China Dolls

Last Room

July 2011 •French

The Men Who Speak Gayle

July 2020 •English

Entertainer Nathan Kennedy, who speaks Gayle, the South African cant that flourished during the Apartheid era, meets Louis van Brakel, a much older user of the secret language, and interviews him on stage at the Showroom, Prince Albert.

Harry Styles: The Finishing Touch

January 2023 •French

Hit after hit, pop-icon Harry Styles, once the centerpiece of the world's biggest boy bands has grown into someone who isn't afraid of self-expression, continuing to reject the traditional confines of masculinity.

Oblivion

October 2024 •Russian

A lone passenger is reflected in the windows of a train crawling through layers of textures towards Minsk. During his absence, the city has not changed: all the streets are frozen, long-gone voices can be heard in the empty rooms and around the corner you can find yourself in a video game from your childhood.

Good Neighbours

November 2018 •Dutch

Documentary about loneliness in the elderly.

Glory Daze: The Life and Times of Michael Alig

September 2015 •English

A review of the wild New York City nightlife of the 90s. The cast of characters who made up the infamous Club Kids speak candidly about that era, culminating with Alig's release from incarceration.

The Birth of Boadicea Burnout

August 2016 •English

A drag queen applies his friend's makeup as they reflect on the business and their sexuality.

Precious Stones

March 2018 •English

Artist Daniel Crook unpacks masculinity one painting at a time.

Men's Madness - The Myth of Male Reason

January 1991 •English

Provocative, feminist critique of man’s technological progress.

Battle Cry

September 2018 •English

At the oldest-running queer theatre in the world, Toronto's most cerebral drag queen and "tragicomedienne" Pearle Harbour prepares to take the stage for her new show "Battle Cry: Songs Of Warfare & Gaiety".

Origins of a Meal

February 1979 •French

Bananas, eggs, and tuna: three basic foodstuffs with three wildly different points of origin. Moullet begins with these on his plate but constructs his film by working backwards and finding the sources for these items and how they reach our plates. As Moullet’s investigation deepens, however, the film moves beyond the confines of a simple exploration of food origins into more political and social realms, not only relating to food but also to the medium of film.

Berlin Utopiekadaver

April 2024 •German

A taxi drives through the city of Berlin. Its driver is a punk, left and a well-known figure in the autonomous scene. The stations of his trip are the most important places of the autonomous scene: all in the struggle for survival. The last evictions have not yet been processed and the next ones are coming right up.

Crash 'n' Burn

January 1977 •English

Crash 'n' Burn is an experimental film shot in and named after Toronto, Ontario's first punk rock club. (Not to be confused with Peter Vronsky's similarly titled 1977 documentary on the Toronto punk scene made for the CBC television network.) The film, shot on 16mm black-and-white stock, features performances by Dead Boys, Teenage Head, The Boyfriends, and The Diodes".

Liam

April 2018 •English

Just after Isidore moves to France to study filmmaking, his best friend dies back in the US. Through documentary, performance, and animation, a ghostly portrait emerges, prompting Isidore to question his relationships with his parents and his boyfriend in Paris.

Like Water Through Stone

November 2009 •Portuguese

In the Espinhaço Mountains one winter, a group of small-town Brazilian girls are experiencing the end of their youth. Impossible romances leave marks on their bodies and the surrounding landscape. Each of the friends finds her own particular way to overcome the loneliness and to live within a tangle of uncertainty.

The Writing on the Wall

December 1986 •English

"In this half-hour documentary, Producer Sandra King provides an intimate portrait of a public phenomenon: Graffiti. Over an 18 month period, King and her crew followed the teenage members of a graffiti 'crew,' Vandals on the Street, as they painted and rapped and moved through the streets of downtown Newark. What emerges is a unique glimpse behind the 'tags' at the kind of inner city kids who write on walls, but who also make art; who create out of wedlock children, but who also form binding relationships; who drop out of school and never read a book, but who create their own brand of poetry through the medium of 'rap.'

Karaoke Paradise

August 2022 •Finnish

Evi, Finland’s most experienced karaoke hostess, wants to hug her customers’ pain away. With thousands of bars and kilometres behind her, yet again she packs her equipment and travels through the northern landscapes of Finland. Toni, the shyest guy in the world, catches everyone’s eye on the stage. Kari is searching for love and sings in his empty karaoke car repair shop. Elina can hardly walk because of Parkinson’s, but punk songs make her dance. Laura sings because talking is too painful. Karaoke Paradise is a story of how the Finns have found a unique way out of loneliness.

The Story of Skinhead

October 2016 •English

Don Letts examines the history of this notorious subculture in a fascinating documentary, which features interviews with members of different skinhead scenes through the decades. Beginning in the late 1960s, Don fondly recalls a time of multiracial harmony as youngsters bonded over a love of ska, reggae and smart clothes as white working-class kids were attracted to Jamaican culture and adopted its music and fashions. But when far-right politics targeted skinheads in the 1970s and 1980s, an ugly intolerance emerged, and Don reveals how the once-harmonious subgroup has since struggled to shake this stigma.

The Last Days

October 1998 •English

Five Jewish Hungarians, now US citizens, tell their stories: before March 1944, when Nazis began to exterminate Hungarian Jews, months in concentration camps, and visiting childhood homes more than 50 years later. An historian, a Sonderkommando, a doctor who experimented on Auschwitz prisoners, and US soldiers who were part of the liberation in April 1945.

Lapses, Regrets and Qualms

October 2016 •French

A day in the life of director Boris Lehman: he wanders from cafe to bookshop, cinema to museum, writer to musician, and into the storeroom of the film archive... He celebrates his birthday in an alleyway, with a friend, and finishes his journey with an escapade to Bruges and a stroll by the North Sea. The camera plays dirty tricks and the sound recorder gets carried away, to the point that both are clearly telling Boris to stop filming. Yet he persists…