In 1971, after being rejected by Hollywood, Bruce Lee returned to his parents’ homeland of Hong Kong to complete four iconic films. Charting his struggles between two worlds, this portrait explores questions of identity and representation through the use of rare archival, interviews with loved ones and Bruce’s own writings.
(Country: US, UK; Year: 2020; Director: Bao Nguyen)
While the roaming handheld cameras bring to mind observational documentaries, the aesthetic also evokes Robert Altman through its observational style and rich tapestry of characters.
In the shadows of the bright lights of Las Vegas, it's last call for a beloved dive bar known as the Roaring 20s. A document of real people, in an unreal situation, facing an uncertain future: America at the end of 2016.
(Country: US; Year: 2020; Director: Bill Ross IV, Turner Ross; Stars: Peter Elwell, Michael Martin, Shay Walker, Peter Elwell, Michael Martin, Shay Walker)
The real issue set out in Coded Bias.. is that we are stumbling headlong into a world in which major life-changing decisions for every one of us are taken by impersonal unrelenting computer algorithms.
Considering the racial bias issues of AI and facial recognition.
(Country: US, China, UK; Year: 2020; Director: Shalini Kantayya; Writer: Shalini Kantayya; Stars: Joy Buolamwini, Silkie Carlo, Jenny Jones, Tranae Moran, Kc Solaris, Mark Zuckerberg, Joy Buolamwini, Silkie Carlo, Jenny Jones, Tranae Moran, Kc Solaris, Mark Zuckerberg)
An industry insider exposes the devastating consequences of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and uncovers systemic corruption between government and industry to silence the victims of a growing public health disaster. Stakes could not be higher as the Trump administration races to open the entire US coastline to offshore drilling.
Strikes a good balance between informing, educating and entertaining.
Down the road from Woodstock in the early 1970s, a revolution blossomed in a ramshackle summer camp for disabled teenagers, transforming their young lives and igniting a landmark movement.
(Country: US; Year: 2020; Director: James Lebrecht, Nicole Newnham)
The emotional honesty of this film is by turns elating and heartbreaking, with Kirsten not scared to let her feelings show on camera alongside those of her dad.
With this inventive portrait, a cameraperson seeks a way to keep her 86-year-old father alive forever. Utilising moviemaking magic and her family’s dark humour, she celebrates Dr Dick Johnson’s last years by staging fantasies of death and beyond. Together, dad and daughter confront the great inevitability awaiting us all.
They say a story can grow legs and, here, it does that and then hops off in surprising directions - taking us on a journey not just into the world of memes and their manipulation but also into considerations of 'ownership' and misappropriation.
When indie comic character Pepe the Frog becomes an unwitting icon of hate, his creator, artist Matt Furie, fights to bring Pepe back from the darkness and navigate America's cultural divide.
(Country: US; Year: 2020; Director: Arthur Jones; Writer: Giorgio Angelini, Matt Furie, Arthur Jones, Aaron Wickenden)
Once the world's most famous astrologers, Walter Mercado seeks to resurrect a forgotten legacy. Raised in the sugar cane fields of Puerto Rico, Walter grew up to become a gender non-conforming, cape-wearing psychic whose televised horoscopes reached 120 million Latinx viewers a day for 30 years before he mysteriously disappeared.
(Country: US; Year: 2020; Director: Cristina Costantini, Kareem Tabsch; Stars: Walter Mercado, Raul de Molina, Nydia Caro, Willy Acosta, Betty Benet Mercado, Ivonne Benet Mercado, Walter Mercado, Raul de Molina, Nydia Caro, Willy Acosta, Betty Benet Mercado, Ivonne Benet Mercado)
World premiere
Spaceship Earth
In 1991 a group of countercultural visionaries built an enormous replica of earth’s ecosystem called Biosphere 2. When eight “biospherians” lived sealed inside, they faced ecological calamities and cult accusations. Their epic adventure is a cautionary tale but also a testament to the power of small groups reimagining the world.
The film's broad scope also serves to further underline its title - the cuts it references aren't just being made in one place, but all over the body politic.
Nowhere is the worldwide erosion of democracy, fuelled by social media disinformation campaigns, more starkly evident than in the authoritarian regime of Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte. Journalist Maria Ressa places the tools of the free press - and her freedom - on the line in defense of truth and democracy.
(Country: US, Philippines; Year: 2020; Director: Ramona S Diaz)
Bradley’s direction emphasises the beauty of the Rich family’s resilience and humanity, with shots that carry the panoramic vistas of French New Wave and the hypnotic tones of underground cinema.
Fox Rich fights for her husband’s release from jail, after he is sentenced to 60 years of incarceration for a bank robbery, a crime she also served time for in the Nineties.
Determined to turn unfathomable tragedy into action, the teenage survivors of Parkland, Florida catalyse a powerful, unprecedented youth movement that spreads with lightning speed across the country, as a generation of mobilised youth take back democracy in this powerful coming-of-age story.
By pushing us into the day-to-day stress of the organisation, France gives a palpable sense of the desperation many of those fleeing feel.
This searing investigative work shadows a group of activists risking unimaginable peril to confront the ongoing anti-LGBTQ pogrom raging in the repressive and closed Russian republic.
Soaring above the chaotic spectacle of Eighties and Nineties Los Angeles, a young couple revolutionised breaking news with their brazen helicopter reporting. Culled from this news duo’s sprawling video archive is a poignant LA story of a family in turbulence hovering over a city unhinged.
