Four Died Trying

Four extraordinary lives. Four calamitous deaths.

The opening instalment of an unprecedented multi-part documentary series, filmed primarily from the vantage point of their children, close associates, and witnesses to their assassinations. Four Died Trying considers the "turning” President John Kennedy, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Senator Robert Kennedy were making in the last year or so of their lives. Were they embracing ever-broader conceptions of the struggle for peace, social change and economic justice, and what forces may have stirred in opposition? What lessons do their lives and deaths hold for us today, as the world once again trembles on the cliff of an uncertain future?

Crows: Nature is Watching Us

No animal knows us humans better than crows

This documentary introduces the audience to crows as our chroniclers, pursuing the thesis that corvids have built up a collective knowledge of human history thanks to their extraordinary cognitive abilities. The image of the ravens Hugin ("thought") and Munin ("memory"), who accompany the one-eyed father of the gods Odin and inform him about the doings of mankind, stands for the central narrative thread of the film.

The Border Crossed Us

The human cost of US immigration policy reaches far beyond physical borders

While a big white surveillance blimp constantly hovers over the small border town of La Joya, Texas, local police officers patrol the neighborhood looking for human smugglers. The region is littered with traces of people who have attempted to get into the US by crossing the Rio Grande. But rather than arresting the immigrants, the officers are gathering intelligence on the smugglers and smuggling bosses tied to Mexican cartels. Slowly the mutual dependence between police and smuggler reveals a system caught in a never-ending cycle, with the immigrant dangerously caught in between.

All Static & Noise

Survivors and their families risk everything to expose the truth of China's Uyghur detention and 're-education' camps

Jewher, a Uyghur teen from China, lands in the US after she is violently separated from her father at the Beijing airport. Abduweli, a linguist and poet imprisoned and tortured for teaching Uyghur language, leaves for Istanbul upon his release. Together, they join survivors of China’s "re-education camps" and their families, in Turkey, Kazakhstan, Europe and the United States to expose atrocities with the hope that global awareness brings change.

The Expert at the Card Table

In search of history's most elusive card magician

S.W. Erdnase… The pseudonym of the most notorious hustler of the 19th century. His true identity is still unknown, and makes for a mystery which leaves even the best illusionists in the dark. Today his book “The Expert at The Card Table” is known as the bible of card magic. The greatest magicians of the present set out on a journey to search for the lost genius. They tell stories that make your blood run cold. Even though there seems to be no proof for any of the countless myths and legends surrounding the writer, the search makes one realise the true value of his work.

Ukraine's Stolen Children

The harrowing search for the Ukrainian children taken into Russia

Thousands of Ukrainian children, some of them orphans, were taken to Russia after the war started. Many were sent to recreational camps in Russia by their parents to escape the shelling; they were then stuck there, sometimes for months, waiting for their mothers to bring them back. Others were fostered into Russian families, led to believe that Russia had saved them after their parents had abandoned them. This remarkable doc explores the journey of these children, and the parents trying to bring them home.

Unstoppable Me

For the smallest comedian in the world, the sky's the limit

In a heartwarming, hilarious and uplifting insight into the world of Tanyalee Davis, we discover that life is most definitely what you make of it. As she travels up the East Coast of America to tape her comedy special, she reveals to us the ups and down of life as a disabled road comic. As she navigates exclusion and prejudice, Tanyalee reminds us that nothing should ever make us feel like we can’t reach for our dreams.

The Assassination and Mrs Paine

One woman’s unshakable connection to the JFK assassination continues to haunt her fifty years later.

According to her detractors, Ruth Paine is a government agent who helped frame Lee Harvey Oswald as the assassin of the president. But to her defenders, she is simply an innocent bystander caught up in history. The Assassination and Mrs Paine juxtaposes Ruth’s first-hand account alongside the assassination researchers who suspect her and the defenders of the official story with whom she sides.

Tantura

The untold story of Israel's foundation

Hundreds of Palestinian villages were depopulated in 1948. To Israelis, it was the War of Independence, to Palestinians it was 'Al Nakba' - the Catastrophe. Director Alon Schwarz revisits former Israeli soldiers as well as Palestinian residents in an effort to re-examine what happened in Tantura, the location of an alleged, Israeli-perpetrated massacre, and find out why 'Al Nakba' is still a taboo in Israeli society.