Art as a Weapon

160 meters is the distance between the two banks of the estuary of Bilbao. An economic, social and cultural approach at two ways of looking at life.

Documentary Film maker, Mark Brown, attempts to discover the damaging effect the over-spilling immigrant population has on the coastal city of Calais, France.

A child who just loved to skate from the age of eight, Poppy Starr Olsen became the number one female bowl skater in Australia at 14 and went on to take out bronze at the XGames at 17 - the ultimate competition in the world of skateboarding. The same year, skateboarding was announced as an official additional sport category at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. Now faced with the opportunity to represent Australia on the world stage Poppy grapples with the transition from skater to athlete and the pressure of competition mounts in a way it has never done before.

Razing the Bar documents the development and eventual demolition of a well-loved fringe punk rock Seattle venue through interviews of employees, friends, and a multitude of local musicians.

As the walls of Cuba's ageing infrastructure continue to crumble, a burgeoning street art scene is born in Havana. Murals of hand-painted masked character – Supermalo – with the tag “2+2=5?” have begun to appear in seemingly every corner of the heavily foot trafficked city.

The Laddakhis, high up in the Western Himalayas, have a strong connection to the psychic energies of the gods and demons through their belief in Tantric Buddhism. People in the valley say of the Geshe (a methaphysical professor) that he can fly if he wants to. But using magic is immoral for the Buddhist. Nevertheless, a young man seduces the woman of his desire with magical powers. In a breathtaking landscape under a crystal-clear blue sky, a life unfolds in harmony with the universe, carried by an ancient consciousness.

Family Mission is a feature documentary based on the life of TJ Lobraico, a USAF Staff Sergeant from Connecticut who gave his life for his country in Afghanistan in 2013. TJ's mother, father and step-father also served in the Air Force, and the film explores the history and dynamics of these brave Americans who consider service to others a family mission.

A British artist misses his parents' wedding anniversary for a last-minute sketching commission in Cornwall, but memories of them affect his work along the way.

This feature documentary examines its own genre, which has often been called Canada's national art form. Released in the year of the NFB's 75th birthday, Shameless Propaganda is filmmaker Robert Lower's take on the boldest and most compelling propaganda effort in our history (1939-1945), in which founding NFB Commissioner John Grierson saw the documentary as a "hammer to shape society". All 500 of the films produced by the NFB until 1945 are distilled here for the essence of their message to Canadians. Using only these films and still photos from that era, Lower recreates the picture of Canada they gave us and looks in it for the Canada we know today. What he finds is by turns enlightening, entertaining, and unexpectedly disturbing.

The untold story of Micronesian citizens fighting America's wars. Through the personal odyssey of the Nenas, one family experiences the consequences of military service, as they represent a pristine Pacific island on the brink of economic collapse.