ארכיון International Films

A Jewish Life

Marko Feingold, a survivor of four World War II concentration camps, devoted his life to helping Jewish survivors reach Palestine. He shares his tumultuous tale with breathtaking clarity and has no qualms about revealing the associations between his memories and the present.

A La Calle

Leopoldo López has managed to unite hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans in protest against Maduro, the dictator who led their country to an economic freefall. The attempt to restore democracy costs López and other opposition leaders dearly. The film captures three years of rare social solidarity.

A Man and a Camera

Who is the stranger holding the camera? And why doesn't he say anything? Those who meet him try to solve the riddle, but are instead forced to look inward, to themselves, for answers. Why are they angry? And what brings people to invite this stranger into their home and open up to him?

Aalto

Alvar Aalto, one of the great masters of 20th-century architecture, shared his artistic vision with his wife, Aino, and when she passed away—with his second wife, Elissa. The story of the extraordinary buildings he designed around the world is intertwined with the story of the two great loves of his life.

Akeji, the Breath of the Mountain

A tiny hermitage nestled deep in the forest is home to renowned painter Akeji and his wife, Asako. Between tea ceremonies, encounters with wild animals, and spiritual practice, the elderly couple seems to be one with the awe-inspiring nature that surrounds them. Packed with stunning cinematography, this sensitive film opens a window unto a new state of consciousness.

All Light, Everywhere

How have inventions meant to keep us safe become powerful tools of policing and surveillance in the hands of the authorities? In his search for answers, Theo Anthony (Rat Film) explores innovative technologies and exposes the basic assumptions behind them.

Antelopes

A chase where mesmerizing imagery is paired with a disturbing text raises poignant questions: are humans, like this herd of antelopes, galloping to their doom?

Ascension

There are many steps to achieving the great Chinese dream, and it’s not an easy climb. Some spend their days repeating the same movements over and over, mass-producing products, while others are themselves carefully shaped on a conveyor belt moving toward a promise of success.

Belushi

The short and turbulent life of John Belushi is revisited in previously unpublished interviews. Dan Aykroyd, Chevy Chase, Rita Rudner, and many others talk about the Belushi they had known and loved, accompanied by scenes from films and sketches, as well as stunning animations.

Birds of America

A collection of illustrations by birdwatcher John-James Audubon, is an invaluable asset of American culture. This ecological, historical, mystical ride along the Mississippi River takes us back to those birds, exposing the drastic changes in the vast American wilderness.

Boatman

Life, death, and more meet and mix on the Ganges in Varanasi. Gianfranco Rosi (Fire at Sea) goes on a boat tour on the sacred river and meets them all: tourists, believers, fraudsters and innocents, the starving and the sated, merchants and priests, children, and of course, the dead.

Buck

Opposing traditional violent and oppressive training techniques, Buck Brannaman developed a horse training approach based on communication and mutual trust, which affects horse owners no less than it affects horses.

By the Throat

From biblical times to the 21st century, the way we pronounce words has been used to tell friend from foe and decide who gets welcomed and sheltered—and who gets left out. How clear are the vocal borders between us, and how much of this reality is determined by politics?

City Hall

Master documentarian Frederick Wiseman (Ex Libris, Titicut Follies) delves into the inner workings of Boston City Hall. With great patience, he deconstructs the mechanisms of a big city, showing a myriad of conflicts, ideologies, and power struggles, as well as its day-to-day operations.

Courage

As mass protests rage on the streets of Belarus, with people demanding the Prime Minister's resignation, an independent fringe theater troupe tries to stage a political protest play. They know what they are doing is very dangerous, but what seems to take real courage is maintaining a sense of normalcy and keeping up with their day-to-day lives.

Cuban Dancer

He knows he was born to dance, and to achieve self-fulfillment, he emigrates from Cuba to the United States with his family. The coming-of-age story of gifted dancer Alexis Valdes is spread across five years, in which, facing terrible homesickness, he builds his life anew.

Dayton Diaries

The glorious history of Dayton, Ohio, did not protect it from the great epidemic—the opioid plague. Shimon Dotan explores the city, gets to know its people, hears their stories, and patiently weaves them into a deep, compassionate portrayal of a crumbling city.

Downstream to Kinshasa

Almost two decades after they got injured in the Six-Day War in Congo, a group of outraged civilians journey to the capital by boat to protest against the indifference toward them. This intimate film follows their odyssey from up close and is completely devoid of self-pity.

