Jean, a young Parisian with few skills and even fewer prospects, seems an unlikely candidate for assistant to famed photographer Stéphane, an obsessive perfectionist living in isolation since his wife’s unexpected death. Yet he soon finds himself in his new employer’s vast, decaying mansion, helping to create lifesized daguerrotypes so vivid they seem almost to contain some portion of their subjects’ souls.. Their primary model is Stéphane’s...

Sophie Malaterre, a 25-year old fashion illustrator living in Montreal, has steeled herself for a lonely summer in the city. She has no plans, no close friends around and no boyfriend. In desperate need of a change of scenery she hears about an apartment-swapping site: switch.com. As luck would have it, she finds an apartment in Paris, complete with a view of the Eiffel Tower.. Paris is everything she has ever dreamed of and her first day there is...

A bold and uncompromising documentary focused on economic oppression in the suburb of Spanish Lake, Missouri. Operating without a local government, the lack of community leadership has disastrous effects, including a mass exodus of the white population in the late 1990's.. The themes of the film parallel America's growing political divide, underlying racism, and rise of anti-government sentiment. Highlighted in the film is a landmark U.S. Supreme...

Faced with a sense of powerlessness in the face of growing evidence of a coming mass human extinction, Melanie Laurent (Inglorious Bastards) and activist Cyril Dion travel to ten countries where grassroots pioneers are reinventing their economies and democracies. From Detroit, where urban farms have transformed a dying city, to Copenhagen, where nearly 70% of the energy is renewable, to Kuttambakkan in India, where participative democracy allows different...

It's a sweltering summer before the final year of school and Billie and Laura are friends who share every secret, except for Billie's biggest secret -- she's crazy in love with Laura's boyfriend, Danny. When Billie's mum, a social worker, takes in Isaac, a troubled teenager looking to get his life straight, the delicate balance of the three friends' lives is disrupted. As bushfires threaten the edge of their suburbs and they immerse themselves in...

Natalie, an ultrasound tech with a history of not finishing things, is inspired by a cancer patient to sign up for a Triathlon. Natalie is introduced to the strange (and aerodynamic) world of triathletes and meets a colorful cast of characters as she trains for the nation's triathlon. With the support of her new teammates, she digs deep to discover just how far she can push her mind and body.. . "Winner! Film of the Year" - Northern Virginia International...

This Cannes Film Festival award-winning feature follows a young man whose growing religious fervor spills into the public sphere.. When Venya refuses to participate in mixed swimming lessons because it is "against his religion," his mother blames shyness. Exempted by the school's devout principal, Venya grows increasingly certain that his strict, rigorous Bible studies give allows him to manipulate all forms of authority. Challenged by a teacher over...

This documentary film explores the revival of manual work through the passion of motorcycle enthusiasts who have found their way to a happy life.. Shot in 16mm in California, Utah, Indonesia, Spain, Scotland and France, mechanics and custom shop founders try to understand the difference between manual work and intellectual work. The unique satisfaction that result from doing something tangible, the sense of time, the relation between the form and...

While on vacation in Goa, India, Canadian filmmaker Chris McDonell turns his camera on Shilpa Poojar, a 9-year-old beach hawker hustling tourists to buy clothes and jewelry from her seaside shop. Funny, charming and skilled beyond her years, she is a migrant worker from the unique Banjara people and the primary breadwinner for her family. Forging a connection in this chance encounter, Chris returns 3 times over the next 7 years to capture Shilpa's...

CERN is a self-contained, independent research zone -- a parallel universe so to speak. Here the big bang scenario is recreated, searching for the smallest particle.. Nikolaus Geyrhalter's documentary gives an impression of the huge infrastructure which makes an institution like CERN possible. Geyrhalter searches for moments of tension between man and technology. He observes how insight is made, how knowledge originates.. At CERN, the European Organization...