American Dream

This 1990 Academy Award-winning documentary by Barbara Kopple is an even more poignant portrait of post-war labor strife than her earlier and more popular Harlan County, USA.  The disparity in fanfare between the two films is partly because the story in American Dream, the protracted strike at Minnesota’s Hormel meatpacking plant, poses more complex questions - about labor during the 1980’s - that transcend the brutality documented in the gut-wrenching Harlan County, USA.  American Dream might bring you a new perspective while you’re bemoaning the halt of your favorite TV program during the WGA strike. I found it totally engrossing, very brave and a pitch-perfect use of the cinema verite style. — Katy Chevigny

Banished

Reparations for slavery in the USA has often seemed like an impossible victory, especially when you consider America’s continuous struggle with racial tension  and the perpetuation of global white dominance is it realistic to believe that our government would apologize to slave descendants for their hardships and redress the harm inflicted on living African Americans?

During the 1860s to the 1920s, American towns violently expelled their entire African American communities, forcefully displacing thousands of families from their homes.  Banished tells the story of the black descendants and the white residents who struggle with their hidden history of forced migration. This film is a fascinating portrait of people trying to right past wrongs and the fall out that occurs along the way.  It is moving and at moments, surprisingly hysterical.  Banished really got me thinking about this subject matter in a new and different way.  — Angela Tucker

Beyond The Steps

Beyond the Steps, a film about the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater is a beautifully shot portrait documenting the creation of the dance, “Love Stories” and its performance at the famed Mariinsky Theater in Russia. 

The film not only allows you a closer view of the incredible dancers; it is difficult to pull your eyes away from their fantastic expression of human form, you also get a window into how this nearly 40 year old company has continued to stay at the forefront of modern dance.  — Angela Tucker

The Birthday
I saw The Birthday during the summer at the New Festival.  It follows the story of a young man who decides to become a woman in Iran. 

This film is an amazing personal journey of balancing love with social acceptance and reveales complex attitudes towards sexuality in an Islamic Society. — Laimah Osman

Born into Brothels
The ability to see life through the artistic photographs of children often denied a platform to express their vision to the world is one of the most compelling aspects of this documentary.  — Maia Ermita

Burden of Dreams
A perfect gift for the filmmaker friend, this 1982 documentary follows Werner Herzog as he struggles to realize his creative vision for his film Fitzcarraldo. Les Blank’s non-intrusive style in directing Burden of Dreams permits the natural drama and turmoil of Herzog’s Sisyphean task - making an epic film in the Amazon basin - to fully express itself. I love Burden of Dreams because it explores one more beautiful yet frightening, mandates of filmmaking: you have to be able to imagine the impossible. —  Jolene Pinder

The Devil & Daniel Johnston 
This film highlights the roots, development and the tragedy of a brilliant yet unstable mind. Daniel Johnston is a creative (musical and artistic) genius battling the demons of manic depression. —  Leah Sapin

The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara

A film by definition is a moving image and when I watch any film, I appreciate the attention to the details that compose that image — colors, shapes and angles. 

Errol Morris’ The Fog of War elegantly weaves the composite details - interviews with Robert S. McNamara, archival footage and original footage to create a compelling visual.  It is this narrative collage in conjunction with the somber score by composers Philip Glass and John Kusiak that sets the tone for this dark subject matter - lessons learned about the nature and conduct of modern war. 

Morris enables McNamara to simply tell his story with very few interjections.  In this way, he allows the audience to evaluate the moral fiber of the former Secretary of Defense instead of imposing his own judgment. — Jennifer Gallardo

Lost in La Mancha
Though Lost in La Mancha does not fall squarely in the social-issue category, it is a great film for anyone interested in why film projects fail, even when money is plentiful and everyone knows what they are doing. It’s also great if you love folly as much as I do.

Terry Gilliam set out to make a feature based on the famous Cervantes novel. After ten years in preparation and millions of dollars spent, the film was never made. The problems are so numerous that they lend a surreal tone to the documentary, casting a life-is-stranger-than-fiction glow on the whole thing.

Filmmakers Keith Fulton and Louis Pepe do a great job capturing the frustration and the madness. In the process they reveal the peculiar frailty of production and set up the gratifying notion that films are very hard to make and anyone who completes one deserves a lot of credit.  — Enrico Cullen

Mai’s America  
The story of a high school girl from Hanoi, Vietnam who spends a year in a small Mississippi town; Mai’s America offers a fresh look at American culture including race, class, gender and identity through the eyes of a teenager living in the USA for the first time. 

The film is humorous as it is insightful giving the viewer the opportunity to laugh with (and at) Mai and her American associates as they stumble over cultural differences and preconceptions of one another. — Kasmore Rhedrick

Me and Rubyfruit
Sadie Benning’s Me and Rubyfruit is a personal documentary filmed in her bedroom with a Fisher-Price Pixelvision camera.  It’s inspiring to see that you don’t need high-end tools and resources to create something beautiful and poignant.  — Laimah Osman

Phantom India
When I watched all seven hours of Louis Malle’s 1962 Phantom India in film school I didn’t anticipate how much this documentary series would stay with me when I traveled to India for the first time more than five years later. Malle is the quintessential unreliable narrator, simultaneously striving for objectivism while offering an unending stream of provocative commentary on India’s cultural, political and religious complexities. Phantom India was impossible to get a hold of for many years, but thanks to the Criterion Collection, it’s now available on DVD with English subtitles. — Shira Golding

Roger & Me
This oldie but goodie should be a part of everyone’s documentary collection. I personally like to watch it for Christmas. But, I am just that kind of person. Maybe you are too. — Ryann Scypion