Set as an experiment in a simulated cell in Oslo, three former political prisoners are locked up for three days with no film crew, to revisit their memories of Syria's darkest detention facilities.
Set entirely inside Folsom Prison, The Work follows three men during four days of intensive group therapy with convicts, revealing an intimate and powerful portrait of authentic human transformation that transcends what we think of as rehabilitation.
This intimate documentary follows a group of Syrian children refugees who narrowly escape a life of torment and integrate into a foreign land.
71 years in the making, this feature documentary experience reveals the extraordinary life journey of Hollywood's most unlikely hero, Danny Trejo.
Four-time Emmy winner John Kastner was granted unprecedented access to the Brockville facility for 18 months, allowing 46 patients and 75 staff to share their experiences with stunning frankness. The result is two remarkable documentaries: the first, NCR: Not Criminally Responsible, premiered at Hot Docs in the spring of 2013 and follows the story of a violent patient released into the community. The second film, Out of Mind, Out of Sight, returns to the Brockville Mental Health Centre to profile four patients, two men and two women, as they struggle to gain control over their lives so they can return to a society that often fears and demonizes them.
In 2018, the Nicaraguan police brutally repressed anti-government protests organised by high school students. K., a 17-year-old girl who was arrested, recounts the horrors of her time in jail.
Trevor McDonald goes to Rockville Correctional Facility in Indiana to speak with some of the women that live there.
Narrated by Uncle Jack Charles and seen through the eyes of Indigenous prisoners at Victoria’s Fulham Correctional Centre, this documentary explores how art and culture can empower Australia's First Nations people to transcend their unjust cycles of imprisonment.
Insein Rhythm portrays the sights, sounds and rhythms of Yangon’s Insein train station which is also a stone’s throw away from the country’s infamous Insein prison.
When Yvon Rioux, a teacher and singer, witnesses the brutal death of a former student, gunned down before his eyes, his world collapses. Traumatized, he develops post-traumatic stress disorder that turns his life upside down and reawakens old wounds. Haunted by the silence of his grandfather, a World War II veteran, he decides to travel across Europe to confront his fears, understand his past, and begin rebuilding his life. A Last Scar is the intimate portrait of a man in search of inner peace, between memory, transmission, and resilience.
A unique interview with Tooba Gondal, the woman who groomed and lured scores of Western women to join ISIS. Using social media, she became a deadly matchmaker, recruiting a number of high-profile “jihadi brides” for ISIS militants in Syria: she allegedly helped organise the transporting of three British schoolgirls, including Shamima Begum, to Syria.
Preschool to Prison is a compelling examination of how the United States public school system is built and operated like prisons. Zero-tolerance policies are used to justify suspension and arrests that set up a pathway to send children of color and children with special needs from school to prison. Children are being suspended, restrained, dragged, physically manhandled, and subsequently arrested for minor offenses such as throwing candy on a school bus. These personal accounts from people affected by the school-to-prison pipeline give riveting tales about the generational impact on society.
In 2011, Maine State Prison launched a pioneering reform program to scale back its use of solitary confinement. Bafta and Emmy-winning film-maker Dan Edge and his co-director Lauren Mucciolo were given unprecedented access to the solitary unit - and filmed there for more than three years. The result is an extraordinary and harrowing portrait of life in solitary - and a unique document of a radical and risky experiment to reform a prison. The US is the world leader in solitary confinement. More than 80,000 American prisoners live in isolation, some have been there for years, even decades. Solitary is proven to cause mental illness, it is expensive, and it is condemned by many as torture. And yet for decades, it has been one of the central planks of the American criminal justice system.
Asil is a young Syrian refugee awaiting documents in Turkey while processing the trauma of losing her home and family. Her story gives voice to a charming gigantic puppet named Amal, who represents millions of migrant and displaced children in a walk from the Syrian border in Turkey all the way across Europe. Escorted and animated by a group of puppeteers who are themselves refugees, Amal’s epic journey is one of compassion and discovery.
An intrepid archeology professor and his team of students are the only ones who stand in the way of an ISIS illicit antiquities network. Faced with losing their cultural heritage they become spies and they go undercover in ISIS territory. They dodge bombs and militia to create a system to monitor theft and destruction of Syrian antiquities. During this process, they discover more than they anticipated, discovering thousands of trafficked items and that the crimes committed are being enabled by terrorists and multinational corporations. The tragedy continues because the sale of illegal goods are uncovered in the most unsuspecting place.