Playlists > Documentary/Docudrama/Biopic

Documentary/Docudrama/Biopic
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Documentaries and Biopics with a flare for the Dramahhhh. Continuing to adjust and update


Creator: Mspooh2
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Movie: Lady You Shot Me: Life and Death of Sam Cooke ( 2017 )
American singer, songwriter, and entrepreneur Sam Cooke died at the age of 33 on December 11, 1964, at the Hacienda Motel, at 9137 South Figueroa Street, in Los Angeles, California.
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Movie: The Dissident ( 2021 )
When Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi disappears in Istanbul, his fiancée and dissidents around the world piece together the clues to a murder and expose a global cover up.
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Movie: MLK/FBI ( 2021 )
The first film to uncover the extent of the FBI's surveillance and harassment of Martin Luther King, Jr. Based on newly discovered and declassified files, the documentary explores the government's history of targeting Black activists, and the contested meaning behind some of our most cherished ideals. From Emmy Award winning director Sam Pollard and featuring interviews with Andrew Young, James Comey, Clarence Jones, and more.
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Movie: Hiroshima and Nagasaki: 75 Years Later ( 2020 )
Hiroshima and Nagasaki: 75 Years Later is told entirely from the first-person perspective of leaders, physicists, soldiers and survivors.
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Movie: Big Fur ( 2020 )
World Champion taxidermist Ken Walker builds a life-sized Bigfoot, based on frames from an iconic 1967 movie, and unveils her at the 2015 World Taxidermy Championship. While Walker would love to win Best in Show, his real hope is that putting "Patty" on display will prompt some hunter to open his freezer and pull out the proof that Bigfoot is real. Instead, it's Walker's love life that gets thawed out.
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Movie: J.R. 'Bob' Dobbs and the Church of the SubGenius ( 2019 )
The Church of the SubGenius has been called "the most aggressively preposterous theology the world has ever known!" But what is the Church? Filmmaker Sandy K. Boone explores the underground movement that has galvanized the imaginative, the artistic, the nerdy, even the deranged - to examine the simmering dystopia in their culture, and do absolutely nothing about it - except, maybe, poke fun at it all.
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Movie: Method to the Madness of Jerry Lewis ( 2011 )
With Jerry Lewis (1926-2017) as executive producer, this is in essence an autobiography. It follows his career chronologically from the 10-year partnership with Dean Martin to Lewis's career as writer, producer, director, and actor in a series of Paramount pictures. The chronology is told through archival clips, comments by family members and Hollywood friends, comments from Lewis himself, and clips of him in a contemporary nightclub appearance. Lewis vows to live longer than George Burns.
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Movie: Wendy Williams: What a Mess! ( 2021 )
An intimate look at the ups and downs of the self-anointed Queen of all Media, Wendy Williams.
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Movie: The Palindromists ( 2020 )
The Palindromists is a documentary delving into the world of palindromes- those peculiar words and phrases that read the same backwards and forwards. Explore palindromes in history and meet the world's greatest palindromists as they
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Movie: The Pig Farm ( 2011 )
Award-winning investigation into the crimes of Robert Pickton. This documentary explores why it took so many years to capture and convict Canada's most prolific serial killer. Troubling revelations about who knew what, and when.
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Movie: A Place Out of Time: The Bordentown School ( 2009 )
For a seventy-year period, when America cared little about the education of African-Americans, and discrimination was law and custom, The Bordentown School was an educational utopia. An incubator for black pride and intellect, it taught values, discipline, and life skills to generations of black children. This is the story of that remarkable school, as told by Bordentown alumni, historians, and remarkable archival footage. It is also the story of black education in America across three centuries, presenting a nuanced, rarely seen portrait of a separate black space; and a much-needed preface to the growing national discussion about historically black institutions and their role in nurturing identity and accomplishment. What was lost and what was gained in the march toward equality?
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Movie: Mr. Soul! ( 2018 )
Before Oprah, before Arsenio, there was Mr. SOUL. Ellis Haizlip ensures the Revolution will be televised with "SOUL!," America's first "Black Tonight Show." From 1968 to 1973, the public-television variety show SOUL!, guided by the enigmatic producer and host Ellis Haizlip, offered an unfiltered, uncompromising celebration of Black literature, poetry, music, and politics-voices that had few other options for national exposure, and, as a result, found the program an improbable place to call home. The series was among the first to provide expanded images of African Americans on television, shifting the gaze from inner-city poverty and violence to the vibrancy of the Black Arts Movement. With participants' recollections and illuminating archival clips, Mr. SOUL. captures a critical moment in culture whose impact continues to resonate, and an unsung hero whose voice we need now more than ever, to restore the SOUL of a nation.
