People who’ve never met Sharif el-Gamal hate his guts. He receives threatening, hysterical phone messages. Protesters angrily confront him on his way to work. And why? He’s just trying to build a community center. Of course, there’s the matter of what kind (an Islamic center) and its location (two blocks from where the World Trade Center towers once stood). Dubbed the “Ground Zero mosque” by the media and far nastier names by its opponents, Park51 makes el-Gamal the target of widespread suspicion and conservative wrath. As he struggles to keep his fledgling organization alive, el-Gamal finds his past scrutinized and his relationships—both familial and collegial—strained. With the feel of a Maysles Brothers classic updated for the twenty-first century, Building Babel demonstrates how our best intentions can bring terrible consequences, and offers a glimpse of the small victories that come with weathering them. Plays with “Paraíso” (dir. Nadav Kurtz, 10) (KP)

In 1987 young Eddie Lee Sausage and Mitchell D left the Midwest in search of good times in San Francisco. They moved into the “Pepto-Bismol palace” in the Lower Haight, so called for its lurid pink color. The walls were also paper-thin and this is how Eddie and Mitch were introduced to the loud, drunken arguments of their alcoholic neighbors, Peter Haskett and Raymond Huffman. Peter was proudly gay, Raymond was fiercely homophobic and they were both usually very, very drunk. Their nonsensical rants are brilliantly described at one point as The Odd Couple meets Waiting for Godot. Eddie and Mitch began to record their noisy neighbors and the cassettes got passed around through the Zine underground, becoming a pre-Internet, viral phenomenon. They inspired comic books, plays and movies. They also inspired Eddie and Mitch to ditch their DIY, punk, anything-goes approach, copyright the material and start making money off the merchandise. Meanwhile Peter and Raymond had no idea they had become such cult anti-heroes and continued to live in penniless squalor. With Shut Up Little Man!, director Matthew Bate skillfully explores the boundaries of art, copyright, voyeurism, morality and exploitation in a way that never settles for easy answers. It is frequently hilarious but also terribly sad and it makes you feel just the right kind of uncomfortable watching it.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1766085

“You shouldn’t film us. We’re just common people.” Thus begins Victor Kossakovsky’s mesmerizing, tragic, and raucous portrait of a Russian farm family. Beautifully shot in vintage black and white, The Belovs tells the story of twice-widowed Anna Belova, who lives with her brother Mikhail. Sometimes two other brothers, Vasily and Sergei Feodorovich, come to visit them. Their quarrels, tears, and joys all play out in front of Kossakovsky’s patient, intuitive camera, which is as likely to focus on a stray hedgehog in the road as it is on Anna’s weathered face. Tea and vodka are consumed, potatoes dug up, steam baths taken. They debate whether misery can be measured and stoically accept their tough but straightforward lives. But to view their desperation as tragic is to turn a blind eye to the flashes of tenderness and humor that abound in this film. (DW)

Spoiler alert: the world's still broken. But don't blame the Yes Men, whose toolbox includes media hoaxes, corporate interventions and tricksterism of the most amusing anti-establishment kind. The Y-Men steal the podium to advise corporate execs how to squeeze every drop of productivity from their workers; apologize, on the BBC, on behalf of Dow Chemical for poisoning tens of thousands of residents of Bhopal, India; and create a not-completely-wishful thinking fake New York Times from the future that celebrates our progress in making peace, healing the environment and addressing social inequities. Directed by Yes Men Mike Bonano and Andy Bichlbaum, with Kurt Engfehr, this stylish, fast-paced doc — a follow-up to T-F's 2003 closing night film — simultaneously serves as celebration of engaged citizenship, survey of corporate greed and a comedy of the most progressive kind. So these spiritual godchildren of Abbie Hoffman didn't actually repair our damaged, profit-driven, unsustainable society in these 90 minutes? For once, we really need a sequel. (JS)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1352852/?ref_=sr_1

A British explorer on a quest for lost Incan gold is aided by a driven filmmaker but hampered by a psychotic American expatriate guide. File this film in the "stranger than fiction" slot. There's a lot to question in this Fitzcarraldo-meets-Indiana-Jones-story, but director Flamholc's will to persevere is completely genuine. Dragging a film crew deep into the Peruvian jungle (twice), he heads upriver, battling weather, bad omens and skittish guides. The American expat seems entertainingly quirky at first, but his mania soon engulfs the expedition and everything goes topsy turvy. In the end, questions of veracity fall by the wayside, as the viewer is caught up in the more pressing issue of whether they might, despite it all, find the lost city.

