Watch Before The Spotlight (2025) Online Free
Behind every electrifying performance lies a story of sacrifice and passion. Before the Spotlight journeys behind the scenes of the dynamic Dauntless Movement Crew, diving into the lives of three of its standout members, Sienna, Chris and Manu. In a tough industry defined by fierce competition, fleeting opportunities and constant audition cycles, these performers are faced with uncertainty. To challenge them further, the risk of financial instability is significant in a high demanding economy. Yet, their passion grows stronger, fuelled by the support from the community. But what makes the risk worth it?
Cast
Chris "Kamikazi" Merriman, Sienna Broudou, Manu Torren, Catrin Lewis, Dominic Saia, Hophnie Noblett, Zac Feghali, Lawrence “The Law” Bernal
More Like This
The Bowens: A Portrait of an American Family
What does it take to raise an American family today? What kind of values should be instilled into children? Is the future too dangerous, unpredictable and grim? Meet The Bowens - a new kind of American family that decided to take matters into their hands and work together to navigate uncertainties of life through relentless self improvement, strength, discipline, and loyalty.
2026
Bridging Our Stories
When the last Filipino community center in Ketchikan, Alaska, becomes a memory, a 50-year-old Filipina who spent her life resisting her heritage travels to the Philippines to rediscover her roots, preserving her community’s disappearing culture, and teaching indigenous Filipino dances.
2026
Sharing
Sharing is a documentary that will show the process of building a video dance performed by four female artists who have a connection not only with blood, but also with dance.
2024
This Is Going to Be Big
Peer behind the curtain as a cast of neurodivergent teens prepare to come of age and hit the stage in their school’s time-travelling, John Farnham–themed musical.
2023
Lady Gaga: Glory
It's hard to define her. And that's precisely the way Lady Gaga wants it. Yes, Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta had a plan to remake herself into an outrageous icon. It began with Italian Catholic New York City roots then expanded to glam pop, electronic rock, burlesque and even jazz alongside nonagenarian crooner, Tony Bennett. Piano lessons began at age four and taught Stefani to create music by ear. There were lead roles in high school standard Broadway show productions then open mic nights at downtown clubs and 1 1/2 years of formal training at N.Y.U.'s Tisch School of the Arts. Even a rape at age nineteen slowed but did not stop the mission that would yield over 200 million combined album and song sales. No wonder that Gaga's fans call her "Monster Mother." An outrageous fashion sense has wrought costumes made of plastic bubbles and raw meat. While elaborate videos and spectacular stage sets are the norm,
2021
De Kinderen van Møkum, en ik
Documentary about a group of young idealistic friends in their squat in Amsterdam. Chased by the police and the press, they moved from squat to squat, with a clear message: don't make the city too expensive for the new generation of Amsterdammers. But living with such a large group and the flaws of the squat begin to take their toll. When the squatters collective falls apart halfway through the film, the filmmaker is left disillusioned and decides to confront the young squatters with her feelings of disappointment.
2021
The Happy Ones
A love letter to Mar del Plata made of images, times and a road trip. "The Happy Ones" is an experimental short documentary composed of past and present family footage. It portrays a place in the summer, the city of Mar del Plata, with a span of 20 years between past and present images (January 2000 and 2020). Despite the time that passed by, it's beaches, essence and people remain, always willing to keep dancing.
2021
The Art of Movement
A sensual and insightful film about three elderly dancers from Budapest. Irén, Éva and Ágnes - all between 90 and 100 years old - were once part of the early modern dance movement in Hungary. Taking the role of a dance student and dialogue partner Boglárka retraces how each of the elderly dancers transformed their lives and movement practices in order to survive the major socio-political changes of the last century. The film takes us into a personal and bodily encounter with three very different personalities and their relation to their past and present. Returning to the stage and performing in their private rooms, Irén, Éva and Ágnes reveal us an incredible richness of experience stored in their bodies. A choreography of memories.
2020
Liam
Just after Isidore moves to France to study filmmaking, his best friend dies back in the US. Through documentary, performance, and animation, a ghostly portrait emerges, prompting Isidore to question his relationships with his parents and his boyfriend in Paris.
