Jacinta

A deeply intimate portrait of mothers and daughters, and the effects of trauma

Jacinta follows a young woman in and out of prison as she attempts to break free from an inherited cycle of addiction, incarceration and crime. Filmed for over three years, Jacinta begins at the Maine Correctional Center where Jacinta, 26, and her mother Rosemary, 46, are incarcerated together, both recovering from drug addiction. As a child, Jacinta became entangled in her mother's world of drugs and crime and has followed her in and out of the system since she was a teenager. This time, as Jacinta is released from prison, she hopes to maintain her sobriety and reconnect with her own daughter, Caylynn, 10, who lives with her paternal grandparents. Despite her desire to rebuild her life for her daughter, Jacinta continually struggles against the forces that first led to her addiction. With unparalleled access and a gripping vérité approach, director Jessica Earnshaw paints a deeply intimate portrait of mothers and daughters and the effects of trauma over generations.

On These Grounds

The school incident that exposed the division at America’s core

An explosive video goes viral, showing a white school resource officer in South Carolina pull a Black teenager from her school desk and throw her across the floor. An outraged nation divides over who is at fault and what role race played in the incident. Healer-Activist Vivian Anderson uproots her life in NYC and moves to South Carolina to help the girl and dismantle the system behind the "Assault at Spring Valley". To contextualize this incident, geographer Janae Davis treks the surrounding swamps to unearth the overgrown and neglected homes of formerly enslaved people of African descent, drawing a throughline connecting trauma from the past to present.

Bangla Surf Girls

Never have the stakes and the waves been so high

Bangla Surf Girls is an immersive documentary that takes us into the heart of Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh. We witness the transformation of young girls who join a local surf club and dare to dream of freedom and escape from a life of drudgery and abuse. The documentary captures the raw emotions, the family dynamics, and the complex pressures of poverty. Balancing the freedom of the waves with the restrictive realities of their circumstances, we experience the thrill and struggle of coming of age in a developing country.

A Portrait on the Search for Happiness

The story of the former diamond-diving village of Port Nolloth in South Africa

A desert bordered by a deep cold sea. A torn landscape which hides the purest diamonds on earth deep beneath it. Digging for these diamonds with bare hands day and night, are young men on the frontier of a new diamond rush in South Africa. Hope beckons for the previously drug addicted Vianey who yearns for a better life. Nelson Mandela’s dream urges the homeless cook Patrick on into this new, hopeful future. Only George, the diamond diver, who once was a millionaire, is still hanging on to his memories of a bygone time. A poetic journey through the desert, the wind and the sand.

Eye of the Storm

One of Britain's finest painters faces his greatest challenge

Scottish landscape painter James Morrison's work hangs in the homes of JK Rowling and the Royal family, as well as in museums and private collections around the world. Now, he faces his greatest challenge: his eyesight is fading. A powerful exploration of what it means to be a landscape painter, Eye of the Storm is also the universal story of a creative mind dealing with the physical frailties that catch up with all of us.

Life at 50°C

As the world gets hotter, survival gets harder

What is life like on the climate change frontline? For the millions of people who have to live with extreme levels of heat day in and day out? Life at 50 Degrees explores the impact of climate change on people across the globe. From Nigeria to Pakistan, this is a timely investigation into how lives are being changed by global warming.

Imad's Childhood

Can a child recover from spending half his life in ISIS captivity?

After two and a half years in captivity, Imad, his little brother Idan, and their mother Ghazala are released into a displaced persons' camp in Kurdistan. Healing from the trauma is hard for all of them, but it seems Imad is having a particularly tough time. Not yet five, he has already spent over half his life enduring terror, abuse, and "training" meant to make him heartless. Speaking only Arabic, he cannot communicate with his family, and the only means of expression at his disposal is violence. He hits and spits, and his only game is pretending to be an ISIS fighter who shoots, blows things up, and kills. This poignant film follows him as he takes hesitant steps on the hard road to recovery, guided and held by his mother, his grandmother, and an incredibly supportive therapist.

The Neutral Ground

A documentary about memory, monuments, and how to break up with the Confederacy

The Neutral Ground documents the City of New Orleans’ fight over monuments and America’s troubled romance with the Lost Cause. In 2015, director CJ Hunt was filming the New Orleans City Council’s vote to remove four confederate monuments. But when that removal is halted by death threats, CJ sets out to understand why a losing army from 1865 still holds so much power in America.

North by Current

A family death spurs an exploration of grief, time and transformation

After the inconclusive death of his young niece, filmmaker Angelo Madsen Minax returns to his rural Michigan hometown, prepared to make a film about the family’s wrongful persecution at the hands of authorities. Instead, he pivots to excavate struggles of generational addiction, Christian fervor, and trans embodiment, and in the process, creates a breathtaking reflection on the challenges of creating identity, the agony of growing up and the ever-fickle nuances of family.