You’ll be amazed: It takes Buck Brannaman about three minutes to turn even the most unruly mustang into a calm, obedient horse. And what secret weapons does he deploy? Respect, love and discipline, plus a little red flag. Cindy Meehl’s gorgeously shot, remarkably assured debut feature follows Buck, an inspiration for The Horse Whisperer, as he spreads his gospel to horse owners around the country. Meehl and her terrific team explore Buck’s rough childhood (which helped him recognize brutality as an ineffective form of problem solving), and becomes an object lesson in how —in an era defined by self-aggrandizement and pumped-up egos — integrity and kindness still work wonders. Those lessons, of course, hold true outside the corral, too; BUCK also serves an good lesson for parents, lovers and just about anyone else. Buck Brannaman is a welcome new hero, and BUCK more than a horse movie: it’s a celebration of the possibilities of doing the right thing. (JS)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buck_(film)

A film so gritty you can taste the cinders as you watch, Dennis Ho’s Subway Preacher is a small-scale portrait of a small-time preacher, his life exposed under the harsh mercury vapor lamps. Standing in the tunnels under Manhattan, screaming of fire and brimstone and vowing to maintain his underground ministry 24/7, Brian is a man with a mission. But can his marriage to Rose endure as they live, penniless, on his brother's couch? And will his partner (and recent kidney transplant recipient) Shawn survive Brian’s increasingly erratic and unreliable behavior? Photographer and occasional busker Ho spent three years shooting this gorgeous New York story. What results is a surprisingly empathetic vision of all-too-human frailty. Shows with Ruuhka (dir. Arthur Franck & Oskar Forsten,12 min.) which follows delivery drivers during their rounds as they muse about their lives, all shot in terrifically grainy black and white.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1634803/

An eight-year-old boy named Janek travels from Poland to Argentina, where his mother works as a Polish-language instructor. A little lonely and a little confused, Janek meets Marcia, a beautiful and brave young girl, 11 going on 30. Romance blossoms. This is all captured in breathtaking 16mm film by Janek’s father, whose Argentinian Lesson is a landmark of nonfiction cinema. Steeped in a rich atmosphere of rain and Catholicism, marked by immersive sound design, and carried by its camera-ready (but not camera-mugging) leads, this is a film that inhabits its own world. Plays with “Into the Middle of Nowhere” (dir. Anna Frances Ewert, 15 min.) (CB)

At the dawn of the dotcom age, Josh Harris cashed in on his early knowledge in the Web. He then resurfaced as a well-heeled artist with a flair for social engineering experiments. His most intriguing one, "Quiet: We Live in Public," at the time seemed a proto-apocalyptic lead-up to Y2K, an Orwellian commune in which 100 human specimens lived in a New York City basement under 24-7 surveillance. Timoner, whose earlier film Dig explored other difficult artists, was in that basement herself, giving this footage more footing. Later, Harris and his girlfriend streamed their private lives online. This fascinating material is spiked with deep resonance during an era where social networking sites, omnipresent cameras and fast connections have left many swimming in privacy-free zones. Featuring plenty of loud rock 'n' roll, the splashy We Live in Public carries urgent warnings about the near future, as reflected in a little-known story from our recent past.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0498329/?ref_=sr_1

Patty Hearst called herself an "urban guerrilla" — hardly the occupation her parents and billionaire grandfather, media mogul William Randolph Hearst, envisioned for her. But Hearst's story was more sensational than anything her grandpa's editors could have dreamed up. Kidnapped in 1974 by radical militants, held in captivity for months and then converted to the cause, Hearst became an emblem for a country mired in severe political turmoil. Robert Stone's vivid, stylish and painstakingly researched document examines the Hearst kidnapping from a variety of angles, documenting the militant group's success in using the mass media as a mouthpiece and the unruly feed-the-hungry programs it forced the Hearst family to create. It even includes surveillance footage of Patty wielding a gun in a bank robbery. Guerrilla: The Taking of Patty Hearst isn't just the tale of a freakish crime; it's the story of a country forced to watch dissent, radicalism and class warfare on the nightly news. Death to the fascist insect!

