War Dance
"...a profoundly moving cinematic work of art."
Sundance Film Festival
Rose, Dominic and Nancy, leave the squalor of their
60,000-person Ugandan Refugee camp to compete
in the National Music Competiton, where thousands of
childrens' voices are heard, singing strong, without
fear, as their feet stomp to the rhythms of their
ancestors. (On the 2008 Academy Awards Short
List ). More
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Son of Man
"One of the most extraordinary and powerful films
at Sundance, " Roger Ebert
Refreshingly free of doctrinal and fundamentalist
intolerance, this story of the life of Jesus is told as a
gritty African fable with joyous, fullthroated South
African music in beautiful landscapes strewn with
impoverished shantytowns.
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Dalai Lama Renaissance
Fresh from sold-out screenings in film festivals
throughout the world. This is the funny, unexpected
story of what happened when the Dalai Lama invited
40 of the West's leading thinkers to his Himalayan
residence to solve the problems of the planet.
More.
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Taxi to the Dark Side
(On the Academy Awards Short List for Best
Documentary 2008) Oscar-nominee Alex Gibney
("Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room") presents a
methodical, harrowing, in-depth look at the torture
practices of the United States in Afghanistan, Iraq and
Guantanamo Bay. More.
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Iron Ladies of Liberia
How do you rebuild a country from zero after 14
brutal years of civil war? First-elect women. This
film puts us in the room as outspoken President Ellen
Sirleaf and her "Iron Ladies" forge a new, democratic
African revolution.(Big hit at the Toronto Film Festival).
More.
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The Singing Revolution
("Imagine the scene in 'Casablanca' in which the
French patrons sing 'La Marseillaise' in defiance of
the Germans, then multiply its power by a factor of
thousands..." The NY Times)
How hundreds of thousands of Estonians singing
forbidden hymns in the streets brought an end to the
40-year Soviet occupation of Estonia, without the loss
of a single life. More.
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The Beckoning Silence
...a stunning successor to "Touching the Void."
Alpinist.
Legendary mountain-climbing survivor Joe
Simpson, "Touching the Void," recreates, on location,
the cold, terror and horror of Toni Kurtz, left dangling at
the end of a rope, hands frozen, during the first
attempt on the Eiger North Face in 1927. More.
Autism: The Musical
(World Premiere to rave reviews at Tribecca,
winner of
a dozen major film festivals and on the short list for
the Academy Awards Best Documentary 2008)
This moving, unforgettable film follows five autistic
children over the course of a year as they write,
rehearse and produce their own full-length musical,
tossing aside all stereotypes in the process. More.
Beyond the Call (Big Hit at Tribecca).
Mothers Teresa they ain't, but Artis,
Jim and Walt deliver badly-needed aid directly to
civilians and doctors in war-torn places that no other
relief agency would dare to go.
More.
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3 Peaks 3 Weeks
A great, new film from Michael Brown, "Farther
Than the Eye Can See." Follow the trials and
triumphs of 10 novice mountain-climbing women who,
in 2007, braved blood, sweat and lots of tears to climb
Africa's three highest peaks in just three weeks, all to
raise $300,000 for three African charities including the
St. Jude Secondary Campus in Tanzania. All 10
women will be coming to BIFF from around the world
to see the film for the first time. , along with
Michael Brown and David D'Angelo. More.
True North
(World Premiere at the Toronto Film Festival)
"one of the decade's best films about fathers, sons
and human struggle." - Variety
This whiskey-soaked Joseph-Conradian high-seas
thriller, filmed on a real fishing trawler as it rolls and
dips through battering North Sea storms, manages to
find sympathy for both perpetrator and victim in the
vast world-wide tragedy of human trafficking. More.
King Lines
(A big hit at the Banff International Film Festival.
Peter Mortimer in person)
A future rock-climing classic from Peter Mortimer, this
often funny film follows Chris Sharma, 25, the world's
best rock climber, moving with the agility and grace of
a ballet dancer as speeds up the most outrageously
difficult rock climbing formations in the world. (He also
falls a lot.) More.
Beauty Mark
(Diane Israel, Kathleen Man, Carla Precht, and
world-class athletes and local celebrities in person.)
This deeply personal, loving and funny film
examinines popular culture's toxic emphasis on
women's weight and looks, as world-class triathlete
Diane Israel tells her own story and interviews
champion athletes, body builders, fashion models
and inner-city teens about their personal experiences
with self-image. More.
20 Seconds of Joy
(Winner, Banff International Film Festival.)
This sad, amazing film follows 5 years of the career of
the world's greatest woman BASE-jumper, Karina
Hollekim, as she performs her great aerial acrobatics
off the highest vertical cliffs on earth.. Karina's movie-
star smile conceals a melancholic life and we begin
to understand a young woman who is addicted to
adrenaline and takes greater and greater risks to get
her "20 seconds of joy," until the inevitable happens.
More.
The Monastery
(Winner of the world's most prestigious
documentary prize.. the Joris Ivens Award at the
International Documentary Festival (IDFA) in
Amsterdam)
Mr. Vig, a flinty 82-year-old lifelong bachelor decides
to will his other-worldly Danish castle to the Church for
a monastery, but his world is turned upside down by
the moving-in of a "transition team" of headstrong
nuns headed by a Sister Amvrosija, with whom he,
often hilariously, negotiates and squabbles for the
next five years. More.