El Sicario Room 164

A chilling confession, hard to watch at times, by a hired assassin who decided to retire after 20 years in a drug cartel. Since then, a quarter million dollars has been offered for his head. Winner of the 2011 Docaviv's BEST INTERNATIONAL FILM AWARD.

Final Account

They weren’t the big monsters—they were the rank-and-file Germans who ran the Nazi machine's routine operations: bakers, drivers, cleaners, accountants, soldiers. The last of the old Nazis give a very intimate account, revealing what they knew, what they repressed, and how come they didn't say “no."

Fuocoammare (Fire at Sea)

Samuele, 12, plays make-believe on the tiny Italian island of Lampedusa. The sea that supports his family carries thousands of African refugees, who are trying to cross to Europe in dilapidated boats.

Gorbachev. Heaven

Former Soviet ruler Mikhail Gorbachev is now a good-humored, nostalgic 90-year-old man. Filmmaker Vitaly Mansky (Putin’s Witnesses) sits down for personal conversations with him and joins him in private moments, his camera filling the gaps when things are left unsaid.

Gunda

Gunda and her little ones have a complex and heartwarming emotional life. Director Victor Kossakovsky (Aquarela) follows Gunda the sow and her newborn piglets as they explore the world. Filmed without commentary in stunning black and white, the piglets display the qualities of real stars.

Her Name Was Europa

The last wild aurochs died in the 17th century, yet these near-mythical beasts continue to entice zoologists, geneticists, cattle farmers, and artists, some of whom try to bring them back to life. A film packed with humor and social criticism, neither of which diminishes its scientific or historical depth.

Her Socialist Smile

Helen Keller was deaf and blind, but she refused to be mute. After learning to talk, she became an activist and a strong voice for workers’ rights. Her socialist beliefs are laid out in this eye-opening documentary essay.

Imad's Childhood

Imad is not yet five, and already he has spent half his life in ISIS captivity. The horrors he had experienced and the violence ingrained in him cannot be erased. His intensely emotional journey toward recovery is facilitated by his mother, his grandmother, and an exceptional therapist.

In the Same Breath

When the virus started taking lives by the hundred-thousands, the Chinese and later American authorities insisted: “there is no reason for concern.” Using rare on-the-ground footage from China, the filmmaker, who had witnessed the horror firsthand, asks: where, if at all, can citizens believe their leaders?

Inside the Red Brick Wall

The underground Collective of Hong Kong Documentary Filmmakers covered the 2019 student protests from an unusual angle: they joined the protesters, marched shoulder to shoulder with them and spent tense weeks trapped beside them under a police siege, oscillating between hope and despair.

Karen Dalton: In My Own Time

They called Karen Dalton a "heart singer." In her short career, she left an unforgettable mark on the folk/blues music scene, influencing the work of many, including Nick Cave and Bob Dylan. Among other recordings, this film features newly discovered original songs by Dalton.

Le temps perdu

For 17 years now, they have been gathering at a bar in Buenos Aires to read and reread "In Search of Lost Time" by Marcel Proust. The readers have grown incredibly close to the text (and to each other). So close that life and fiction are beginning to blend together.

Letter to the Editor

Composed entirely of photographs from printed editions of The NY Times over 40 years, Letter to the Editor is the heartfelt musings of a news junkie, and an elegy for the death of the printed newspaper in the digital age.

Life of Ivanna

Ivanna was born in the Arctic tundra. She dreamed of becoming a dancer but got pregnant at 15 and now raises five children in a trailer on an ice flat. The film follows her through four years of impressive personal growth as she finds independence.

Life, Animated

Owen, 23, learned everything he knows about the world from animated Disney movies. When he was first diagnosed as autistic, no one imagined that he would learn to talk or to function on his own. Disney's animated movies became his key to a world that was otherwise locked.

Listen to the Beat of Our Images

The story of the space center in French Guiana is pieced together from archive footage, which coalesces into memories—simultaneously personal and collective.

Lost Boys

Three young Finns go on holiday in Thailand and Cambodia, hungry for darkness and danger. When two of them go missing, the third, filmmaker Joonas Neuvonen (Reindeerspotting), goes looking for them. The menacing-yet-enticing world he discovers leads him to test his ethical boundaries as a documentarist and a friend.

Miracle Fishing

When American scientist Tom Hargrove was kidnapped in Colombia, his loved ones, who could not pay the 6-million-dollar ransom, decided to negotiate with the kidnappers on their own. Hargrove's son filmed the entire ordeal with his 8mm camera. Now, 20 years later, he revisits the footage to understand what really happened. A Discovery+ Original

Misha and the Wolves

Misha was only seven when she went looking for her parents, who had been taken by the Nazis. Deep in the woods, she was adopted by a pack of wolves and survived the war under their care. Her story sparked the imaginations of many until the truth came out—and it turned out to be even darker and stranger.