Karina, Anthony and Pearl form the core of a slam poetry group in the Bronx. With much prodding from their radical mentors, the students master the power of language so as to blast out of their limited surroundings. This is a noteworthy portrait of a friendship—a tripod between three memorable characters whose fate is always up for grabs. A great film full of heart and soul that doesn’t conform to a tidy narrative, To Be Heard is delivered with a high level of craft that’s not overly self-conscious or showy. All of the characters burst with vitality and self-reflection—and their verses are always rooted in their experiences. It’s a universal story—all humans’ desire to write our own destiny—and it’s told with a jolting specificity.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1548303/

Pietro Marcello’s elegant, mysterious and moving film tells an epic love story from the ancient Italian port city of Genoa. Underneath his tough skin, the rugged but photogenic Enzo is a kindhearted man who dreams of a home in the country with “puppies, ducks, a pond, an orchard to tend” and Mary, the love of his life. Enzo and Mary met decades ago in prison. When Mary was released, she moved to a small neighborhood and waited patiently for Enzo, along the way exchanging secret audio tapes and letters. As this incredible Italian chant d'amor unfolds, Marcello artfully incorporates a gorgeous array of archival footage from Genoa's rich history, along with some breathtaking modern-day 35mm recreations and a sweeping orchestral score. (CB)
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/la_bocca_del_lupo/

Imagine discovering that your long-dead mother was a prostitute or your ex-dentist a Nazi. Justin Strawhand's fresh and insightful adaptation of the Edwin Black book of the same name takes us back to the early 1900s, when scientist Charles Davenport was developing his theories on selective breeding, which set the groundwork for the American eugenics movement. Using creepy elements straight out of classic science fiction, Strawhand boldly illustrates the eerie links between Davenport's famous followers — including the Carnegies and Rockefellers — and Adolf Hitler. War Against the Weak is both a hugely unsettling history lesson, and a morbidly fascinating one. (CB)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1377395/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

Shelby, a bright, young, Christian woman calls Lubbock, Texas home — where boys will be boys, pastors will be righteous, and the teen gonnorhea rate will eclipse the national average. When she decides to spearhead a campaign to bring nonsecular sex education to Lubbock high schools, Shelby finds herself in they eye of a complex storm. Negotiating a mix of politics, morality, and personal discovery, she remains an irrepressible champion of the underdog. This funny portrait of a sometimes frightening town, an endearing family, and a comically stubborn opposition, Education teaches volumes about the one topic American can't not talk about enough.

n the absurdist comedy Red Chapel, Mads Brügger conned his way into North Korea. Now he raises the stakes in this satirical romp through an Africa where everything can be bought and sold, a continent that remains a pillager’s heaven. Flying into the “lawless” Central African Republic—which he calls the “appendix” to the Congo’s heart of darkness—Brügger passes himself off as a Liberian diplomat. He then proceeds to mix business and statesmanship in bewildering ways. In 97 hysterically, harrowingly amoral minutes, Brügger buddies up to sketchy conspirators, assisted by a local fixer and a European secretary. While more typical documentary investigations of corruption prove to be earnest at best, Brügger’s razor-sharp wit slices a new, blackly comic path through the little-understood underworld of international affairs. “As they say in diplomacy,” Brügger remarks, “if you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu.” (PS)