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Movie: Wasted! The Story of Food Waste ( 2017 )
Through the eyes of famous chefs, audiences will see how they make the most of every kind of food, transforming what most people consider scraps into incredible dishes that create a more secure food system.
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Movie: Just Eat It: A Food Waste Story ( 2015 )
We all love food. As a society, we devour countless cooking shows, culinary magazines and foodie blogs. So how could we possibly be throwing nearly 50% of it in the trash? Filmmakers and food lovers Jen and Grant dive into the issue of waste from farm, through retail, all the way to the back of their own fridge. After catching a glimpse of the billions of dollars of good food that is tossed each year in North America, they pledge to quit grocery shopping and survive only on discarded food. What they find is truly shocking.
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Movie: Food, Inc. ( 2009 )
An unflattering look inside America's corporate controlled food industry.
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Movie: The Achievers: The Story of the Lebowski Fans ( 2009 )
The Achievers: The Story of the Lebowski Fans by director Eddie Chung, follows the intertwining lives and sub-culture of "Achievers," fans of "The Big Lebowski."
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Movie: The Eyes of Tammy Faye ( 2021 )
An intimate look at the extraordinary rise, fall, and redemption of televangelist Tammy Faye Bakker. In the 1970s and '80s, Tammy Faye and her husband Jim Bakker,rose from humble beginnings to create the world's largest religious broadcasting network and theme park, and were revered for their message of love, acceptance, and prosperity. Tammy Faye was legendary for her indelible eyelashes, her idiosyncratic singing, and her eagerness to embrace people from all walks of life. However, it wasn't long before financial improprieties, scheming rivals, and scandal toppled their carefully constructed empire.
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Movie: King of Cool ( 2021 )
The story of Dean Martin.
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Movie: Dior and I ( 2015 )
Dior and I brings the viewer inside the storied world of the Christian Dior fashion house with a privileged, behind-the-scenes look at the creation of Raf Simons' first haute couture collection as its new artistic director-a true labor of love created by a dedicated group of collaborators. Melding the everyday, pressure-filled components of fashion with mysterious echoes from the iconic brand's past, the film is also a colorful homage to the seamstresses who serve Simons' vision.
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Movie: Halston ( 2019 )
Prodigiously talented, Halston reigned over fashion in the 1970s and became a household name. But everything changed in the Wall Street era. With his empire under threat, Halston took the biggest gamble of his life.
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Movie: Jackie ( 2016 )
Following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy fights through grief and trauma to regain her faith, console her children, and define her husband's historic legacy.
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Movie: Coco Chanel ( 2008 )
The life story of legendary fashion designer Coco Chanel.
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Movie: Maddman: The Steve Madden Story ( 2017 )
Witness the incredible rise, fall, and resurrection of Steve Madden, the man who launched a billion dollar fashion empire and whose branded shoes are in the closet of practically every woman under 30 in America. The film recounts how Madden rebuilt his life following imprisonment because of his entanglement with the infamous Wolf of Wall Street, Jordan Belfort.
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Movie: Good Hair ( 2009 )
Chris Rock explores the wonders of African-American hairstyles.
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Movie: Audrey ( 2020 )
Audrey Hepburn won her first Academy Award at the age of 24 and went on to become one of the world's greatest cultural icons: a once-in-a-generation beauty, and legendary star of Hollywood's Golden Age, whose style and pioneering collaboration with Hubert de Givenchy continues to inspire. But who was the real Audrey Hepburn? Malnourished as a child, abandoned by her father and growing up under Nazi occupation in Holland, Hepburn faced a life-long battle with the traumas of her past, which thwarted her dreams of becoming a ballet dancer, and cast a shadow over her personal life. Yet she found inner peace using her superstardom for good as a global ambassador for UNICEF and bringing her life full circle; first a victim of war, then a source of relief to millions.
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Movie: Spencer ( 2021 )
Diana Spencer, struggling with mental-health problems during her Christmas holidays with the Royal Family at their Sandringham estate in Norfolk, England, decides to end her decade-long marriage to Prince Charles.
