Growing Girls

The film is a short documentary about alchemical engravings.

What does it mean to be self-determining in America? And what does achieving the American Dream really feel like? Not everyone gets to answer that question for themselves, and some who do may take it for granted. In Cumberland, Maryland, disappearing industry over the last 30 years has left the city economically depressed and half-deserted. The city’s new mayor has taken it upon himself to inspire a revitalization, and his plan starts with buying up homes in The Rolling Mill, a once vibrant neighborhood stricken by the same ills as the city. With every willing seller who leaves The Rolling Mill behind, the mayor’s plan to change Cumberland’s fortunes by building a new chain restaurant progresses. But as the face of the neighborhood they love changes so drastically, a steadfast group of long-time Rolling Mill residents have refused to relent to the city.

When was Canada populated by Native Americans from the West? This film relates the discovery of the New World from the time of the Vikings, around 880, to Jacques Cartier.

The film follows Yudale, a religious youth from the settlements, as he experiences a crisis of faith. As he receives a camera from Michal, a Tel Aviv director who teaches him how to film, Yehuda documents his life on the line between the settlement Tko’a and Tel Aviv: his final conversations with his dying father—Rabbi Menachem Fruman– their joint study, and saying goodbye to him. When his father dies, Yehuda chooses to take off his kippah. During the year of mourning, he continues to document his life outside the religious world: exploring Tel Aviv, talking to Michal, and his new perspective on his family and their way of life. Elisheva, a newly observant Jew orphaned from her mother, comes into his life as a soul mate exactly at the moment when he loses hope of finding his way.

Directed by Marion Grierson, who ran the film unit of the Travel and Industrial Development Association (TIDA), this short film contains some fine photography of the delights on offer to Edinburgh visitors - including trams, bustling streets, restful parks and some familiar tourist sights.

A brief essay on the ecology of a forest along the Laurentian Shield, in Quebec.

London at its best? This gorgeously photographed portrait of the capital was made by Marion Grierson, sister of the more famous John Grierson, often hailed as the father of documentary film. The film transcends the typical travelogue thanks to the photography of William Shenton and Grierson's poetic approach to editing - which prefigures modern films like the acclaimed From the Sea to the Land Beyond (2012). The film achieved international fame at the time of its original release, yet Marion Grierson is almost completely overshadowed in the history of British documentary film by her brother John.

This documentary contains dramatized episodes about the lives of Erika and Klaus Mann, the brilliant children of German writer Thomas Mann.

Anne Boyd, one of Australia's leading contemporary composers, teaches music at the publicly funded University of Sydney. This documentary chronicles a year in the life of an academic department that's under the financial gun.

Filmmaker Teresa Blake's portrait of an 88-year-old man with a trail of Texas Exes: Houston oil man, Hollywood playboy, hotshot lawyer and serial monogamist Tommy Blake on a quirky and intimate journey, a daughter looks beyond myth, money, and society -- and all that hair -- in seeking the truth of her father.