Bliss

Fiction and documentary mingle in a freewheeling portrait of Susan Superstar, a New York celebrity on a drug-fueled downward slide that mirrors Edie Sedgwick’s own self-destructive spiral.

Documents 18 months in the lives of three crack addicts in Lowell, Massachusetts.

A lost chapter in black British film: extraordinary rushes from a documentary showcasing talented members of the black community.

The year’s most spectacular Documentary short films.

Junior, a young father trying to turn his life around after years of heroin addiction, joins forces with a group of fellow hepatitis-C-infected former junkies in the Bronx to fight the disease in their community. Knitting personal narratives together with a profile of innovative programs at a methadone clinic, the film explores the concept of storytelling as an instrument of change and gives a powerful voice to marginalized members of society.

This documentary explores the extraordinary life and career of Dr. Falah Maroun, a Lebanese-born neurosurgeon who became a healthcare pioneer in Newfoundland and Labrador.

On October 12th, 1978, New York Police discovered the lifeless body of a young woman, slumped under the bathroom sink in a hotel room. She was Nancy Spungen, an ex-prostitute, sometimes stripper, heroin addict, and girlfriend of Sex Pistols' bassist Sid Vicious.

Geri is a serious drug addict, using designer drugs intravenously. Between two flashes, he lives an active social life on the streets of Budapest, in a subculture that "normal" people cannot see.

Since the fall of the Iron Curtain an estimated four million children have found themselves living on the streets in the former countries of the Soviet Union. In the streets of Moscow alone there are over 30,000 surviving in this manner at the present time. The makers of the documentary film concentrated on a community of homeless children living hand to mouth in the Moscow train station Leningradsky. Eight-year-old Sasha, eleven-year-old Kristina, thirteen-year-old Misha and ten-year-old Andrej all dream of living in a communal home. They spend winter nights trying to stay warm by huddling together on hot water pipes and most of their days are spent begging. Andrej has found himself here because of disagreements with his family. Kristina was driven into this way of life by the hatred of her stepmother and twelve-year-old Roma by the regular beatings he received from his constantly drunk father. "When it is worst, we try to make money for food by prostitution," admits ...

The documentary tracks the diva's difficult progress as she emerges from the tough, testosterone-fuelled world of the big bands of the 30s and 40s, to fill nightclubs and saloons across the US in the 50s and early 60s as a force in her own right. Looking at the lives and careers of six individual singers (Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Peggy Lee, Sarah Vaughan, Nina Simone and Annie Ross), the film not only talks to those who knew and worked with these queens of jazz, but also to contemporary singers who sit on the shoulders of these trailblazing talents without having to endure the pain and hardship it took for them to make their highly individual voices heard above the prejudice of mid-century America.

Chris & Don chronicles the lifelong relationship between author Christopher Isherwood and his much younger lover, artist Don Bachardy, and it combines present-day interviews, archival footage shot by the couple from the 1950s, excerpts from Isherwood's diaries, and playful animations to recount their romance.