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Movie: Charley-One-Eye ( 1973 )
After killing an officer, a black soldier deserts and heads for the Mexican border. In the wilderness, he encounters a crippled wandering Indian. Initially, the Union soldier forces the Indian to be his man-servant, verbally abusing and threatening him with a big knife, occasionally mocking the Indian for his handicap. Later, an uneasy alliance forms between the two men as they travel south. They eventually find decent shelter and a water-well at an old abandoned Spanish church. They also find the dead bodies of a prospector and his mule. They scavenge the belongings of the deceased prospector and end-up with a crate of live chickens, a few firearms, ammunition, food, jugs of moonshine, clothing and other items. The next few days are relatively enjoyable, as the two unlikely friends cement their partnership, eat fried chicken and drink booze. The soldier even offers a revolver to the Indian, as a gift. Among the live chickens there is one bird that only has one-eye. The Indian adopts it as his pet, feeding it grain, vowing to never eat the chicken and calling it Charley One Eye. As they pass the days, the two men are unaware that a brutal and vicious bounty-hunter is after the deserting soldier in order to cash a 500 dollar bounty for his capture and return to the army fort. Also, gangs of murderous Mexican bandits roam the region. Eventually, things come to a dramatic and violent end.
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Movie: The Six Degrees of Helter Skelter ( 2009 )
"The Six Degrees of Helter Skelter" walks in the footsteps of the Manson Family, visiting over 40 locations related to the infamous Tate/LaBianca murders, and tying together the dozens of odd connections between Charles Manson and the Hollywood elite. Entertainingly led by famous Hollywood historian Scott Michaels (E!'s 20 Most Horrifying Hollywood Murders, Dearly Departed: Vol. 1, FindADeath.com), this epic documentary employs never-before-seen autopsy reports (analyzed with the help of the Los Angeles Department of the Coroner), dozens of rare photographs, original Manson Family music recordings, and modern-day visits to the locations where the action went down, in the most complete retelling of the Manson Murders ever put on film.
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Movie: Respect ( 2021 )
Following the rise of Aretha Franklin's career from a child singing in her father's church's choir to her international superstardom, RESPECT is the remarkable true story of the music icon's journey to find her voice.
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Movie: 12 Years a Slave ( 2013 )
Based on an incredible true story of one man's fight for survival and freedom. In the pre-Civil War United States, Solomon Northup, a free black man from upstate New York, is abducted and sold into slavery. Facing cruelty personified by a malevolent slave owner, as well as unexpected kindnesses, Solomon struggles not only to stay alive, but to retain his dignity. In the twelfth year of his unforgettable odyssey, Solomon's chance meeting with a Canadian abolitionist will forever alter his life.
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Movie: The Josephine Baker Story ( 1991 )
Born poor in St. Louis, Missouri, Josephine Baker achieved fame and fortune through her sizzlingly exotic, erotic performances. Starting life on the American Vaudeville circuit, success takes Josephine to Paris where her semi-nude dancing causes an international sensation. Through her marriages to an Italian pseudo-count and an orchestra leader, to her bond with army officer Sydney Williams, Josephine's life is a rollercoaster ride of love and rejection from both her lovers and her country. But semi-nude, or head-to-toes in sequins; in battle fatigues or rags - her beauty and ambition ensured that Josephine Baker will always be remembered as the first, and possibly most loved, truly international star.
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Movie: Redemption: The Stan Tookie Williams Story ( 2004 )
Redemption tells the story of Stan "Tookie" Williams, founder of the Crips L.A. street gang. Story follows his fall into gang-banging, his prison term, and his work writing children's novels encouraging peace and anti-violence resolutions which earned him multiple Nobel Peace Prize nominations. After exhausting all forms of appeal, Tookie was executed by lethal injection at San Quentin State Prison, California; he was declared dead on December 13, 2005 at 12:35 a.m. PST (08:35 UTC). Williams is the 12th person to be executed by California since it reinstated the death penalty in 1977.
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Movie: The Rat Pack ( 1998 )
The public and private lives of Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr. and Peter Lawford.
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Movie: The Changin' Times of Ike White ( 2020 )
Released in 1974, "Changin' Times" was a stunning album of songs recorded in extraordinary circumstances - the first ever commercial album recorded inside an American prison by an inmate. It's creator was a musical prodigy, Ike White, who was jailed for life at the age of 19 for murder. With never-before-seen archive, the film charts Ike's journey out from prison into industry adulation and life as a free man, eventually leading to his reinvention as a performer for hire called David Maestro.
