Two unhoused men turned community leaders— John and LaMonté —organize their neighbors in the face of displacement, addiction, and a failing social system.

Nearing the end of his life, Adolph Gasser looks back on a seventy-year career as a world-class camera repairman, WWII veteran, inventor, and best friend of nature photographer Ansel Adams, contributing developer of the first Nikon camera and a sales/rental/camera repair store owner who empowered other prominent Bay Area visual artists and inventors to succeed. As eminent domain, the internet and changing technologies threaten everything he has built, he struggles to find a way to keep moving forward. Inspired by his unique stories and abilities, filmmaker and professor John C. Aliano follows him over the course of several years and reflects on his own career trajectory.
2025

In French Polynesia, transgender people evolve with apparent fluidity in all components of society. Their presence, observed as early as the 18th century by Western travelers and missionaries, has never ceased to intrigue and fascinate, producing over time numerous myths that the transgender women and men of Polynesia are today attempting to deconstruct. Through a series of luminous and intimate portraits, this documentary gives them a voice and proposes a rereading of gender issues in the light of Oceanian thought: an obvious enrichment.
2024

The Dawn is Too Far: Stories of Iranian-American Life poetically narrates the story of a community of Iranian Americans who have made the San Francisco Bay Area their home over the past five decades. The film explores Iranian immigration through turbulent histories of dissent, revolution, war, and separation, and the reinvention of identity in a new land and culture. The Dawn is Too Far highlights how Iranian students, activists, and artists have navigated displacement while drawing on and influencing Bay Area culture. This community offers a more nuanced story of the Iranian diaspora—the ways that this community enriches the region where they live, work, and build families. The Dawn is Too Far undermines the tired and overplayed news headlines that are dominated by narratives of enmity and mistrust between the government of Iran and the U.S., to offer a more humane understanding of the how people's lives and the sacrifices they make are part of the larger story of immigration.
2024

Examines the implications of Christian Nationalism, how it distorts not only our constitutional republic, but Christianity itself, and asks the question: What happens when a faith built on love, sacrifice, and forgiveness grows political tentacles, conflating power, money, and belief into hyper-nationalism?
2024

Deep Brazil. Between drifting through a city in the interior of Mato Grosso on the banks of the BR-163, we follow moments of the routine of Ana Rúbia, who is preparing for the launch of the book “School Memories of Travestis”.
2022
Covering China's powerful leader, his signature foreign policy, U.S.-China trade and technology wars, how Chinese technology helps stifle dissent, and more. A collaboration with the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, PBS NewsHour conducted more than 70 on-camera interviews in eight Chinese cities and across eight countries.
2019

Palermo, Sicily, Italy, 2017. Twenty-five years after the murders of anti-mafia judges Giovanni Falcone, on May 23, 1992, and Paolo Borsellino, on July 19, 1992; and on the occasion of the tributes held in memory of both heroes, skeptical photographer Letizia Battaglia, chronicler of their titanic combat, criticizes the opportunism of shady characters who, like businessman Ciccio Mira, profit from the commemoration of both tragedies.
2019

Waifs, homeless, derelicts, almsmen, others, forgettens, outcasts, unwanteds. The Hotel of Waifs; a temporary resting place far from home, an amusement in a pale fun fair, an enthusiastic trip on roundabout ways of soul.
2019

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

Through the eyes of a young drifter who rejects society's rules and intentionally chooses to live on the streets, Chinese filmmaker Nanfu Wang explores the meaning of personal freedom – and its limits.
2017

Cruelty, psychological and sexual violence, humiliations: reality television seems to have gone mad. His debut in the early 2000s inaugurated a new era in the history of the audio-visual. Fifty years of archives trace the evolution of entertainment: how the staging of intimacy during the 80s opened new territories, how the privatization of the biggest channels has changed the relationship with the spectator. With the contribution of specialists, including philosopher Bernard Stiegler, this documentary demonstrates how emotion has made way for the exacerbation of the most destructive impulses.
2010

On August 15th, 2006, filmmaker Ryan Dacko set out to get a 30-minute meeting with a major Hollywood producer by running on foot from Syracuse, New York to Hollywood, California.
2007

Morgan Spurlock, Joe Morley and Heather Winters -- the same group of filmmakers that exposed the greasy truth about fast-food "supersizing" -- team with director Sara Sackner for this eye-opening documentary that looks under the hood of America's public school curriculum. Under the microscope this time is arts education and its pitiable lack of funding, as well as the vital role a teacher can play in the lives of struggling students.
2006

A documentary film that highlights two street derived dance styles, Clowning and Krumping, that came out of the low income neighborhoods of L.A.. Director David LaChapelle interviews each dance crew about how their unique dances evolved. A new and positive activity away from the drugs, guns, and gangs that ruled their neighborhood. A raw film about a growing sub-culture movements in America.
2005
2004

The Fall of the I-Hotel brings to life the battle for housing in San Francisco. The brutal eviction of the International Hotel's tenants culminated a decade of spirited resistance to the razing of Manilatown. The Fall of the I-Hotel works on several levels. It not only documents the struggle to save the I-Hotel, but also gives an overview of Filipino American history.
1983

A collage of live performance, intimate interviews, and cityscapes featuring San Francisco punk club Mabuhay Gardens. With Flipper's Will Shatter, The Avengers' Danny Furious, Negative Trend and more.
1979

A contrast between two kinds of attitudes to gay liberation in Adelaide.
1976

This documentary on the "youth movement" of the late 1960s focuses on the hippie pot smoking/free love culture in the San Francisco Bay area.
1968

Completely topless. Completely uninhibited. The craze that began in San Francisco is now exploding across the USA and Europe.
1966