2018
Young Wrestlers
“Let’s see if you gained any weight. 26,3 kilogram. Ahmet, you need to eat more. Double meals.” Like other boys their age, Baran, Ahmet and their classmates wrestle with the desire for recognition, with homesickness and with their target weights. Most of all though, they wrestle with, and against, one another. They are comrades and competitors, united by one and the same dream: Olympic gold! In their wrestling academy in the Turkish province of Amasya, which is well known for this traditional form of combat sport, they undergo strength and endurance training, they learn lifts and throws, they urge each other on and they console one another. Always responding to the boys’ needs, the trainers give the boys tough love, sometimes fatherly, sometimes strict and disciplinary. The film’s intimate documental camera bears close witness to the fine line between friendship and competition, victory and the lesson of how to lose.
2016
In the Darkness of the Theater I Take Off My Shoes
The National Ballet of Portugal is celebrating its 40th anniversary. Since its foundation, it has aimed to present the great classics, as well as to always welcome contemporary creations. Day-to-day life is demanding for dancers, choreographers, musicians, répétiteurs, seamstresses, light technicians, sound technicians, and other elements of a large staff that make it possible for dance to travel through the rehearsal rooms and linger in the hallways before making it onto the stage. This film follows not only the company’s creations and premieres, but mainly each dancer’s silent and structural work.
2016
Night and Day
To celebrate Arena's 40th anniversary, a new film made entirely from its own archive, evoking the one experience common to all - the 24-hour cycle from dawn to dusk to dawn again.
2015
Young Man on the Bar Masturbating with Rage and Nerve
Dance and prostitution play the same role for Cristhian’s body. Virtuosity, desire, technique, and sex intertwine, granting coherence to a way of life that offers many answers to few questions. A leitmotiv that reconciles opposites and contradictions. Answers that are sometimes painful, like all truths.
2015
Up Heartbreak Hill
Up Heartbreak Hill chronicles the lives of three high school seniors living on the Navajo Nation and struggling to shape their identities as both Native American and modern American. They must decide whether to stay in their community - a place inextricably woven into the fiber of their beings - or leave in pursuit of educational and economic opportunities.
2012
Kandidaten
Scene is the classroom of a special school in Berlin. Yannik is the leader of class 7a. Yousuf and Marcel would rather have him as a friend than as an enemy, otherwise they might end up like Emanuel. Sitting in a corner, unwanted and lonely, he gets beaten up regularly. But Emanuel shrugs off these offences and violations with surprising gentleness. All in one boat, the roles are firmly distributed. But when the teacher introduces the topics of democracy, ethics, and human rights to the class, Emanuel sees a chance to break free from his role as the underdog.
2010
Little Secret
A group of teenagers who have been selected to participate in a recreational white water rafting trip. All of the kids selected have AIDS or have been infected with the HIV virus. At some point during the trip, all the kids tell their stories and share their feelings about what their lives have been like since being infected with the virus and how they struggle to live normal lives with a hope of a cure in the future.
1999
Butoh: Body on the Edge of Crisis
"Butoh: Body on the Edge of Crisis" is a visually striking film portrait shot on location in Japan with the participation of the major Butoh choreographers and their companies. Although Butoh is often viewed as Japan's equivalent of modern dance, in actuality it has little to do with the rational principles of modernism. Butoh is a theater of improvisation which places the personal experiences of the dancer on center-stage. By reestablishing the ancient Japanese connection of dance, music, and masks, and by recalling the Buddhist death dances of rural Japan, Butoh incorporates much traditional theater. At the same time, it is a movement of resistance against the abandonment of traditional culture to a highly organized consumer-oriented society.
1990
Carnival in Québec
This colorful archival record of Québec City's Winter Carnival shows that many popular events of today—pageants, parades, boat races, folk dancing, fireworks, and torchlight skiing—were also favorites many years ago.
1956
Juliet
A late period home movie with Man Ray and his lovely friend Juliet Browner lounging together in the US. Man Ray had returned to America when the Germans occupied France.
1940
Dance
Home movie from Man Ray featuring dancer Jenny gyrating in black and white.
1938