Mad Hot Ballroom

The Cinema Travellers

May 2016 •Hindi

Showmen riding cinema lorries have brought the wonder of the movies to faraway villages in India once every year. Seven decades on, as their cinema projectors crumble and film reels become scarce, their patrons are lured by slick digital technology. A benevolent showman, a shrewd exhibitor and a maverick projector mechanic bear a beautiful burden - to keep the last traveling cinemas of the world running. A critically acclaimed, poignant documentary that celebrates India’s travelling picture shows and laments their demise, filled with exquisite visuals and marvellous eccentrics.

The Wizard

December 1989 •English

A boy and his brother run away from home and hitch cross-country, with help from a girl they meet, to compete in the ultimate video-game championship.

Murdered and Missing in Montana

November 2021 •English

A documentary examining the mysterious deaths of three young Indigenous women in south-central Montana, featuring access to family members, tribal officials, law enforcement, and community activists.

Always in Season

January 2019 •English

When 17-year-old Lennon Lacy is found hanging from a swing set in rural North Carolina in 2014, his mother's search for justice and reconciliation begins while the trauma of more than a century of lynching African Americans bleeds into the present.

The Star Prince

June 1918 •English

The Star Prince has fallen to Earth and because of his cruelty towards a beggar, he is turned into a grotesque pauper. He goes on a quest to find his mother, meeting a wicked witch and princess on his way. He falls in love with the princess, but an evil dwarf tries to force the princess to marry him. The Star Prince rescues the princess and is thus turned back into his original form and marries the beautiful princess.

Four Daughters

July 2023 •Arabic

Between light and darkness stands Olfa, a Tunisian woman and the mother of four daughters. One day, her two older daughters disappear. To fill in their absence, the filmmaker Kaouther Ben Hania invites professional actresses and invents a unique cinema experience that will lift the veil on Olfa and her daughters' life stories. An intimate journey of hope, rebellion, violence, transmission and sisterhood that will question the very foundations of our societies.

The Collector

December 2006 •English

Director/producer Olympia Stone explores the 46-year career of her father, Allan Stone, a famed New York gallery owner and art collector, while examining Stone's obsession with art and his compulsive collecting genius.

The Agreement

November 2013 •Danish

'History is always made in the middle of the night. And when it happens, you are so damned tired, that you couldn't care less,' says Robert Cooper, an EU peace negotiator whose job it is to get Serbia and Kosovo to reach an agreement about peaceful coexistence. National pride and compromise are on everyone's lips, and much is at stake: Kosovo wants to come closer to independence, the Serbs have been promised EU membership if they can reach an agreement, and the EU tries to strengthen its credibility. But how far is each party willing to go? It is the unique characters that make this fascinating film about a delicate political game so vivid and loveable. The stoic, Serbian negotiator has a great passion for rock music, his colleague from Kosovo does not want to miss out on his daily visit to the hairdresser, and Cooper himself has a closet full of ties - one for every conceivable occasion.

Pete's Christmas

November 2013 •English

An overlooked middle child finds himself in the unexpected spotlight when he realizes his family's terrible Christmas day keeps repeating. As the only one experiencing the day over and over, he decides to use his unique gift to give the holidays a makeover and his family a Christmas they will never forget.

Amá

December 2018 •English

Amá is a feature length documentary which tells an important and untold story: the abuses committed against Native American women by the United States Government during the 1960’s and 70’s: removed from their families and sent to boarding schools, forced relocation away from their traditional lands and involuntary sterilization. ​The result of nine years painstaking and sensitive work by filmmaker Lorna Tucker, the film features the testimony of many Native Americans, including three remarkable women who tell their stories - Jean Whitehorse, Yvonne Swan and Charon Aseytoyer - as well as a revealing and rare interview with Dr. Reimart Ravenholt whose population control ideas were the framework for some of the government policies directed at Native American women.

The Indispensable Practice of Vagueness

October 2014 •Portuguese

By the director: "Ar.Co embodies each person’s geography, it escapes normalisation. Each individual’s experience is his own. This film is my experience, our experience. Pieced together from the school’s archive, from recordings of classes by Manuel Castro Caldas and from conversations at home."

Knights of Geórgian Chants

January 2010 •Portuguese

The Fall of Cannonsville

January 2023 •English

Throughout the 1950s and into the 1960s the communities of Cannonsville, Granton, Rock Rift, Rock Royal, Johnny Brook and Beerston, NY were destroyed to make way for the Cannonsville Reservoir. The reservoir would serve as the last piece of New York City’s growing water infrastructure in a battle of upstate versus downstate. 60 years after vacating or moving their homes, former residents gather at their annual town reunion to reflect and reminisce on their memories and the collective trauma that they share.

The Wild Chicks

February 2006 •German

Sprotte is about 12 years old and has a "gang" with her three friends Frieda, Melanie and Trude. Together the girls take Care of Sprottes grandmothers chickens. The new girl in School, Wilma, wishes to join the group, which Melanie is very unhappy about, and on top of all of that they have an on going revalisasion with a group of boys. Sprottes grandmother is planning on slaughtering the chickens! Will the Wild Chicks be able to save them?

Binka: To Tell a Story About Silence

January 2007 •Bulgarian

A film pioneer, Binka Zhelyazkova was at the forefront of political cinema under Bulgaria's Communist dictatorship. Though she remained faithful to the communist ideals she became an avid critic of the regime and brought upon herself the wrath of its censorship. As a result four of her nine films were shelved and released to the public only after the fall of the regime in 1989, and Binka Zhelyazkova became known as the bad girl of Bulgarian cinema. A provocative portrait that reveals the pressures and complexities that arise when art is made under totalitarianism.

Without a Whisper - Konnón:kwe

November 2020 •English

"Without a Whisper" is the untold story of how Indigenous women influenced the early suffragists in their fight for freedom and equality. Mohawk Clan Mother Louise Herne and Professor Sally Roesch Wagner shake the foundation of the established history of the women’s rights movement in the United States. They join forces on a journey to shed light on the hidden history of the influence of Haudenosaunee Women on the women’s rights movement, possibly changing this historical narrative forever.

Work While You Have the Light

Invalid date •English

"Work While You Have the Light" is a feature documentary by a multi-generational directing team that examines professional women who are over seventy years old and still working.

McQueen and I

January 2011 •English

Profile of British fashion designer Alexander McQueen.

20,000 Days on Earth

July 2014 •English

A semi-fictionalized documentary about a day in the life of Australian musician Nick Cave's persona.

Forever Yours

November 2011 •Finnish

Forever Yours is a film about children who have been taken into custody. Through the children, their biological parents and foster parents, the film depicts love in everyday life. The film explores the invisible bond between a child and a biological parent. Even when a child is taken into custody, the yearning for closeness to the biological parents and need for their approval never seems to disappear. This longing is a form of loneliness that the foster parents struggle to overcome. The film describes the entire foster care process: a child being brought into a shelter home, a teenager’s everyday life in a foster family, and siblings preparing to return to their biological mother, after five years in a foster family.