Holy Wars is about two men with two different ideologies, both deeply rooted in fundamentalism – Christianity and Islam. The film follows Aaron Taylor, an evangelical Christian Missionary from the Bible Belt, and Khalid Kelly, an extremist Muslim Irish convert living in London. Both men believe that an apocalypse is inevitable, after which their religion will rule the world. Over the course of tracking their lives from the inception of the “War on Terror” through the election of Barack Obama, one of the men goes to the darkness of uncompromised hate, the other towards the light of a better understanding. Holy Wars is an extraordinary, thought provoking portrait of two radical believers who are transformed by events in our changing world. (Source)
Find more trailers and clips on our homepage.
Sweethearts of the Prison Rodeo goes behind prison walls to follow convict cowgirls on their journey to the 2007 Oklahoma State Penitentiary Rodeo. In 2006, female inmates were allowed to participate for the first time. In a state with the highest female incarceration rate in the country, these women share common experiences such as broken homes, drug abuse and alienation from their children. From 1940 – 2008, the Oklahoma State Penitentiary held an annual ‘Prison Rodeo’. Part Wild West show and part coliseum-esque spectacle, it was one of the last of its kind – a relic of the American penal system. Prisoners compete on wild-broncs and bucking bulls, risking life-long injuries. For inmates like Danny Liles, a 14-year veteran of the rodeo, the chance to battle livestock offers a brief respite from prison life. Within this strange arena the prisoners become the heroes while the public and guards applaud. (
Narrated by Kate Winslet, this inspiring film follows one woman's quest to unlock her autistic son's mind. Margret, whose ten-year-old son Keli is severely autistic, has tried a number of treatments to help her son. Consumed by an unquenchable thirst for knowledge about this mysterious and complex condition, she travels from her home in Iceland to the United States and Europe, meeting with top autism experts and advocates. She also connects with several other families touched by autism, whose struggles echo her own: the endless doctor visits and experiments with different treatments, the complication of doing everyday tasks, and the inability to communicate – perhaps the most painful and frustrating aspect of autism. But as she comes across innovative new therapies with the potential to break down the walls of autism, Margret finds hope that her son may be able to express himself on a level she never thought possible. (
Features the original American paparazzo, Ron Galella. Dogged in his quest to photograph celebrities in unguarded moments, Galella defines his passion for his work by the ups and downs of his career, documenting the parade of stars at a thriving Studio 54, having the dubious honor of being sued by Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, and having his jaw broken by Marlon Brando. (
During the Cold War, nothing loomed as large in the public mind as the bomb. When the Soviet Empire collapsed, the bomb became a symbol of another era. Naively we felt the danger had passed. In recent years, the threat of nuclear proliferation has grown more urgent, and the political will to eliminate nuclear weapons is greater than ever in our history. We have now entered a second nuclear age. Nuclear weapons have proliferated to nine nations, and that number could continue to grow, as over 40 nations have the technical capacity to construct nuclear weapons. Terrorists are actively seeking nuclear weapons and fissile material, not to use as political leverage, but rather as tools of mass destruction. Equally as great a threat is human error; the possibility of an accident increases every day. (
Working over several years in classic verité style Chinese-Canadian filmmaker Lixin Fan (with the producers of the award-winning hit documentary Up the Yangtze) travels with one couple who have embarked on this annual trek for almost two decades. Like so many of China’s rural poor, Changhua and Sugin Zhang left behind their two infant children for grueling factory jobs. Their daughter Qin—now a restless and rebellious teenager—both bitterly resents their absence and longs for her own freedom away from school, much to the utter devastation of her parents. Emotionally engaging and starkly beautiful, Last Train Home’s intimate observation of one fractured family sheds light on the human cost of China’s ascendance as an economic superpower. (
COUNTDOWN TO ZERO traces the history of the atomic bomb from its origins to the present state of global affairs: nine nations possessing nuclear weapons capabilities with others racing to join them, with the world held in a delicate balance that could be shattered by an act of terrorism, failed diplomacy, or a simple accident. Written and directed by acclaimed documentarian Lucy Walker (The Devil’s Playground, Blindsight), the film features an array of important international statesmen, including President Jimmy Carter, Mikhail Gorbachev, Pervez Musharraf and Tony Blair. It makes a compelling case for worldwide nuclear disarmament, an issue more topical than ever with the Obama administration working to revive this goal today. The film was produced by Academy Award® winner and current nominee Lawrence Bender (Inglourious Basterds, An Inconvenient Truth) and developed, financed and executive produced by Participant Media, together with World Security Institute. Participant collaborated with Magnolia on last year’s Food, Inc., recently nominated for an Academy Award®, and the upcoming CASINO JACK and the United States of Money. Jeff Skoll, Diane Weyermann, Bruce Blair and Matt Brown are the film’s executive producers. (
For a nation that proudly declared it would leave no child behind, America continues to do so at alarming rates. Despite increased spending and politicians’ promises, our buckling public—education system, once the best in the world, routinely forsakes the education of millions of children. Oscar®—winning filmmaker Davis Guggenheim (AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH) reminds us that education “statistics” have names: Anthony, Francisco, Bianca, Daisy, and Emily, whose stories make up the engrossing foundation of WAITING FOR “SUPERMAN.” As he follows a handful of promising kids through a system that inhibits, rather than encourages, academic growth, Guggenheim undertakes an exhaustive review of public education, surveying “drop—out factories” and “academic sinkholes,” methodically dissecting the system and its seemingly intractable problems. However, embracing the belief that good teachers make good schools, Guggenheim offers hope by exploring innovative approaches taken by education reformers and charter schools that have—in reshaping the culture—refused to leave their students behind. (
In 1974, Thet Sambath’s father became one of the nearly two million people who were murdered by the Khmer Rouge when he refused to give them his buffalo. Sambath’s mother was forced to marry a Khmer Rouge militiaman and died in childbirth in 1976, while his eldest brother disappeared in 1977. Sambath himself escaped Cambodia at age 10 when the Khmer Rouge fell in 1979. Fast forward to 1998, and Sambath, now a journalist, got to know the children of some senior Khmer Rouge cadre and gradually earned their trust. Then, for a decade, he spent weekends visiting the home of the most senior surviving leader, Nuon Chea, aka Brother Number Two under Pol Pot. “But he never used to say anything different from what he told Western journalists,” says Sambath, “I was low-ranking, ‘I knew nothing, I am not a killer.’ Then one day he said to me ‘Sambath, I trust you, you are the person I would like to tell my story to. Ask me what you want to know.’ For the next five years he told me the truth, as he saw it, including all the details of killing.” Sambath also won the confidence of lower-level Khmer Rouge soldiers, now ordinary fathers and grandfathers, who demonstrated for him how they slit people’s throats. It was the first time these murderers admitted what they had done. He taped their interactions, and together with British documentarian Rob Lemkin created this landmark film. (
Uses astonishing visuals to tell the intersecting stories of George Mallory, the first man to attempt a summit of Mount Everest, and Conrad Anker, the mountaineer who finds Mallory's frozen remains 75 years later. (