When three intrepid film students decide to try and make a documentary about game poachers in Norway, they hope to come away with a story that will reveal who has been illegally shooting bear and other woodland animals. What they stumble across spirals beyond their imagination to include a sprawling government cover-up and a mysterious man reluctant to reveal his occupation. In his second feature, director Ovredal displays a creative touch and a keen sense of storytelling - the narrative of TROLL HUNTER manages to find moments both comedic and terrifying in this story that defies our assumptions about both nature and science. In the end, Troll Hunter serves as a shocking reminder that there are still corners of our world that remain unexplored.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1740707/

It's hard to imagine a film that better fits the true/false dichotomy than this Israeli hybrid, in which writer-director Ari Folman weaves together investigative journalism, personal essay and contemporary Middle Eastern history with startling, often surrealistic animated imagery. Inspired by his own repressed memories of Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon, which he participated in as a 19-year-old foot soldier, Folman spins a mind-bending, soulful and compelling tale of war, memory, trauma and lost innocence. The story follows Folman as he revisits the invasion, which culminates with a terrifying massacre in a Lebanese refugee camp. Waltz's voiceover is grounded in fact, comprised of real interviews with Folman's buddies, as well as with politicians and historians, but the imagery is otherworldly: rabid dogs rampaging through Tel Aviv; a bosomy green sea goddess carrying a seasick soldier across troubled waters. Vivid, provocative and innovative, this example of new-form war journalism — an Oscar nominee and most honored film of 2008 — pushes the outer limits of documentary filmmaking to unforgettable effect. (JS)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1185616/?ref_=sr_1

A bored teenage girl plays with fire while a former school mistress skips town on a cocaine binge. A snakebitten opera singer gorges on cow food as infant mortality rates skyrocket. And did we mention the suicides? A spellbinding, demented twist on the historical documentary genre, Wisconsin Death Trip catalogues a decade of life in Black River Falls, Wisconsin. Utilizing town newspaper clippings, police accounts, journal entries and records from the Mendota Asylum for the Insane, director James Marsh presents a series of bizarre, sad and sometimes funny tales from 1890s America. Marsh's recreations – filmed on location in crisp black-and-white – are hypnotic, and his calm sense of pacing breathtaking. Inspired by Michael Lesy's cult classic coffee table book of the same name, Wisconsin Death Trip marks the cinematic breakthrough of a master storyteller.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0210389/

Daring, provocative, and even highly objectionable to some, Czech Dream has caused a stir in festivals around the world. It follows two film students — the directors Filip Remunda and Vít Klusák — who use a government grant to promote the opening of a big-box supermarket offering impossibly low prices. Their marketing machine goes into overdrive: catchy jingles are commissioned, glossy flyers are handed out, billboards get erected. Only catch was that the store was entirely fictitious, and nothing much existed at its advertised location: in a meadow outside Prague. The resulting scandal is alternately hilarious and discomfiting. An original, cheeky treatise on capitalism, with more than a whiff of exploitation, Czech Dream offers a penetrating look at how marketers and politicians vie for our hearts, minds, and pocketbooks.

The game of chess has for centuries ensnared men’s minds in its seemingly bottomless complexities. But no one seems to have lost himself in it more completely than Bobby Fischer. From the age of seven, he devoted himself to its study completely. Bobby’s unmatched obsessive genius allowed him to singlehandedly challenge the brute force of the Soviet chess machine. He became the game’s first rock star, only to lapse into isolation, paranoia, and misanthropy. Liz Garbus’s high energy film recreates the excitement that surrounded Fischer’s matches and the madness that followed. Interviewees from both within and without the chess world try multiple approaches to cracking the Fischer enigma. In the end the only thing about Bobby that is certain is the ultimate fruits of his genius: a brief, momentous victory and a protracted, harrowing defeat. Plays with "Donut Shop" (dir. Alex Jablonski and Michael Totten, 5 min.) an evocative slice of life, in which Fischer's lost children keep the old master's spirit alive, all night long. Sponsored by the World Chess Hall of Fame and Museum.(DS)
http://www.hbo.com/documentaries/bobby-fischer-against-the-world/index.html

