Movies Like Swinging Light

heroes

2020

Displaying the faces and voices of transgender youth, the documentary short shows the authenticity of queer and trans people living in Toronto, while simultaneously discussing the struggles for self-acceptance that people who do not conform to cisgender and heteronormative ideals of gender face. Andy Nguyen, trans director and film student, captures his trans friends in their natural state on 16mm film shot on a Bolex h16 camera. Accompanied by narration written and recited by Salem Rao, this film represents that trans people exist and this is what we look like. Regardless of the obvious everyday transphobia, trans people find community and uniqueness within each other and themselves.

The Magic Bond

1956

The Veterans of Foreign Wars as a fraternal and social organization, with emphasis on their projects that benefit community life and cohesion.

Cephalopods: The Reign of Suckers

2020

Piper

2016

A mother bird tries to teach her little one how to find food by herself. In the process, she encounters a traumatic experience that she must overcome in order to survive.

Far from the Tree

2021

On an idyllic beach in the Pacific Northwest, curiosity gets the better of a young raccoon whose frustrated parent attempts to keep them both safe.

Alien Sharks: Strange New Worlds

2023

Forrest Galante explores stunning kelp forests and ocean depths never seen by humans to study the unusual sharks around the tip of South Africa.

Koyaanisqatsi

1983

Takes us to locations all around the US and shows us the heavy toll that modern technology is having on humans and the earth. The visual tone poem contains neither dialogue nor a vocalized narration: its tone is set by the juxtaposition of images and the exceptional music by Philip Glass.

The Fire Within: A Requiem for Katia and Maurice Krafft

2024

Filmmaker Werner Herzog combs through the film archives of volcanologists Katia and Maurice Krafft to create a film that celebrates their legacy.

Riding Giants

2004

Riding Giants is story about big wave surfers who have become heroes and legends in their sport. Directed by the skateboard guru Stacy Peralta.

The Irishman: In Conversation

2019

Martin Scorsese, Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci, and Al Pacino in conversation about The Irishman.

Powaqqatsi

1988

An exploration of technologically developing nations and the effect the transition to Western-style modernization has had on them.

Hitchcock/Truffaut

2015

Filmmakers discuss the legacy of Alfred Hitchcock and the book “Hitchcock/Truffaut” (“Le cinéma selon Hitchcock”), written by François Truffaut and published in 1966.

Destino

2003

Short film to a song of love lost and rediscovered, a woman sees and undergoes surreal transformations. Her lover's face melts off, she dons a dress from the shadow of a bell and becomes a dandelion, ants crawl out of a hand and become Frenchmen riding bicycles. Not to mention the turtles with faces on their backs that collide to form a ballerina, or the bizarre baseball game.

Behind the Planet of the Apes

1998

Roddy McDowall takes you, film by film, from production meetings to make-up sessions, then right onto the movie set to see the actual filming of the science fiction masterpiece. The most comprehensive history of Planet of the Apes ever created, this fascinating 127-minute documentary explores one of the most imaginative and influential series in movie history.

Die fünf Geparde - Gemeinsam durch die Serengeti

2019

Fajr

2019

In the Moroccan desert night dilutes forms and silence slides through sand. Dawn starts then to draw silhouettes of dunes while motionless figures punctuate landscape. From night´s abstraction, light returns its dimension to space and their volume to bodies. Stillness concentrates gaze and duration densify it. The adhan -muslim call to pray- sounds and immobility, that was condensing, begins to irradiate. And now the bodies are those which dissolves into the desert.

Capturing Avatar

2010

Capturing Avatar is a feature length behind-the-scenes documentary about the making of Avatar. It uses footage from the film's development, as well as stock footage from as far back as the production of Titanic in 1995. Also included are numerous interviews with cast, artists, and other crew members. The documentary was released as a bonus feature on the extended collector's edition of Avatar.

Voyage of Time: The IMAX Experience

2016

A celebration of the universe, displaying the whole of time, from its start to its final collapse. This film examines all that occurred to prepare the world that stands before us now: science and spirit, birth and death, the grand cosmos and the minute life systems of our planet.