Although experiencing a lifelong battle with pain and trauma, Jerod Draper lived an average, normal life in Southern Indiana. During high school, Jerod started to get off track after losing his best friend at the age of 14, and his first love at 15. To cope with the sudden loss at such a young age, Jerod started experimenting with drugs. After high school and through his younger-adult years, Jerod's substance abuse amplified. Throughout his 20s and 30s, Jerod continued to fight for sobriety while marrying and having a daughter. Following the divorce and not being able to see his daughter due to substance abuse, Jerod made a vow to stay clean. On October 4th, 2018 - Jerod was well over a year sober, yet fighting a familiar challenge, the severe depression and anxiety induced by weaning from drugs. During that evening, Jerod endures a fatal night of torture after being arrested for a routine traffic stop.

In Russia, criticizing the war in Ukraine or Vladimir Putin’s regime has become a crime. Thousands of ordinary citizens are being arrested, tried, and imprisoned. They are called “Politzek”: political prisoners. Filmed clandestinely over the course of more than a year, Politzek gives a platform to those who, despite the fear, continue to speak out against Putin’s repressive Russia. Through the intersecting stories of a teenager sentenced to five years in prison for criticizing the government on social media, a young artist jailed for placing anti-war stickers, a human rights activist, and two theater directors facing Kafkaesque trials, the film unveils the machinery of state repression in Russia. With rare footage, broken yet unyielding voices, this is a story of silenced resistance.
2026

In 2021, the border area between Poland and Belarus became a forbidden zone, three kilometers wide, where refugees found themselves brutally trapped. They had become the stakes in a political game: Belarus supposedly guaranteed free passage to the EU, but in Poland the refugees met with pushbacks, forcing them back across the border. Once in Belarus again, they were driven back towards Poland—a horrific stalemate in an inhospitable landscape of treacherous marshes.
2024

Documentary on the recording of the Album Una vez iniciado el fuego by Sakatumba
2024
The siren call of the ivory-billed woodpecker lures a New York based tantra and sex educator into the swamps of the American South on a 17-year journey to prove the iconic bird still exists. Along the way, he finds a tendril of hope in the face of climate change.
2024

In recent years, more than 2,500 books have been removed from school districts around the US, labeled as banned, restricted, or challenged, and made unavailable to millions of students. By no accident, the themes targeted are the usual scapegoats of the American Right—LGBTQ+ issues, Black History, and women’s empowerment—impeding the power of future generations to develop their own thoughts and opinions on critical social issues. By weaving together a lyrical montage of young readers and authors, THE ABCs OF BOOK BANNING reveals the voices of the impacted parties, and inspires hope for the future through the profound insights of inquisitive youthful minds.
2024

A documentary short that uses fish to explore identity and belonging in a metropolis.
2023

In 1992, at the height of the AIDS pandemic, activist Terence Alan Smith made a historic bid for president of the United States as his drag queen persona Joan Jett Blakk. Today, Smith reflects back on his seminal civil rights campaign and its place in American history.
2021

Josh-awan Bulman details some highlights of the Zhuang Alliance Group's Style Guide.
2020

An unconventional, tone-shifting travelogue that stitches together nations of the former Yugoslavia through chance encounters, 1970s rock music, architecture, and inventive editing, Ryan Ferko’s Hrvoji, Look at You From the Tower locates traces of the past in an increasingly fractured present.
2019

In the aftermath of a tragic fire in a Romanian club, burn victims begin dying in hospitals from wounds that were not life threatening. A team of investigative journalists move into action uncovering the mass corruption of the health system and of the state institutions. Collective follows journalists, whistle blowers, and authorities alike. An immersive and uncompromising look into a dysfunctional system, exposing corruption, propaganda, and manipulation that nowadays affect not only Romania, but societies around the world.
2019

"Twin Peaks: The Phenomenon" is a three-part short documentary briefly chronicling the history of Twin Peaks. Produced and released on YouTube as part of the build-up to the premiere of the 2017 series, it was released on home video as part of Twin Peaks: A Limited Event Series and Twin Peaks: From Z to A.
2017

A documentary film depicting five intimate portraits of migrants who fled their country of origin to seek refuge in France and find a space of freedom where they can fully experience their sexuality and their sexual identity: Giovanna, woman transgender of Colombian origin, Roman, Russian transgender man, Cate, Ugandan lesbian mother, Yi Chen, young Chinese gay man…
2017

'Consumed' is a cinematic journey through the landscapes, mines, factories, and shipyards of Chinese production. Blurring the lines between documentary and fiction, a single worker narrates his story to the rhythm of industrial machinery. The film reveals the hidden world behind our everyday objects, re-framing complex supply chains that feed global desires as a narrative performance played out at a global scale, and investigating the place of the individual within this context.
2016
LIONESS A story of hope and survival in one of the world's most notorious slums, where one out of four girls is raped every year. This short documentary film personalizes the global crisis of gender violence and depicts self-defense as a sensible solution.
2011

2007

A look at the unusual process used in the making of the film Shortbus (2006) featuring interviews, behind the scenes footage and clips from the feature film. Director John Cameron Mitchell starts with the concept of using real sex in a film with a positive message. The cast of unknowns is selected from homemade audition tapes and then a callback audition workshop. More acting workshops are used to develop the characters and script. The project overcomes a number of obstacles and the rest of the film's development is followed up until its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival.
2007
A portrait of two very different mathematicians, porridge pulleys and Pi features Fields medalist Vaughan Jones, one of the world's foremost knot theorists and an avid windsurfer, and Hendrik lenstra, a number theorist with a passion for Homer and all things classical. Porridge pulleys and Pi poses the question: how do we get first-rate research mathematicians? Hendrik lenstra and Vaughan Jones have had an extraordinary impact on mathematics; this charming documentary gives the viewer a taste of their personalities, mathematical and otherwise. A whirlwind tour of knots, geonomics, cryptography, music, Homer, elliptic curves, art, and windsurfing, the video contains sections on the history of Pi, and a suprising discovery involving a cocoa tin and an Escher print.
2004
Throughout the Islamic world, each year hundreds of women are shot, stabbed, strangled or burned to death by male relatives because they are thought to have “dishonoured” their families. They may have lost their virginity, refused an arranged marriage or left an abusive husband. Even if a woman is raped or merely the victim of gossip, she must pay the price. Crimes of Honour documents the terrible reality of femicide – the belief that a girl’s body is the property of the family, and any suggestion of sexual impropriety must be cleansed with her blood. We meet women in hiding from their families, a brother who describes his reasons for killing the sister he loved, and a handful of women who have committed themselves to the protection of young women in danger of losing their lives.
1999
In 1986, Billy Joel released the album titled The Bridge on July 29th on Columbia Records. Go behind the scenes with Billy and learn about the songwriting and recording process behind the album.
1986

The dangers of LSD are driven home to teenagers in this classroom training film, which is "narrated" by an LSD tab. The "tab" tells kids that he is "a depth charge in the mind!" and various teenagers are shwn babbling about their LSD experiences. "Experts" are presented who warn that LSD makes kids "paint themselves green" and has various other horrible side effects, the most serious of which is that it gives users a police record, and that there is "no known way of getting your fingerprints out of a police file once they're in there."
1967