It makes all the sense in the world that Jamie Jay Johnson studied under Kim Longinotto. There's something effortless yet incredibly powerful in his ability to put his subjects at ease and quickly move past their public masks to find truths both funny and shocking. That Johnson chooses, in his debut feature, to tell the stories of pre-teen contestants in Europe's biggest pop music competition is, well, entirely appropriate. Like the young, would-be pop stars of the Junior Eurovision Song Contest, Jamie is all energy and enthusiasm behind the camera, propelling his story forward at a vertiginous speed — turning sequins and day-glo into blurs of pure energy. But, as always, it's the kids who make the movie — and I dare you to remain unmoved by their heart-on-sleeve drive to be the biggest little pop stars in Europe. (DW)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1039638/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

Svetlana Geier is considered the world’s preeminent translator of Russian literature into German. She is an indomitable 85-year-old, frail yet charismatic and luminous. The 5 elephants in the title refer to Dostoevsky’s five great novels, all of which Geier has translated. She continues to translate, fascinated by the onion like quality of Dostoevsky’s work, of the “story within the story.” Vadim Jendreyko’s beautifully shot film teases out the story within the story of Geier’s meticulous, precise world. She inhabits the space of her home in the same measured way that she inhabits her texts, noticing everything. Jendreyko journeys with her as she takes her first trip back to her birthplace in the Ukraine since WW2. Geier worked as a translator for the Nazi occupiers during the war and is honest about the fact that she owes her life to the Germans while also acknowledging the horrors of Babi Yar. Jendreyko’s film doesn’t shy away from big truths but it is in the small details that the film really comes alive. Geier talks about the threads in the linens she is ironing with the same quiet intensity that she talks about the work of translation – and you are left hypnotized.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1510726/

Jem Cohen is unmatched in the world of personal filmmaking. Constantly shooting, mostly in Super8 and 16mm film, he snatches beautiful compositions from the midst of the mundane. He has collaborated with others on two features (Benjamin Smoke with Peter Sillen and Instrument with the band Fugazi), but Chain marks his first feature-length solo effort. Blurring boundaries between doc and narrative, Chain challenges viewer expectations and is unmatched in the strength of its unique visual style. The plot follows two women, one a Japanese office worker doing research on theme parks, the other a teenage runaway living clandestinely inside a mall. Although the locations seem uniform, the film was shot in seven cities around the world and functions less as an indictment of global homogenization than an attempt to come to terms with the structures and terrain of our late-capitalist era.

When George W. Bush opted to override the United Nations and invade Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello, the UN's High Commissioner for Human Rights, responded in stark language: "No one can predict the human costs of this war." Transmuting Samantha Power's book Chasing the Flame, Greg Barker reminds us how war robs us not just human lives, but of human potential. Barker uses powerful imagery and testimony to tells us the story of de Mello, the man who best represented the hope, promise and idealism of a new Iraq, and the devastating realities that swamped them. Having transformed impossible UN missions in Cambodia, East Timor and Kosovo into success stories, de Mello arrived in Iraq with the world's most impressive peace-building resume and a reputation as articulate, charismatic, fearless "magician" who could work with anyone. But on August 19, 2003, the impossibility of UN's mission in Iraq — a diplomatic black hole — became tragically clear. Sponsored by the University of Missouri in Columbia. (JS)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1333656/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

There’s nary a paintbrush to be seen in this document of the Chinese dissident Ai Weiwei, named by ArtReview as the most influential artist in the world. Ai’s big-concept projects include a room filled with tens of millions of hand-painted faux sunflower seeds, crafted out of porcelain; the phenomenal Bird’s Nest, the Olympic stadium in Beijing; and a spreadsheet documenting each of the more than five thousand students buried alive in shoddy public buildings after the 2008 Sichuan earthquake. Whether tweeting an upraised middle finger to Chinese officials, getting beaten by police, or spelling out a poem with five thousand backpacks on the front of a Munich museum, Ai transmutes protest into a mind-expanding, heartfelt, and sometimes brutally funny form of expression. With perseverance and a steady hand, director Alison Klayman captures the passion and commitment of the man who best represents a China at war with its conscience. Presented by the University of Missouri (JS)

