Films We Like

In acclaimed director Rodrigo Reyes' (Lupe Under The Sun, Purgatorio) bold new feature, a 16th century conquistador finds himself stranded in modern day Mexico encountering real- life ordinary citizens whose lives have been upended in ways that the Conquistador could never have envisioned 499 years prior, when Mexico was colonized by men like him. Using an innovative and immersive mixture of fiction and non-fiction, and finding a way to weave to magical realist and verité elements, Reyes has crafted an audacious, staggering work examining the lingering effects of colonialism as well as providing a way for a country and it citizens to heal from centuries old wounds.

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A kaleidoscope of the human condition includes scenes of a couple floating over war-torn Germany, a father and his daughter in the pouring rain, a teenager dancing outside a cafe, and a defeated army marching to a prisoner-of-war camp.

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Apple TV | Kanopy

Filmmakers expose the horrifying mass executions of accused communists in Indonesia and those who are celebrated in their country for perpetrating the crime.

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In the late 1980s and early 1990s, skateboarding and hip-hop culture collide in downtown Manhattan. Archival footage from the era showcases the fusion of these two forms of expression.

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Coming soon to Kanopy

Filmmaker Ron Mann affectionately looks back on the life and work of American director Robert Altman.

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Apple TV | Prime Video | Kanopy | Hoopla

Amy Tan has firmly established herself as one of America’s most respected literary voices. Born to Chinese immigrant parents, it would be decades before the author of The Joy Luck Club would fully understand the inherited trauma rooted in the legacies of women who survived the Chinese tradition of concubinage.

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Apple TV | Kanopy

Exploring the intimate life of notoriously shy and acclaimed musician Courtney Barnett.

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After years abroad in Paris, a woman returns home to Tunis with the dream of opening up her own psychotherapy practise.

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Apple TV | Kanopy | Hoopla

Documenting Horn and Hardart's iconic Automat, one of America's original and most popular restaurant chains in NYC and Philadelphia.

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Performance artist Genesis P-Orridge and his lover, Lady Jaye, express their deep bond by melding their identities through plastic surgery.

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Underground filmmaker Barbara Rubin’s 1964 art-porn masterpiece “Christmas on Earth”, made when she was only 18 years old, shattered creative and sexist boundaries and shocked NYC's experimental film scene. Working with Jonas Mekas at the Filmmaker’s Coop, Rubin was instrumental in creating NYC's thriving underground film community and a rare female voice in a world of powerful men. A rebellious Zelig of the Sixties, she introduced Andy Warhol to the Velvet Underground and Bob Dylan to the Kabbalah. But beyond shaping the spirit of the Sixties, Barbara was seeking the deeper meaning of life. After retiring to a farm with Allen Ginsberg, she shocked everyone by becoming a Hasidic Jew. How and why did one of the 1960’s freest spirits submit to a religious life? For years, 94-year-old filmmaker Jonas Mekas has saved all of Barbara’s letters and cherished her memory. Working with Mekas’ footage and rare clips from the Andy Warhol archives, the film takes us inside the world and mind of Barbara Rubin; a woman who truly believed that film could change the world and then vanished into obscurity.

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Apple TV | Kanopy

Beethoven's Hair traces the unlikely journey of a lock of hair cut from Beethoven's corpse and unravels the mystery of his tortured life and death. The film begins in modern times, when a pair of Beethoven enthusiasts purchase the hair at a Sotheby's auction. The story then looks at the lock's previous owners and culminates in the science that reveals Beethoven's "medical secret". Set to a lush score of some of Beethoven's most glorious music, the film explores the world of forensic testing in sharp relief against the romance of 19th-century Vienna and the horrors of 20th-century Nazi Germany.

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An Englishman is hired to create sound effects for a horror film studio in 1970s Rome, but the job ends up taking a heavy toll on his mental health.

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Etienne, an often out of work but endearing actor, runs a theatre workshop in a prison, where he brings together an unlikely troupe of prisoners to stage Samuel Beckett’s famous play Waiting for Godot. When he is allowed to take the colourful band of convicts on a tour outside of prison, Etienne finally has the chance to thrive. Each date is a new success and a unique relationship grows between this ad hoc group of actors and their director. But soon comes the final performance in Paris. Will their last night together be the biggest hit of them all?

