On February 7, 2012, Mohamed Nasheed resigned the presidency under the threat of violence in a coup d'etat perpetrated by security forces loyal to the former dictator. This film is the story of his first year in office. A film about one man's mission to save his nation and perhaps the planet, The Island President is a riveting, uplifting story that is impossible to take your eyes off of. President Mohamed Nasheed of the Maldives is confronting a problem...

If you were impoverished and politically voiceless, ACORN hoped to change your mind. For 40 years, the community-organizing group sought to empower marginalized communities. Its critics, though, believed ACORN exemplified everything wrong with liberal ideals. Fueled by a YouTube video made by two young conservatives who posed as pimp and prostitute in a sting, ACORN's very existence came under fire. ACORN AND THE FIRESTORM goes beyond the 24-hour...

Centuries ago, they performed miraculously technical brain surgery, built modern irrigation canals, made agricultural discoveries still used by modern man, and were master builders...the Incas were mysterious people, once ruling half of South America.

With the failure of President Hoover’s policies at the end of 1929, marked by the stock market crash on October 24, 1929 and the ensuing Great Depression, the decade that began with the dream of endless progress and prosperity came to an end with millions unemployed. American industrial workers who had lost their jobs lined up in the streets for a bowl of soup and hunk of bread. Depression, new technology and foreclosure by the banks drove more...

When his childhood friend is released from imprisonment for his role in the Basque terrorist group ETA, director Aitor Merino sets out to tell the story. The film raises universal questions: can crime ever be justified? Can friendship transcend ideology and political extremism? Winner of the Irizar Award at the **San Sebastián International Film Festival**. *“Asier and I strikes the perfect tone in narrating both meaningful and painful things without...

In the midst of the Egyptian Arab Spring, Bassem Youssef makes a decision that's every mother's worst nightmare & e leaves his job as a heart surgeon to become a full-time comedian. Dubbed "The Egyptian Jon Stewart," Bassem creates the satirical show, Al Bernameg. The weekly program quickly becomes the most viewed television program in the Middle East, with 30 million viewers per episode. But, in a country where free speech is not settled law, his...

They were ruthless men with unchecked power, ruling their nations with an iron fist. Suppressing dissent, they demanded absolute loyalty, jailing or killing those who opposed them. They ruled by force of personality, but were plagued by secret fears and private demons. They were dictators, tyrants who shaped the 20th century and left their mark on our own. From Benito Mussolini to Saddam Hussein, Idi Amin to Manuel Noriega, dictators confront us with...

The danger is palpable as maverick activist Ye Haiyan (a.k.a Hooligan Sparrow) and her band of colleagues travel to Hainan Province in southern China to protest the case of six elementary school girls who were sexually abused by their principal. Marked as enemies of the state, the activists are under constant government surveillance and face interrogation, harassment, and imprisonment. Sparrow, who gained notoriety with her advocacy work for sex workers'...

The story of Eufrosina Cruz, an indigenous woman from the Zapotec community of Santa María Quiegolani in the state of Oaxaca, Mexico.  Las Sufragistas details her political struggle, as well as Mexican women’s long fight for political power, beginning with the Revolutionary period.  The film also considers challenges that women in power face.  "The film does not fall into a devils-and-angels complex, instead presenting both the successes and...

Brooklyn Matters reveals how a few powerful men tried to tilt the Brooklyn landscape in favor of big real estate at the expense of urban livability. Disregarding time-honored urban planning principles and manipulating a desperate need in the African-American community for jobs and affordable housing, they pushed their own interests forward--luxury housing and a 20,000 seat sports arena. The film poses vital, timely questions that are relevant to cities...