Spellbound

This documentary follows 8 teens and pre-teens as they work their way toward the finals of the Scripps Howard national spelling bee championship in Washington D.C.

Displaced Perssons

Per Persson left Sweden 40 years ago. In Pakistan he fell in love and became the father of two daughters. Trouble starts when the girls grow up and the family decides to emigrate to Sweden. When they end up living in a caravan outside Hässleholm, all their expectations are dashed.

Tales from Arab Detroit

Tales from Arab Detroit is a video documentary offering a fascinating glimpse into the lives and struggles of the Arab American community in the Detroit tri-county area.

Mothers of Life

A documentary on the experiences of the Nubetya Yaptiks nomadic family in the Yamal Peninsula, Eastern Siberia, from 1992 to 2001.

God Grew Tired of Us

Filmmaker Christopher Quinn observes the ordeal of three Sudanese refugees -- Jon Bul Dau, Daniel Abul Pach and Panther Bior -- as they try to come to terms with the horrors they experienced in their homeland, while adjusting to their new lives in the United States.

Michigan vs. Ohio State: The Rivalry

Steeped in a rich tradition dating back to their inaugural meeting in 1897, this rivalry extends beyond the pursuit of a Big Ten title, and is renewed each year through the pageantry and colliding cultures that distinguish the two schools.

In the Frozen Tomb of Mongolia

Bamboo Theatre

This film is a portrait of unique cultural space for Spirits, Gods and People. While permanent theatres are commonly built in most cosmopolitan modern cities, Hong Kong preserves a unique theatrical architecture, a Chinese tradition that has lasted more than a century - Bamboo Theatre.

Sans Soleil

A woman narrates the thoughts of a world traveler, meditations on time and memory expressed in words and images from places as far-flung as Japan, Guinea-Bissau, Iceland, and San Francisco.

Home Feeling: Struggle for a Community

This feature documentary takes us to the heart of the Jane-Finch "Corridor" in the early 1980s. Covering six square blocks in Toronto's North York, the area readily evokes images of vandalism, high-density subsidized housing, racial tension, despair and crime. By focusing on the lives of several of the residents, many of them black or members of other visible minorities, the film provides a powerful view of a community that, contrary to its popular image, is working towards a more positive future.

Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer

British documentarian Nick Broomfield creates a follow-up piece to his 1992 documentary of the serial killer Aileen Wuornos, a highway prostitute who was convicted of killing six men in Florida between 1989 and 1990. Interviewing an increasingly mentally unstable Wuornos, Broomfield captures the distorted mind of a murderer whom the state of Florida deems of sound mind -- and therefore fit to execute. Throughout the film, Broomfield includes footage of his testimony at Wuornos' trial.

The Lure and the Lore

A collaboration between filmmaker Ayoka Chenzira and performance artist Thomas Pinnock, who performs his "immigrant folktales" using traditional lore of his native Jamaica to dramatize his migration to New York in the 60's.

Shelter

Fleeing religious persecution, resilient Jewish immigrants arrive in Toronto and begin building affordable, quality housing in a growing metropolis.

Kelvin and His Friends

A closely observed portrait of a single man in his 40's who lives in St. Kilda. Although he has none of the trappings of conventional existence, Kelvin's obsessive interest in born again Christianity, physical culture and recent German/Jewish history has given him a way of making sense of the world and led him to a number of people, friends through whom we see something of his life and beliefs.

Yooper Creoles: Finnish Music in Michigan's Copper Country

When the immigrants came to America, their cultures entered the "great melting pot." In Michigan's Upper Peninsula Finnish immigrants mixed their musical traditions with many other cultures, creating a sound that was unique to the "Copper Country."

Sweet Osmanthus Flowering Late

"Sweet Osmanthus Flowering Late" is a feature-length ethnographic film that envisions social rejuvenation and collective convalescence in the aftermath of the pandemic. Filmed in Wuhan, the film follows the everyday lives of three middle-class households. It postulates the existence of a mass dreaming phenomenon that facilitated fatigued Chinese inhabitants to rejuvenate themselves following the secluded episode of lived experience and to coexist with the enduring imprints of "the event" on their social lives.

Long Story Short

Tells the story of Larry and Trudie Long, a popular Asian American nightclub act of the '40s and '50s, told through the eyes of their daughter, actress Jodi Long.

Pizza Shop: An Italian-American Dream

With humor, insight, and compassion, this documentary shares the journey of two Italian brothers who have run a successful restaurant for over 40 years, the sacrifices they’ve made for their children, and what it means to immigrants when they fulfill the American Dream.

Travelers

The diaspora of Filipinos around the globe is driven mostly by the economics of supply and demand. The yearning for something better, stability, and self-validation leads a handful of sojourners from the provinces of the Philippines into the arms of one of its former colonial masters — the USA. But what happens when they finally get what they want? And how? Filmmaker Dennis Empalmado explores the musings of Filipino expatriates and hopeful immigrants in "Naglalakbay" (Travelers).

Barcelona

A walk through the landscapes of the province of Barcelona, Spain, as well as a testimony of the daily life and customs of its inhabitants.