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Austrian actress Hedy Lamarr fled an oppressive marriage to create a name for herself as one of Hollywood's top leading ladies in the 1940s. Behind the glamour and sex appeal, though, was a talented and inquisitive inventor who created a radio system that is now considered the basis of Bluetooth technology.

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Apple TV | Kanopy | Hoopla

Guy returns to his childhood home on an abandoned Canadian island to paint a lighthouse his parents used as an orphanage.

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The life of Burt Shavitz, the original owner of Burt's Bees.

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Employing archival footage and candid interviews of contemporary directors, producers, screenwriters and actresses, "Calling the Shots" focuses on the diversity of films being made by women today, the power structures of the industry, and the women who hold such power.

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Second City TV regulars Eugene Levy and Andrea Martin star in this Canadian horror spoof as a couple on a romantic holiday who settle into a quaint little bed-and-breakfast run by a trio of flesh-eating ladies who fancy them for tomorrow's menu.

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Apple TV | Prime Video

A ballad to Greenwich Village guitar-maker Rick Kelly, who builds his custom-made instruments from repurposed wood scavenged from historic New York City buildings.

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Filmmakers Ben Cotner and Ryan White explore the landmark court case aiming to overturn California's Proposition 8 with its ban on same-sex marriage. They examine the details behind the case from politicians to families and activists over five years.

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This 1988 film delineates the meteoric rise of the comic book art form beginning with its fervently nationalistic characters and stories of the 1930s and '40s, its underground rebellions of the '60s and '70s, and the dark and human stories of the 1980s. The documentary gifts a rare treat to comic book fans by featuring the artists themselves reading from and sharing anecdotes about their work. Director Ron Mann also covers the controversy surrounding censorship by the Comic Code Authority.

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Design Canada is the first documentary chronicling the history of Canadian graphic design and how it shaped a nation and its people.

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An aging, widowed actor seeks a chauffeur. The actor turns to his go-to mechanic, who ends up recommending a 20-year-old girl. Despite their initial misgivings, a very special relationship develops between the two.

Available on Rogers on Demand and Crave TV

A look at how musical groups such as The Byrds, The Beach Boys, Buffalo Springfield, and The Mamas & the Papas birthed the beginnings of the Laurel Canyon music scene and how the echo of these artists' creations reverberated across the world.

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When a magic trick goes awry at a children’s birthday party, the authoritative father of the family turns into a chicken.

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A mysterious nanny, who secretly took over 100,000 photographs that were hidden in storage lockers and discovered decades later, is now considered among the 20th century’s greatest photographers. Maier’s strange and riveting life and art are revealed through never before seen photographs, films, and interviews with dozens who thought they knew her.

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Apple TV | Prime Video | Kanopy

Fire Music tells the history of the Free Jazz Revolution. Capturing the sights and sounds of one of the most innovative movements in music history. The intensity of the music and the outlandish personalities of the artists who played it make for a compelling story.

Coming soon

A man's selfish reaction to the danger posed by an avalanche causes cracks in his marriage and relationships with his children.

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Apple TV | Prime Video | Kanopy

In this documentary, actor and environmental activist Woody Harrelson joins an eclectic group, including a raw food chef, a hemp activist, a yoga teacher and iconic '60s author Ken Kesey as they travel down the Pacific Coast Highway in a bio-fueled bus. Along the way, the group speaks at various rallies and universities espousing the virtues of alternative fuels, progressive thinking and a healthy lifestyle, encountering both resistance and support from those they meet.

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GEOGRAPHIES OF SOLITUDE is an immersion into the rich ecosystem of Sable Island, guided by naturalist and environmentalist Zoe Lucas who has lived over 40 years on this remote sliver of land in the Northwest Atlantic Ocean. Shot on 16mm and created using a scope of innovative eco-friendly filmmaking techniques, this feature-length experimental documentary is a playful and reverent collaboration with the natural world. Zoe leads us among wild horses, seals and bugs, through peaks, valleys, roots, sands, weathers, seasons and stars. The intangible is evoked with hidden sounds and vanishing light. Much like a field book, the film tracks its protagonist's labor to collect, clean and document marine litter that persistently washes up on the island shores.

