Films

Biotech breakthroughs edge ever closer to making extended human lifespans a reality. This enlightening documentary surveys this thriving landscape while examining the quality of a long life through the poignant stories of a tight-knit group of Maine residents.

This energetic documentary explores the cultural impact of the iconic American Girl doll brand that shaped generations of Americans in the ’80s, ’90s, and early 2000s. Featuring an exclusive, rare interview with founder Pleasant Rowland.

Academy Award®-winning director Ron Howard explores the life and legacy of photographer Richard Avedon, revealing the private artist behind the iconic images that transformed fashion, celebrity, and American culture.

Masters of creative nonfiction with their melancholic tales on one-of-a-kind traditions and communities, Michael Dweck and Gregory Kershaw beautifully portray the layered aromas and aftertastes of the Burgundy region with sophisticated finesse.

The fascinating documentary reveals the man behind the legend of cosmologist Carl Sagan, the man who was for many the face of space exploration, scientific inquiry, and insatiable curiosity.

Through intimate camerawork shaped with the narrative tension of a crime thriller, Michał Marczak’s award-winning film follows a father’s relentless pursuit along Poland’s Vistula River to find his missing son.

A group of teenagers brimming with cinephile passion plunges into a sea of adventure when they begin making films in their small Nigerian village and found a collective, The Critics, that gains international traction and support.

Joanna Natasegara’s wildly entertaining documentary is essentially two films in one, the story of the Wu-Tang Clan’s notorious (and notoriously rare) 2015 album Once Upon a Time in Shaolin and the man behind it, Dutch Moroccan rapper/producer Cilvaringz.

On the morning of Eid, the detention of two longtime residents sparks an unexpected response from a Glasgow neighborhood, setting the stage for a historic day of resistance. 
-MICHELLE SVENSON

Fed-up communities in Louisiana and Appalachia's Rust Belt find themselves thrust into an unlikely role—that of accidental activists—as they take on factory polluters and fracking practices that have had devastating effects on the health of their friends and families.

Filmed over 25 years, this prize-winning documentary casts a tender and fearless eye over the lives of two inseparable cousins, Guillermina and Belinda, as they grow up in the rural Argentine Pampas.

An unlikely setting for a groundswell of talent and creativity, Cameroon’s overcrowded New Bell Prison reveals incarcerated artists whose extraordinary music, dance, and performance may just offer a chance at redemption.

Jean-Michel Basquiat burned brightly in his 27 years—and still does in a legacy both artistic and personal reflected in this touching and funny documentary centered around reminiscences by the painter’s surviving sisters, Lisane and Jeanine.

Deep in the breathtaking rainforests of Indonesia, an existential battle rages: vegetable oil production versus the planet’s future. This visually stunning, emotionally unsettling documentary captures the passion and purpose of native people battling multinational corporations to save their home.

Fifteen years after her landmark documentary Miss Representation, Jennifer Siebel Newsom returns to confront the ways social media, AI, and online misogyny are weaponized against girls, threatening the future of the next generation of female leaders.

Veteran documentary filmmaker Alex Gibney presents a dispassionate, mesmerizingly complex, and terrifying portrait of Elon Musk, taking as inspiration the billionaire’s musing that contemporary reality might be a computer simulation and video game.

Forced to flee their own country, independent Russian journalists continue to chronicle Putin’s war on free speech—and Ukraine—in this equally vivid follow-up to Julie Loktev’s acclaimed 2024 documentary.

Produced by Jonathan Glazer (Zone of Interest), directors Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor’s (No Other Land) documentary offers an unprecedented, unflinching view of Israel’s war on Gaza from the perspectives of those who carry out lethal air strikes.

A stellar thriller built entirely from restored archival footage, Odyssey plunges us into the fateful Apollo 13 mission through the perspective of astronaut Jim Lovell—offering a moving reflection on the first Space Race just as a new one begins.

Five decades after director William Greaves invited the surviving members of the Harlem Renaissance to Duke Ellington’s apartment to debate their movement’s legacy, Greaves’ son David completes his father’s passion project documenting a wealth of brilliant personality and bracing ideas.

Songwriter/guitarist Pete Townshend and singer Roger Daltrey add valuable insights to this energetic documentary that relates the history of The Who and Lifehouse, the ambitious, Townshend-penned rock opera that was supposed to follow Tommy.

A mother’s grief becomes a fight for justice when Lorena Gutiérrez takes her daughter’s story to Mexico’s highest halls of power, refusing to let Fátima’s memory disappear.

Nearly a half-century of Iranian political repression and resistance unfolds through one family’s experience, illustrated by home movies and other archival materials in this highly personal documentary from expatriate Pegah Ahangarani.

MVFF partners with CalArts, UC Santa Cruz, UCLA, California College of the Arts, and CSU Long Beach for a stellar showcase of animated work directed by female and nonbinary filmmakers. This selection features films reflecting family, friendship, life, death, and cultural identity.

Protagonists assert their power and try to rewrite the narrative against powerful forces they face in these short films that include documentaries about the environment and civil rights, as well as Maggie Gyllenhaal’s revisionist history of Marilyn Monroe.

Witty, erudite documentary filmmaker Mark Cousins offers a monumental history of the genre, from cinema’s earliest day through to our own era, a lyrical journey that also acts as an epic memory poem about the modern world.

Sean Ono Lennon’s intimate doc follows the co-founders of the NYC fashion collective threeASFOUR as they pursue unity, collaboration, and creative freedom through avant-garde couture designs worn by icons like Björk, Chloë Sevigny, and Meredith Monk.

Legendary documentary filmmaker Barbara Kopple completes the workers’ trilogy she began 50 years ago with this vivid, on-the-ground look at often rancorous labor struggles in the era of delivery apps and the gig economy.

Bay Area poet, educator, and community activist Amber Allen-Peirson turns the camera on her own life in this deeply moving quest for belonging that blends personal archival footage and vérité moments with a bold poetic narration.

Former lawyer and veteran documentarian Dawn Porter revisits the case of the Harlem Park Three, whose wrongful convictions as teenagers led to 36 years behind bars and exposed profound failures within the American justice system.

Memories of one man’s literal and figurative trip to Chiapas accompanied by his brother and a bag of magic mushrooms soaked in honey.

Environmental activist Gabi Paun risks his life to expose illegal logging in Romania’s ancient forests, taking on timber mafias and IKEA while revealing the hidden cost of the world’s appetite for cheap furniture.