MLK/FBI

Martin Luther King frightened White America, and the FBI—who surveilled, wiretapped, and photographed him for years—easily dug up dirt to discredit him. Sam Pollard exposes the machinations that helped White America in its war against the Black Messiah.

Moments Like This Never Last

Dash Snow lived in a vortex of creation and destruction. He came from wealth, became a wild graffiti artist and then an upscale gallery favorite. On his way to the top, he changed the streets of New York in the aftermath of the turbulent 1990s.

My Father and Me

Director Nick Broomfield (Marianne & Leonard, screened at Docaviv) dedicates this distinctly personal film to his father, photographer Maurice Broomfield. The father’s comprehensive body of work documenting the lives of British factory workers is interwoven with the story of a complicated yet inspiring father-son relationship.

My Psychedelic Love Story

The 1960s High Priest of LSD became “public enemy number one” in the seventies and led the US authorities on a merry chase around the world. Joanna Harcourt-Smith, his lover, tells Errol Morris all about it: the intrigue, the politics, the shady deals, and the sex.

My Uncle Tudor

The filmmaker carefully makes her way through her picturesque family home, slowly illuminating disturbing childhood memories.

Not Just Roads

New highways being constructed in India are dramatically changing the locals’ lives: poor villagers and nomadic populations give way to an emerging middle class, while agriculture is replaced with dreams of profiting from real estate. The camera moves between them all, showing the events from unexpected angles.

Notturno

Gianfranco Rosi (Fire at Sea) spent three years filming in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, and Kurdistan. His beautiful film exposes the human core shared by people and places that have been shaped by war.

President

The 2018 elections in Zimbabwe were supposed to be fair and transparent. Camilla Nielsson (Democrats) joins Nelson Chamisa, the candidate who dares to run against the acting president, on a long and perilous road as he tries to expose election fraud.

Rebel Hearts

When the world around them started talking about feminism, gender, and race equality, The Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary did not stay silent. Little by little, they began to change the rules and refused to give up even when the Catholic Church declared war on them.

Ride the Wave

With medals under his belt, 14-year-old champion Ben Larg sets his sights on a new challenge: to conquer one of the world’s biggest waves in the icy waters of Mullaghmore, Ireland. This beautifully shot film follows Ben through his teenage years on a journey toward an incredible achievement.

Sabaya

Thousands of Yezidi women and girls taken by ISIS are still held captive in a Syrian refugee camp. Brave men and women risk their lives trying to save them. Even after a successful secret rescue operation, the freed "Sabaya" have a long road ahead of them: the road to recovery.

Searchers

How does one find love in a catalog? Pacho Velez (The American Sector, Manakamana) joins a diverse set of New Yorkers searching for their special someone on dating apps and websites. It's a bumpy ride, but they refuse to give up their dream.

Sheltered

This animal shelter in Amsterdam is a place of miracles: animals and humans burdened with emotional and physical pain learn to comfort each other. With great patience and a lot of faith, bonds of unconditional love form between them.

Silence of the Tides

The powerful landscape of northern Europe's Wadden Sea is ever-changing: darkness and light, high tide and low, storms and stillness—and amid all that: tens of thousands of birds, fish, and mammals, including humans, all come and go, repeating fragile cycles. This breathtaking nature is the backdrop for everyday dramas.

Silent Voice

Khavaj cannot speak. He fled Chechnya when his brother, having found out that Khavaj was gay, threatened to murder him. His mother keeps leaving him tormented voicemail messages, but there is nothing he can do—to start anew, he must break away from his past completely.

Skies Above Hebron

Amer, Anas, and Marwaan, three Palestinian boys, are fenced in—surrounded by military checkpoints, armed soldiers, and hostile Israeli settlers. Only their pigeons have freedom there, freedom to fly away. The film follows the boys for five formative years. What lives do they dream of living?

Storgetnya

People wearing helmets and lab coats play ping-pong and traverse rocky underground passages at the bottom of an Armenian salt mine shaft. What are they looking for?

Storkman

27 years ago, when Stjepan rescued a wounded stork who could not fly south with her flock, he had not imagined that he would be sharing his life with her and male stork partner—who faithfully returns every year—and with dozens of baby storks. A heartwarmingly beautiful story about one man and two lovebirds.

Taming the Garden

A capricious billionaire demands to uproot giant century-old trees and transplant them to his mansion's garden. The complex engineering feat is about to change the Georgian landscape and the lives of its villagers. This human ecological drama tells the story with uniquely stunning cinematography.

