Embrace Kids

Explores the meaning of fame and influence in the digital age through an innovative social experiment. Following three Los Angeles-based people with relatively small followings, the film explores the attempts made to turn them into famous influencers by purchasing fake followers and bots to “engage” with their social media accounts.

Milena, a young woman from Ukraine, who along with her mother and grandmother (and cat), desperately struggle to escape their war- torn home while an army of supporters on the opposite side of the world fight to keep them safe. Milena survived the destruction of Mariupol, cowering for a month in the basement of a bombed-out building, watching her home and history burn. She managed to contact Ken Pontac, long-time Facebook friend and father figure. Their conversations bolstered Milena's spirits while Ken listened with growing apprehension.

The Meaning of Vanlife is an adventurous, revealing look into the Vanlife community through the eyes of nomads who have chosen to live a life of freedom on the road. A movement that exemplifies a deeper societal trend towards minimalism and authentic community building.

Trust Me uses stories, facts and experts to explain how our lack of media literacy is hurting us and how the media is negatively affecting our perspective of the world. True stories of how mis-information can result in real problems are meant to provoke thought and action in viewers.

An examination of Israel and its society after many months of war, seen initially through the prism of viral social media posts - and exclusive interviews with the soldiers behind them. These posts, some shared millions of times, show soldiers humiliating bound Palestinians, ransacking their homes, joking as they detonate schools and whole districts, and laughing as they launch high explosive ordnance into densely-packed areas. The award-winning team behind this Basement Films production traveled to Israel to interview some of these soldiers, who proudly defended themselves and their videos, some expressing callous disregard for Palestinians in Gaza. Through additional interviews with Israeli radical groups, politicians, and media figures, the film reveals Israeli Jewish society in the aftermath of October 7th, gripped by a vengeance and hate that puts into question any possibility for peace.

When one thinks of the American Deep South, the image of veiled Muslim students strolling the University of Alabama campus is the last thing that comes to mind. VOICES OF MUSLIM WOMEN FROM THE US SOUTH is a documentary that explores the Muslim culture through the lens of five University of Alabama Muslim students. The film tackles how Muslim women carve a space for self-expression in the Deep South and how they negotiate their identities in a predominantly Christian society that often has unflattering views about Islam and Muslims. Through interviews with students and faculty at Alabama, this film examines representations and issues of agency by asking: How do Muslim female students carve a space in a culture that thinks of Muslims as terrorists and Muslim women as backward?

Fidgeting fish, dancing on the train, big stages – we scroll through a phone gallery. How do you find your own identity between ever-changing trends? When do the borders between real and virtual life blur? A documentary about a self-made musician who wants to stand her ground in a digital world.

Anonymous and exploitative, a network of online chat rooms ran rampant with sex crimes. The hunt to take down its operators required guts and tenacity.

Peer through the lens of a high profile political dissident, banished from the online world. After introducing the viewer to each of the five characters, the film recounts how each individual then came to lose their access to social media and the affect it had on them at the time, and since the event. With their stories told, they present the broader issues raised by their media de-platforming and what they foresee in their future in media and the whole of Western Culture at-large.

Teenager Olivia Oras has 20,000 Instagram followers. The documentary follows a year of her life.

A teenager abstains from social media for four days to cure himself of his addiction.

Once a year, people from different marginalized communities meet together in the woods to delve into the art of circus and have this discipline become a common way to express themselves, away from the city.

In a candid, first-time interview with Rachel Lee, the so-called teenage mastermind behind a string of high-profile celebrity robberies in 2008 and 2009, the film examines the motivations of Lee and a group of her friends who broke into celebrity homes in Hollywood to ransack and steal, exploring the possible reasons behind her actions including mental health issues and addictions, as well as the climate of celebrity excess that fueled the teens, recontextualizing the events behind the sensational headlines.

By the dawn of the 21st century, hip-hop sales had reached an all-time high, but one thing has remained the same. The doors were still locked, and the music industry held the keys. Young artists began to self-market on the Internet, ultimately helping to collapse the music industry as we knew it. It’s Yours explores how it became possible to become a rap star through a Twitter account, YouTube site or Myspace page. It tells this story through the unique perspectives of numerous artists, producers, record industry insiders, and music and cultural critics.

A group of young, risk-embracing day traders used social media to organize a massive stock buy-up. Jordan Belfort provides details about the story, exploring how it shook the world's markets.