed, urgency. But ultimately, why does time seem so short? This film is about the director’s conflict about time and the lack of it in today’s world; she reflects on civilization and the future of existence.

In 1971, author and film scholar Donald Richie published a poetic travelogue about his explorations of the islands of Japan’s Inland Sea, recording his search for traces of a traditional way of life as well as his own journey of self-discovery. Twenty years later, filmmaker Lucille Carra undertook a parallel trip inspired by Richie’s by-then-classic book, capturing images of hushed beauty and meeting people who still carried on the fading customs that Richie had observed. Interspersed with surprising detours—a visit to a Frank Sinatra-loving monk, a leper colony, an ersatz temple of plywood and plaster—and woven together by Richie’s narration as well as a score by celebrated composer Toru Takemitsu, The Inland Sea is an eye-opening voyage and a profound meditation on what it means to be a foreigner.

A quirky live performance feature featuring New Zealand folk-parody duo Jemaine Clement and Bret McKenzie, who earned raves at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and Melbourne Comedy Festival and who won the Bass Ale Award for Best Alternative Act at the 2005 U.S. Comedy Arts Festival.

This first-person documentary provides an inside look into the terrifying and bloody events that shook Central Europe in the 1990s, as the filmmaker takes a trip along the road that once united the disparate states of Yugoslavia, from Slovenia to Macedonia. A film about memory, hatred, love and hope.

When a feminist filmmaker sets out to document the mysterious and polarizing world of the Men’s Rights Movement, she begins to question her own beliefs. Chronicling Cassie Jaye’s journey exploring an alternate perspective on gender equality, power and privilege.

A matter-of-fact documentary of the massacre of over 300,000 Chinese civilians by the Japanese in the so-called 'Rape of Nanjing' in 1937. In the name of the Japanese emperor Hirohito, the desperate soldiers, enraged by intense Chinese resistance, stormed the then capitol of China and over a six week period systematically raped, tortured, and killed many of the inhabitants of that city. This is a matter-of-fact although polemical documentary, with many of the horrifyingly intense images taken from home movies made by an American missionary who was there.

A body is growing and developing in front of the camera, absorbing sensations and emotions, confronting its limits and its darker hidden parts. A body that through the years abandons itself to the character, transforming what could be seen as simple (children's) play-acting into the true work of an actor.

An unpredictable documentary from a fascinating storyteller, Agnès Varda’s last film sheds light on her experience as a director, bringing a personal insight to what she calls "cine-writing," traveling from Rue Daguerre in Paris to Los Angeles and Beijing.