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Movie: Son of the South ( 2021 )
In this poignant true story set in Montgomery, Alabama, a Klansman's grandson must choose which side of history to be on during the Civil Rights Movement. Defying his family and white Southern norms, he fought against social injustice, repression and violence to change the world around him. SON OF THE SOUTH is from executive producer Spike Lee and based on Bob Zellner's autobiography, "The Wrong Side of Murder Creek."
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Movie: Lawman Without a Gun ( 1978 )
During the 1960s' civil rights movement, a black civil rights worker returns to his small Southern town and runs for Sheriff against the incumbent, a popular segregationist.
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Movie: American Pimp ( 2000 )
Street pimps, all of them African-American, discuss their lives and work: getting started, being flamboyant, pimping in various U.S. cities, bringing a woman into their group, taking a woman from another pimp, and the rules and regulations of pimping. The men are clear: it's about money. The women work every night, hustle hard, turn over all their earnings, and steal anything they can from clients. We meet a few of the women, who tell us what they want from a pimp. We also listen to a women who's legally employed at a Nevada brothel; we meet her White boss, a legal pimp. He and the street pimps, some of whom are now retired, make the case for legalizing the trade.
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Movie: Get on Up ( 2014 )
A chronicle of James Brown's rise from extreme poverty to become one of the most influential musicians in history.
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Movie: Ma Rainey's Black Bottom ( 2020 )
Tensions and temperatures rise over the course of an afternoon recording session in 1920s Chicago as a band of musicians await trailblazing performer, the legendary "Mother of the Blues," Ma Rainey (Academy Award® winner Viola Davis). Late to the session, the fearless, fiery Ma engages in a battle of wills with her white manager and producer over control of her music. As the band waits in the studio's claustrophobic rehearsal room, ambitious trumpeter Levee (Chadwick Boseman) - who has an eye for Ma's girlfriend and is determined to stake his own claim on the music industry - spurs his fellow musicians into an eruption of stories revealing truths that will forever change the course of their lives. Adapted from two-time Pulitzer Prize winner August Wilson's play, MA RAINEY'S BLACK BOTTOM celebrates the transformative power of the blues and the artists who refuse to let society's prejudices dictate their worth. Directed by George C. Wolfe and adapted for the screen by Ruben Santiago-Hudson, the film is produced by Fences Oscar® nominees Denzel Washington and Todd Black. Colman Domingo, Glynn Turman, Michael Potts, Taylour Paige and Dusan Brown co-star alongside Grammy® winner Branford Marsalis' score.
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Movie: Hollywood Without Make-Up ( 1963 )
Ken Murray shares three decades of personal home movies of dozens of Hollywood stars. Not only does he share his own, but home movies from several celebrity friends, as well.
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Movie: The Legend: The Bessie Coleman Story ( 2018 )
Feature documentary about the life and career of Bessie Coleman.
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Movie: Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story ( 2018 )
The life and career of the hailed Hollywood movie star and underappreciated genius inventor, Hedy Lamarr.
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Movie: Rosewood ( 1997 )
A dramatization of a 1923 horrific racist lynch mob attack on an African-American community.
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Movie: Talk to Me ( 2007 )
The story of Washington D.C. radio personality Ralph "Petey" Greene, an ex-con who became a popular talk show host and community activist in the 1960s.
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Movie: Glory & Honor ( 1998 )
The true story about Robert Peary's forgotten African American employee Mathew Henson who proved crucial in their race to North Pole.
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Movie: Ruby and Oswald ( 1978 )
A docudrama about the events surrounding the assassination of the 35th United States President John F. Kennedy in Dallas, in 1963, based on eyewitness and other testimonies.
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Movie: Operation Manhunt ( 1954 )
In 1945, Igor Gouzenko, a code clerk in the Soviet Embassy in Ottawa, bolted for the freedom of the West and took many secret documents with him that helped lay waste to a good portion of Russia's Western Hemisphere spy system. His headline-making defection later served as the basis for 20th Century-Fox's "The Iron Curtain" in 1947. This film, shot in a semi-documenta...Read all
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Movie: Buffalo Soldiers ( 1997 )
Fact based story about the all-black US Cavalry Troop H which protected the Western territories in post Civil War times. The story focuses on the troops attempts to capture an Apache warrior named Vittorio who slaughters the settlers in New Mexico. The film examines the racial tensions that existed between the black soldiers and some of the white soldiers and the truths about the Indian invaders.