Self-reflexive to the max, this is the Moroccan street kid version of Synecdoche, New York. Filmmaker Oliver Laxe runs a film workshop for the kids, and along the way makes his own film, using them as actors, or documenting their journey. The film is deliciously unclear about this matter the whole way through. Ultimately "Captains" is a film about authority, agency, making a film, making a life, and so much more. Augmenting the strong thematic thrust of the film is frequently gorgeous black & white 35mm cinematography that makes this a pleasure to watch. Chock-a-block with rich and resonant scenes, it climaxes with an ending that will give you a lump in your throat.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1646984/

It's like something out of a movie. Bobby Dukes was the king of the paintball underground. Many consider him the best to ever play the game, but none of that mattered when, 10 years ago, he was caught "wiping" — the paintball equivalent of a mortal sin. But after years away from the sport, Dukes has come back and he's wants to put together a new team. The only problem is, few players will speak to him, much less join his team. Featuring Rob Corddry in a rare departure from his journalistic work on the Daily Show, this film opens the audience up to an often overlooked sport and the intense competition it fosters. And Dukes himself is a revelation, the sort of complex blend of machismo and sensitivity that would probably have had to be invented if he didn't already exist.

Among the many fruits of our digital filmmaking revolution is an explosion in regional documentary filmmaking. No filmmaker represents this better than SS Blue's director, who has steeped his universally appealing in the specificities of his native Oklahoma. Now he turns his focus to Behind the Walls Rodeo, an annual cowpoke event featuring inmates — including women — as they wrestle calves and ride ferocious broncs. Untrained for this potentially fatal sport, but game for anything that offers temporary escape from their cells, these prisoners risk everything to entertain the general public. While following, Spellbound-style, the training-for-the-big-day action, the director offers opportunities to reflect on our society's oft-vicious attitudes towards criminals. One man hopes he sees a bull gore one of the inmates; others roar after convict rises from the dirt, face filled with blood. The director's camera gently records the inmates' stories, humanizing them. Still, the world outside remains hostile. (JS)

After the fall of the Taliban in Afghanistan, many Western aid organizations moved in to help repair the war-torn country. Amidst the more traditional efforts of food and supplies, one relief attempt stood out — a team of American cosmetologists, sponsored by beauty-product manufacturers, attempted to open the first Western-style beauty school since the rule of the Taliban. With energy and enthusiasm they work to teach Afghani women the trade and give them a new way of looking at themselves and others. The culture clash that ensues isn't surprising, but Mermin is never content to let the movie rest on the obvious. Waves of American (and Australian) teachers that pass through are as changed by the experience as the students and our assumptions about the effort are constantly confounded. The movie is full of laughs and vitality, but it's also, in the end, a surprisingly nuanced look at a new era of Western global influence.

John Zielinski is the "most blacklisted author in the history of Iowa," a tireless freelance investigative reporter with a passion for exposing the human traffickers, pedophiles, drug dealers and satanists who lurk among us. (Coincidentally, Zielinski and the filmmakers literally lurk among us: they've called Columbia home for many years.) Zielinski musters all his resources in this fight, producing videos, appearing on local access television and before city councils, and eagerly urging his message before any that will listen. To some this may seem easy to dismiss, but his story is deeper, more varied, and sensitively textured than it first appears. Directors Chase Thompson and Ryan Walker tell his story with an open mind and a nonjudgmental eye, helped by an eerie, low-fi aesthetic and an original score from local musician Mark Speckman. T/F welcomes the film and directors home from a recent, well-deserved appearance at the Slamdance festival in Park City, Utah; Zielinski is even further evidence of the thriving talent pool in our own backyard. Plays with Very Nice, Very Nice (dir. Arthur Lipsett, 1961, 7 min.), minute for minute one of the most influential films of all time, a groundbreaking montage that rocked both Stanley Kubrick and George Lucas.

Zielinski: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1766208/
Very Nice, Very Nice: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0055594/