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Emerging from Ann Arbor, Mich., amidst a countercultural revolution, The Stooges' powerful and aggressive style of rock 'n' roll blew a crater in the musical landscape of the late 1960s. Assaulting audiences with a blend of rock, blues, R&B, and free jazz, the band planted the seeds for what would be called punk and alternative rock in the decades that followed. Jim Jarmusch's documentary presents the context of The Stooges' emergence.

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This documentary examines the U.S. government's marijuana regulations, and how these laws have influenced public perceptions of the drug. Narrated by noted pot advocate Woody Harrelson, the film opens with a series of comically outdated anti-drug reels before chronicling America's relationship with marijuana through the decades. Filmmaker Ron Mann splices together archival footage of U.S. politicians, musicians and artists to support his weed-friendly argument.

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The film portrays Hannah Arendt (Barbara Sukowa) during the four years, (1960-64), that she observes, writes, and endures the furious reception for her work about the trial of the Nazi war criminal, Adolf Eichmann. Watching Arendt as she attends the trial, staying by her side as she is both barraged by her critics and supported by a tight band of loyal friends, we experience the intensity of this powerful Jewish woman who fled Nazi Germany in 1933. The fierce, chain-smoking Arendt is an exile who is happy and flourishing in America, but whose penetrating vision makes her an outsider wherever she goes.

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A middle-aged couple and their two sons embark on a road trip across the Iranian countryside. Over the course of their journey, they bond over memories of the past, grapple with fears of the unknown and fuss over their sick dog.

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A 14-year-old girl (Megan Follows) tries out as goalie for the coach (Rick Moranis) of a small-town boys team in Canada.

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Filmmakers Holly Dale and Janis Cole explore the culture of Davie Street, located in the underbelly of Vancouver, where dozens of prostitutes work and live every day.

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Musician Dunstan Bruce embarks on a personal voyage of rediscovery and redemption.

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An examination, shown through both interviews and performances, of the avant-garde free jazz movement which reigned during the 1960s.

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Apple TV | Prime Video | Kanopy | Hoopla

A group of teens go on a humanitarian trip, driving on quiet mountain roads to the village of Întregalde. As they're helping an old man reach his job at a sawmill, the car goes off the road, forcing them to spend the night with the old man.

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Joe Papp, founder of The Public Theater, Free Shakespeare in the Park and producer of groundbreaking plays like "Hair," "A Chorus Line" and "for colored girls," created a 'theater of inclusion' based on the belief that great art is for everyone.

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In this radically reimagined American Western set towards the end of the Civil War, Southerner Augusta (Brit Marling, Arbitrage, The East) encounters two renegade, drunken soldiers (Sam Worthington, Avatar and Kyle Soller, BBC’s “Poldark”) who are on a mission of pillage and violence. After escaping an attempted assault, Augusta races back to the isolated farmhouse that she shares with her sister Louise (Hailee Steinfeld, True Grit, Pitch Perfect 2) and their female slave Mad (newcomer Muna Otaru.) When the pair of soldiers track Augusta down intent on exacting revenge, the trio of women are forced to take up arms to fend off their assailants, finding ways to resourcefully defend their home––and themselves––as the escalating attacks become more unpredictable and relentless.

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Kanopy | Hoopla

Fungi experts and enthusiasts Gary Lincoff and Larry Evans lead the hunt for wild mushrooms and explore their cultural significance.

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The world’s greatest drummers reflect on the art of drumming and how it has shaped their lives. Features interviews with Ringo Starr from The Beatles, Taylor Hawkins from Foo Fighters, Stewart Copeland from The Police, Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann from Grateful Dead, Chad Smith from Red Hot Chili Peppers, and more.

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In the London suburbs, Bela and Jota face serious difficulties when "social services" raise concerns about the safety of their three children. The 7-year-old daughter's deafness triggers a process in the system that seems to go on forever.

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A TV newswoman (P.J. Soles), an urban poet and a latter-day Rip Van Winkle expose corporate corruption.

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A 90-year-old atheist has outlived and out-smoked his contemporaries, and as he comes to terms with his own mortality, he searches for ever-elusive enlightenment.

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Apple TV | Kanopy | Hoopla

In the final decades of the 20th century, the Philippines was a country where low-budget exploitation-film producers were free to make nearly any kind of movie they wanted, any way they pleased. It was a country with extremely lax labor regulations and a very permissive attitude towards cultural expression. As a result, it became a hotbed for the production of cheapie movies. Their history and the genre itself are detailed in this breezy, nostalgic documentary.