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Movie: The Eyes of Tammy Faye ( 2000 )
Twelve years after the scandalous collapse of the multimillion dollar Christian empire built by Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, "The Eyes Of Tammy Faye" tells the fascinating inside story of the rise, fall and resurrection of "the Queen of the Eyelashes." One of the most adored and reviled women of her time, the film follows her amazing tale from her love at first sight encounter with Jim, through the glory days of PTL, to the scandal that brought both their empire and their family tumbling down.
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Movie: American Underdog ( 2021 )
The story of NFL MVP and Hall of Fame quarterback Kurt Warner, who went from stocking shelves at a supermarket to becoming an American Football star.
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Movie: Race ( 2016 )
Jesse Owens' quest to become the greatest track and field athlete in history thrusts him onto the world stage of the 1936 Olympics, where he faces off against Adolf Hitler's vision of Aryan supremacy.
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Movie: Marshall ( 2017 )
The story of Thurgood Marshall, the crusading lawyer who would become the first African-American Supreme Court Justice, as he battles through one of his career-defining cases.
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Movie: Hidden Figures ( 2017 )
The story of a team of female African-American mathematicians who served a vital role in NASA during the early years of the U.S. space program.
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Movie: Chocolat ( 2016 )
The rise and fall of the famous clown Chocolat, the first black circus performer who revolutionised the stagnant circus acts and conquered Paris of the Belle Époque with his exuberance and originality.
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Movie: Skin: A History of Nudity in the Movies ( 2020 )
The definitive documentary on the history of nudity in feature films from the early silent days to the present, studying the changes in morality that led to the use of nudity in films while emphasizing the political, sociological and artistic changes that shaped that history. Skin will also study the gender inequality in presenting nude images in motion pictures and will follow the revolution that has created nude gender equality in feature films today. It culminates in a discussion of "what are nude scenes like in the age of the #METOO movement" as well as a look at CGI nudity that seems a large part of motion pictures' future. The documentary will compare the use of nudity to further storylines vs. simple exploitation and discuss how nudity is used in movies today with the explosion of must-see television and its influence on the film medium.
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Movie: Mansfield 66/67 ( 2017 )
MANSFIELD 66/67 is about the last two years of movie goddess Jayne Mansfield's life, and the rumours swirling around her untimely death.
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Movie: Welcome Nowhere ( 2013 )
Narrated by multi-Academy Award nominee Ethan Hawke, Welcome Nowhere tells the true story of a community of Roma people (commonly known as Gypsies) struggling to find their place in the world after centuries of racism.
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Movie: The Last Blockbuster ( 2020 )
A documentary on the last remaining Blockbuster Video, located in Bend, Oregon.
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Movie: Human Harvest ( 2016 )
The unspeakable Chinese practice of organ harvesting is exposed in this Peabody Award winning documentary. In the early 2000s doctors around the world began to notice large numbers of their patients flying to China for organ transplants. An organ was typically ready within a week. The availability and number of organs was baffling, until horrific stories began to leak out. It was rumoured that hospitals were harvesting live prisoners for their organs but could this actually be true? Human Harvest takes you through the international investigation led by Nobel Peace prize nominees that is shocking the world.
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Movie: Richard Pryor: Omit the Logic ( 2013 )
The life and times of Richard Pryor.
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Movie: Lynching Postcards: 'Token of A Great Day' (Short 2021) ( 2021 )
During 1880-1968 over 4,000 African Americans were lynched at the hands of white mobs. These lynchings were commemorated through souvenir postcards that would ultimately be subverted by Black activists to expose racist violence in the U.S.
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Movie: The Tinder Swindler ( 2022 )
Posing as a wealthy, jet-setting diamond mogul, he wooed women online, then conned them out of millions of dollars. Now some victims plan for payback.
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Movie: Abducted in Plain Sight ( 2019 )
In 1974, 12-year-old Jan Broberg was abducted from a small community in Idaho. When Jan was returned 5 weeks later, she assured her parents and the courts that "nothing had happened"....enabling a pedophile to go free, and paving the way for Jan's second abduction and years of sexual, emotional, and psychological abuse.