Era: 21st Century
This is the age of the Internet, the cell phone, instant information, and instantaneous communication, when the dominance of the West is challenged by the return of Asian economic power. It is an era of polarization: political, economic, and, at times, religious. The Digital Divide grows in importance, and the global environment becomes an undeniable force as civilizations and cultures are rewritten in a new age.
5 Broken Cameras
- Director: Emad Burnat, Guy Davidi
- Release Date: 2011
- Production Country: France, Israel, Palestine
Given a video camera when his son is born, Burnat records his son's life as he grows up alongside the concrete barrier the Israeli government is constructing through the middle of their land. One day Burnat is filming the first steps of his child and the next catching the violent retaliation of the Israeli guards to the Palestinian villagers' non-violent protest to being separated from their ancestral lands.
5 Days of War (5 Days of August)
- Director: Renny Harlin
- Release Date: 2011
- Production Country: United States
A United States film crew visits a friend in Georgia, suspecting that something may be brewing, only to find themselves caught in the cross-fire when Georgia moves against separatist groups and the Russians step in to help out the separatists.
500 Years Later
- Director: Owen 'Alik Shahadah
- Release Date: 2005
- Production Country: United Kingdom, United States
The people of Africa, scattered all over the globe after 500 years of colonial and imperial encounters, struggle still for equality in education, in opportunity, in prosperity. This is their story.
A Decent Factory (Nokia: A Decent Factory)
- Director: Thomas Balmès
- Release Date: 2004
- Production Country: United Kingdom, Finland, France, Denmark, Australia
Employees of the Finnish company, Nokia, travel to the Chinese factory where their products are made to investigate human rights abuses, where they find some problems but apparently nothing really to write home (or make a movie) about.
Adaminte Makan Abu (Abu, Son of Adam)
- Director: Salim Ahmed
- Release Date: 2011
- Production Country: India
As old-fashioned and out-of-date as the folk medicines he occasionally sells, Abu ekes out an existence with his wife, yet they still focus on their one remaining goal: to make the Haj pilgrimage. However, Abu's insistence on paying for their trip the old-fashioned way—entirely from their own funds and without assistance from helpful neighbors—may be the undoing of all his dreams.
An Inconvenient Truth
- Director: Davis Guggenheim
- Release Date: 2006
- Production Country: United States
Former Vice President of the United States Al Gore embarks upon a campaign to make global warming an issue that can no longer be ignored by the industrialized world.
Anonymously Yours
- Director: Gayle Ferraro
- Release Date: 2002
- Production Country: United States
Four women in Myanmar from very different backgrounds share a common fate: they are trapped in the sex trade, a world in which even animals are considered more valuable than the victims who are often kidnapped and raped in order to force them to submit to further degradation as prostitutes.
Bamako
- Director: Abderrahmane Sissako
- Release Date: 2006
- Production Country: Mali, United States, France
Chaka cannot find work, while his wife Mele is employed as a lounge singer, but their situation is just like that of the rest of Africa: many unemployed and others relegated to the tourism industry while rich foreign powers make off with the real money and jobs. Then, one day, a trial begins in the courtyard of the crowded home they share with several other families, and the World Bank and International Monetary Fund are finally called to answer for their crimes—if only it will be enough to save Mele and Chaka's marriage, too.
Beyond the Call
- Director: Adrian Belic
- Release Date: 2006
- Production Country: United States
Three men take it upon themselves to go in and deliver aid to areas in the world that most NGOs won't or cannot access, delivering medical supplies, equipment, food, and sometimes cold hard cash to groups where even the smallest help from outside can mean the difference between life and death.
Black Gold
- Director: Jeta Amata
- Release Date: 2011
- Production Country: Nigeria
In the Niger Delta, corrupt government officials and the greedy oil corporations compete with armed militants for control of rich petroleum reserves, for the fuel of the modern world. Shut out from the wealth generated by the oil but forced to live in the environment of violence and pollution it creates, the local residents seem to have no hope and no voice—that is until one woman, who is determined to stop the fighting and draw the world's attention to her beleaguered people, steps forward.
Border
- Director: Christopher Burgard
- Release Date: 2007
- Production Country: United States
Fraught with charges of racism and intolerance, the topic of illegal immigration from Mexico to the United States is complex, with many facets, issues, and opinions on both sides of the border. The parties involved (including the people seeking a better life, those who prey on them as they travel north, and the ranchers and volunteers in the United States wanting an end to the damaging passage across their land) have many stories to tell.
Catfish
- Director: Henry Joost, Ariel Schulman
- Release Date: 2010
- Production Country: United States
When an 8-year-old child prodigy artist, Abby, sends a New York photographer, Nev, paintings based on his photos, Nev befriends Abby and her family, primarily through online social networking. But the pitfall of long-distance relationships based solely on online interactions has always been and remains the same: participants can present any portion of themselves—or anyone else—that they want.
Chasing Ice
- Director: Jeff Orlowski
- Release Date: 2012
- Production Country: United States
Photographer James Balog's passion for photographing ice becomes a passion for showing the world the reality of climate change as he documents the rapid decline of glaciers around the globe.
Cinema 500 km
- Director: Abdullah Al-Eyaf
- Release Date: 2006
- Production Country: Saudi Arabia
Movie theaters do not exist in Saudi Arabia, so a young Saudi fan applies for a visa and travels to Bahrain so that he can see a movie in a theater for the first time in his life.
Cinema Is Everywhere
- Director: Teal Greyhavens
- Release Date: 2011
- Production Country: United States
Actresses, actors, directors, film-goers, all find their own truths in film, yet the truths found are often universal human truths. Four different "film stories" are told here: an actress struggling to find success despite racial barriers; a novice director in a saturated film market; a documentary filmmaker going against cultural taboos; and a successful actress and director trying to forge new connections with film audiences. Together, they document how film not only tells our stories but is our story.
Clear Cut: The Story of Philomath, Oregon
- Director: Peter Richardson
- Release Date: 2006
- Production Country: United States
Philomath, Oregon has long been a lumber town, but the decline of the timber industry in the late twentieth century threatens the community's traditional way of life. The older, rural culture built on the rhythms of the lumber trade and the urban identity of the newer residents are at odds, a difference crystallized in the battle over a decades-old tradition of providing scholarships to local high school graduates—grants funded by the largesse of an industry many of the newer residents neither understand nor value.
Darfur Now
- Director: Ted Braun
- Release Date: 2007
- Production Country: United States
The genocide in Darfur can be seen through the eyes of very different individuals: first-world individuals, such as an actor, an activist, and an international prosecutor, or people who are trying to survive on the ground in Darfur, such as a woman soldier, a man responsible for a large refugee camp, and a man simply trying to feed as many people as he can in the midst of war.
Die große Stille (Into Great Silence)
- Director: Philip Gröning
- Release Date: 2005
- Production Country: France, Switzerland, Germany
Carthusian monks dedicate themselves to a life of solitude, silence, and prayer, as documented in this look at life inside the Grande Chartreuse, the head monastery of the Carthusian order.
Earthlings
- Director: Shaun Monson
- Release Date: 2005
- Production Country: United States
Hidden cameras document how the world's industry still relies heavily on the use of animals and animal products, from fur to medical research.
Ehky ya Scheherazade (Scheherazade, Tell Me a Story)
- Director: Yousry Nasrallah
- Release Date: 2009
- Production Country: Egypt
Convinced by her husband that his future career at a large newspaper depends on her discretion, a young Egyptian woman turns her talk show away from political topics and focuses instead on the stories of local women and their lives. However, what originally seemed to be a safe choice of topics turns out to be far more disruptive than any political story might have been.