The Communion of My Cousin Andrea

Andrea is unsure about God's existence, but one thing she does know: the communion ceremony needs a serious glam-up.

The Filmmaker's House

The investors would rather see him direct a show about serial killers, but Marc Isaacs prefers to film a small-scale film about simple people. The plot thickens when a group of odd strangers gathers in his home. Then, in a second plot twist, the camera pulls back to reveal an unexpected truth.

The First Woman

After six years in a closed psychiatric ward, Eva is about to be discharged. She dreams of building a new, "normal" life for herself. She finds a job and new love, but will she be able to reconnect with the son who was taken from her twenty years ago?

The Game

The soccer referee cannot afford to doubt himself, even for a moment. Not when he faces the players, the fans, the linesmen, and his father, who watches from the stands as always.

The Last Hillbilly

America sees them as poor, ignorant, and racist, but Brian Ritchie, his family, and his neighbors—the last Appalachian settlers—are not afraid of being called hillbillies. Doting on their tradition, they fear the dramatic changes happening in their lives and cope with them using unexpected, almost poetic insight.

The Man Who Paints Water Drops

Acclaimed Korean painter Kim Tschang-Yeul (who passed away this year, aged 93) believed in silence and in art. When his son starts filming him, a special bond grows between them, revealing the painter’s dramatic life story and the meaning behind the recurring water-drop motif in his art.

The Meaning of Hitler

What was the secret of Hitler’s charm? How is it that people still worship him? And how is any of this related to culture, consumerism, and even technology? Determined to solve the riddle, Petra Epperlein and Michael Tucker (Karl Marx City) set out on a meandering journey full of surprises.

The Oratorio

Martin Scorsese reveals the story of a single performance in 1826 that forever changed America’s cultural landscape with the introduction of Italian opera to New York City.

The Sparks Brothers

How can one rock band be successful, underrated, hugely influential, and criminally overlooked all at the same time? Take a musical odyssey through five weird and wonderful decades with brothers Ron and Russell Mael, celebrating the inspiring legacy of Sparks: your favorite band’s favorite band.

The Truffle Hunters

Deep in the forests of Italy's north-western Piedmont region, a group of eccentrics follows keen-nosed dogs in search of treasure: rare and expensive truffles. A humorous film about refined tastes, culinary traditions, and true indulgence.

There Will Be No More Night

Their cameras and scopes are mounted on their helmets, moving with their gaze. Invasive night vision footage accompanies the stories of American and French helicopter gunners in Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan, raising political, technological, and ethical questions.

This Rain Will Never Stop

Andriy, whose family fled Syria and came to Ukraine, surviving one war only to end up in another, volunteers with the Red Cross. His story threads through this visually arresting film, tenderly weaving through images of people and places marked by war.

TINA

Superstar and rock legend Tina Turner, who still filled stadiums with roaring fans even at 70, talks openly about her years of suffering from violence and humiliation—and about the strength that allowed her to build a new life for herself, on and off the stage.

Truman & Tennessee: An Intimate Conversation

The intense, turbulent conversation between Truman Capote and Tennessee Williams went on for most of their lives. Their portraits are stitched together from letters, diaries, interviews, and unforgettable scenes from their work, including A Streetcar Named Desire, Breakfast at Tiffany's, and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.

Under The Volcano

The Police, Dire Straits, The Rolling Stones, Paul McCartney, Marvin Gaye, and many more showed up on the tiny Caribbean island of Monserrat to record their music in George Martin’s studio. The looming volcano, the seclusion, the local community, and the ocean—all inspired a great musical revolution.

Vicenta

When the system denies her teenage daughter’s right to an abortion, Vicenta goes to war. The story of her struggle against the Argentinian establishment—and the ensuing social and political change in her country—is told in this film using Plasticine models, which portray Vicenta’s experiences with compelling accuracy.

Voices Apart

Three young people talk about the day they crossed the line that separated reality from hallucination—and began hearing voices.

Walk the Tideline

When the tide recedes, passionate beachcombers in the UK, the Netherlands, and Japan, go treasure hunting. They find colorful and enticing objects, mysterious messages from other times and other places. These objects are a fraction of the mountains of plastic we cast into the ocean. For some, they are enchanting.

We Are the Thousand

One thousand rock musicians play together in a small town in Italy in hopes of convincing the Foo Fighters to play a gig there. Preceded by a whole year of logistics and rehearsals, this exciting one-time event brought together an extraordinary community of music-lovers, each with their own story to tell.