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Judith leads a double life between Switzerland and France. On the one hand, there is Abdel, with whom she is raising a little girl, and on the other hand is Melvil, with whom she has two older boys.

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Filmmaker Greg Camalier pays tribute to an Alabama city that holds a prominent place in music history. Artists who recorded at FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, Ala., include Percy Sledge, Aretha Franklin and Lynyrd Skynyrd.

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Apple TV | Kanopy | Hoopla

For the first time in 35 years, child eyewitness Daniel Lutz recounts his version of the infamous Amityville haunting that terrified his family in 1975. His parents story of their 28 days in the allegedly possessed house on Ocean Avenue went on to inspire a best-selling novel and subsequent film series that have both captivated and frustrated the public since their release. MY AMITYVILLE HORROR is a gripping documentary that details the struggle behind growing up as part of a world famous haunting and shows that while Daniel’s facts may be others' fiction, the psychological scars he carries are all too real.

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Set between Paris, Prague, Nuremberg, Manchester, the Polish countryside and the Roman seaside, Nico, 1988 is a road-movie dedicated to the last years of Christa Päffgen, known by her stage name “Nico”. One of Warhol's muses, singer of The Velvet Underground and a woman of legendary beauty, Nico lived a second life after the story known to all, when she began her career as a solo artist. Nico, 1988 is the story of Nico's last tours with the band that accompanied her around Europe in the Eighties: years in which the "priestess of darkness", as she was called, found herself again, shaking off the weight of her beauty and rebuilding the relationship with her only forgotten son. It is the story of a rebirth, of an artist, of a mother, of the woman beyond the icon.

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Apple TV | Prime | Kanopy

Deb wakes up on the Fourth of July in the apartment of the most attractive man she has ever seen. An awkward walk of shame turns ugly when they discover the town has been overrun by a zombie virus, and the duo has to band together to survive.

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Apple TV | Prime Video

The first Canadian film on the subject of AIDS. In 1985-86 it was featured in festivals and theatres around the world. "No Sad Songs" attracted much critical attention for its sardonic dramatic performances which are interwoven throughout the documentary footage. The film centres on Jim Black, 37, and his views on the premature death in store for him. Catherine Hunt, who has a brother in the U.S. with the illness, speaks with remarkable emotion of the values such a crisis brings out in families and friends.

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A shattering look at love and isolation in the most desperate of places. The filmmakers' four-year struggle to break into prison has resulted in a remarkable achievement. Janis Cole, Holly Dale and their crew have applied a direct cinema approach to a tight community of women and released a gripping and dignified story, both personal and political.

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On an island in French Polynesia, the Haut-Commissaire, a man with a turbulent naturalness and high diplomacy, lives between the highest echelons of politics and the lowest social stratum of his co-citizens. Conflict as a way of life will lead him to take reckless decisions against his political status.

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Emile de Antonio's documentary about postwar American painting combines footage of museum shows with interviews with the artists themselves. Besides covering Abstract Expressionism in depth, the film discusses other significant 20th-century art movements, such as color-field painting and Pop Art. Some of the artists who discuss their work include Andy Warhol, Willem de Kooning, Frank Stella, Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Barnett Newman and Helen Frankenthaler.

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Apple TV | Kanopy | Hoopla

After being left by her husband, a single mother is responsible for raising her two teenage children. Taking a second job at a late-night radio show, she meets a troubled teen whom she invites into her home.

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A young woman is inspired by a 65-year-old stripper to make sexually forthright music.

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A chauffeur lands a driving job with a perfumer who struts around like a diva.

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Called the Woodstock of Poetry by American Film, and Dazzling by the Los Angeles Times, Poetry in Motion is an unprecedented anthology of twenty-four leading North American poets who sing, chant, anything but read their work.

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During a hot and hazy summertime in northern Ontario, 13-year-old Bea (Charlotte Salisbury) wants a best friend more than anything else, but when she meets boisterous Kate (Lucinda Armstrong Hall), she gets more than she imagined. A story of bravery, small-town summer love, and the secret world of girls.

