Secret Lives: Hidden Children and Their Rescuers During WWII (2002)

Director:
Aviva Slesin

IMDB

Synopsis:
As an infant at the dawn of World War II, director Aviva Slesin was handed off by her Jewish parents to a Lithuanian family, for safekeeping from the Nazis. Now, Slesin seeks out the stories of other "adoptees" and their families in the documentary Secret Lives: Hidden Children & Their Rescuers During WWII. Over the course of interviews with over five dozen children who escaped the Holocaust, Slesin learns of the struggles, hardships, and love experienced by these displaced sons and daughters, and about their faint memories of their birth parents. By the same token, Slesin finds out the rationales of the families who took them in -- whether due to goodwill, loyalty, or, in some cases, economic gain -- and even examines the resentment felt by some of them toward their "new" brothers and sisters. Featuring a score by avant-garde composer John Zorn, Secret Lives made the festival rounds in 2002, winning an award at the Hamptons Film Festival before its theatrical release in 2003.

The Trap: What Happened to Our Dream of Freedom (2007)

Director:
Adam Curtis

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Synopsis:
The many ways in which Western notions of personal and political freedom are changing in the 21st Century are explored in this three-part documentary from writer and filmmaker Adam Curtis. Part one, titled "F--k You, Buddy," explores how the widely held belief formulated by economist Friedrich von Hayek that the free market system would create a wealthier and more responsible society is giving way to John Nash's principle that individuals will almost always do what is in their own best interest, even if its at the expense of others. Part Two, "The Lonely Robot," focuses on how governments often act in their own interest at the expense of their citizens, and the malaise that's a by product of growing cynicism by ordinary people towards their leaders. And the conclusion, "We Will Force You To Be Free," investigates the theories of British thinker Isaiah Berlin and his twin principles of "positive liberty" (in which the people take direct and active control of their destiny) and "negative liberty" (freedom that inherited with no active effort towards any specific goal). Featuring interviews with John Nash, James Buchanan, Robert Reich, Tom Peters, Thomas Frank, Sir Anthony Jay and many others, The Trap: What Happened To Our Dream Of Freedom was originally produced for British television, but later received theatrical screenings at a number of film festivals.

Mule Skinner Blues (2001)

Director:
Stephen Earnhart

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Synopsis:
Set in Florida's beach community, Mule Skinner Blues chronicles a group of locals who crave self-expression in the midst of their Southern Gothic lifestyles. Chief among the figures is Beanie Andrew, a fifty-something former alcoholic who acts, sings, dances, writes, and lives in a trailer park outside Jacksonville and who finds work as an extra in a music video. He then presents Stephen with a series of home videos displaying his and his friends' talents. Most of them are out-of-work shrimpers, such as Steve Walker, a Vietnam veteran and troubadour; Ricky Lix, an ill-tempered blues guitarist; Miss Jeannie, a country singer who also has a penchant for yodeling; and Annabelle Lea, an art school grad and costume designer who keeps her departed bulldog's dead body in a backyard freezer. After the music video shoot, Stephen returns to Florida to find the group beginning work on an ambitious horror film called "Turnabout Is Fair Play," which has no completed script; still, the team tries to pull together to make the picture. The subject matter is very similar to Chris Smith's award-winning documentary American Movie, which also followed a struggling group of filmmakers through their production of a very low-budget genre piece.

Devil's Playground (2002)

Director:
Lucy Walker

IMDB

Synopsis:
Lucy Walker directed this documentary about a little-known facet of Amish life. Although the Amish live in traditionally conservative enclaves, shunning modern conveniences and electricity while favoring a strict code of conduct and dress, they do have a moment in their lives known as "rumspringa." When an Amish child turns 16, they are allowed to interact with and take part in life away from their upbringing. This film follows a handful of teenagers as they break from their past and experiment with drinking, drugs, and driving (possibly for the only time in their lives). Devil's Playground was screened at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival.

Paris Is Burning (1990)

Director:
Jennie Livingston

IMDB

Synopsis:
Poignant, well-received documentary that reveals the community of New York's minority drag queens, gay black and Latino men who cross dress as women and invent the dance style of "voguing," imitating the fashion poses on the covers of the magazine Vogue. As director Jennie Livingston discovers, her subjects band together into family-like "houses" for protection, taking the same last names and competing in drag balls where awards are given out for authenticity or "realness," as well as other categories like "evening wear" and "executive wear." Both an embracing and a refutation of the world of high fashion, the balls become the social locus of this underclass, underground society of outcasts defiantly refusing to be ignored by a world that scorns them. Paris Is Burning was one of several critically acclaimed documentaries of the late 1980s and early 1990s excluded from Academy Award nominations, eventually leading to a reappraisal of the Academy's stodgy selection process.