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The battle for the release of her son Murat from Guantanamo catapults Turkish housewife Rabiye Kurnaz from her terraced house in Bremen straight into world politics and all the way to the Supreme Court in Washington. At her side is human rights lawyer Bernhard Docke - the reserved, level-headed lawyer and the temperamental Turkish mother with a wicked sense of humour – now fighting side-by-side to get Murat out.

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Welcome to Riotsville, a fictional town built by the US military. Using all archival footage, the film explores the militarization of the police and creates a counter-narrative to the nation's reaction to the uprisings of the late '60s.

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Ramona works in a concert agency and is sent after the rock band 'Children of Paradise' who have disappeared. Since she can't drive, she has to take the train and bus and eventually hitchhike. On her way through the Canadian back country she meets the weirdest people - and learns to drive, what leads to... roadkill.

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Rama is a novelist who attends the trial of Laurence Coly, a young woman accused of killing her 15-month-old daughter. Testimonies from witnesses and Coly's own words soon shake Rama's convictions.

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Superstar in a Housedress is a feature-length documentary by independent filmmaker Craig Highberger about the life and legend of Warhol superstar Jackie Curtis. Highberger also wrote the biography of the same name, published by Penguin imprint Chamberlain Bros. in 2005.

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A post-modern documentary about the meaning and nature of love from a gay perspective.

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Set during a smallpox epidemic in the village of Gimli, Manitoba near the turn of the century, Tales From The Gimli Hospital Redux is a dreamlike, elliptical film which explores the jealousy and madness instilled in two men who share a hospital room “in a Gimli we no longer know.”

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The life and work of Ed "Big Daddy" Roth caused a shift in mid-20th-century culture through his customized cars, famous T-shirts, and his creation of the "rat fink" logo.

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A passionate middle-aged philosophy professor (Isabelle Huppert) rethinks her already much-examined life after an unforeseen divorce.

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Apple TV | Prime Video | Kanopy

The war is over and life begins again for Tove Jansson. When she meets theatre director Vivica Bandler, she falls in love. At the same time, her creativity begins to take unexpected paths and she starts writing the story of the Moomins.

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Apple TV | Kanopy

In 1942, Georg attempts to flee France, after its invasion by the Nazis. He assumes the identity of a dead author, but soon finds himself stuck in Marseilles, where he falls in love with Maria, a young woman searching for her missing husband.

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Apple TV | Prime Video | Kanopy

Filmmaker Ron Mann chronicles the '50s and '60s dance craze and its stars, like singer Chubby Checker.

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The career and creative process of choreographer Twyla Tharp, a pioneer of both modern dance and ballet.

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A woman works as a historian who specializes in the urban development of modern-day Berlin. When the man she loves betrays her, she must kill him and return to the water in a reimagining of the ancient myth of Undine.

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AppleTV | Kanopy

The final film from the late, beloved Agnes Varda is a characteristically playful, profound, and personal summation of the director's own brilliant career. At once impish and wise, she acts as our spirit guide on a free-associative tour through her six-decade artistic journey, shedding new light on her films, photography, and recent installation works while offering her one-of-a-kind reflections on everything from filmmaking to feminism to aging. Suffused with the people, places, and things she loved--Jacques Demy, cats, colors, beaches, heart-shaped potatoes--this wonderfully idiosyncratic work of imaginative autobiography is a warmly human, touchingly bittersweet parting gift from one of cinema's most luminous talents.

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Experimental film featuring a groundbreaking mix of live action and animation, backed by a soundtrack of 1960s hits.

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Two immigrants living on the fringes of American society hit the road in search of the truth about a shared UFO abduction.

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After her fiance calls off their wedding a month before the ceremony, a woman decides to keep the reservation and trusts God will provide her with a husband.

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Prime Video | Kanopy | Hoopla

It's 1940, and the population of Japan is divided over its entry into World War II. Satoko, the wife of a fabric merchant, is devoted to her husband, but is beginning to suspect he's up to something. Soon she allows herself to be drawn into a game in which she enigmatically conceals her intentions.

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Dramatisation of the little known side of the writer Emily Dickinson's life, in particular, her relationship with another woman.

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Textile workers are transformed into an Olympic level volleyball team by their coach, whose unconventional techniques emphasize speed and aggression. The team has a record-setting winning streak and a triumph in the 1964 Tokyo Olympics.

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Coming soon to Kanopy