Behind the Smoke

Surviving 9/11

August 2021 •English

9/11 was perhaps the defining historical event of the postwar era. Broadcast live around the world like horrifying theatre, it was a moment in history imprinted onto people's memories. But what was it like to actually live through, and how easy is it to move on from a day that society wants to go on remembering? Twenty years on, this film brings together 13 ordinary people who were caught in an event they weren't able to fully comprehend at the time and which they are still working through.

9/11 Firehouse

September 2013 •English

Documentary film recounting the story of Ten House, the fire station right next to the World Trade Center, and the experiences of its firefighters on 9/11

Prisoners of Fire

March 2025 •English

June 26,1990, the Dude Fire rages across Zane Gray country in the towering ponderosa forests below the Mogollon Rim in Central Arizona, killing five prison crew members and a female supervisor on her first fire. Follow along with the survivors and firefighters as they share their experience as inmate firefighters and their harrowing story of courage, loss and redemption.

The last horse-drawn fire engines in Copenhagen

January 1924 •Danish

La regla de Gala

February 2024 •Spanish

Gala is preparing for the firefighter exam when she gets her period accompanied by severe menstrual pain. Together with her father Alfonso, they must figure out how to manage the situation.

The Fire Triangle

March 1962 •English

"The Fire Triangle" presents different types of fires (electrical, chemical, etc.) and firefighting techniques, while exploring the "triangle" conception of fire, consisting of heat, fuel and oxygen. Shot in Los Angeles with the cooperation of the LAFD, it dates to 1962.

Every Tom, Dick and Urpo

September 2023 •Finnish

A letter, received by the Finnish National Radio’s phone-in program, hopes that in this era of #metoo and many other well-meaning campaigns, attention will be drawn to an unpleasant phenomenon, the use of the name Urpo as a synonym for idiot. In this warm-hearted and humorous documentary, four men called Urpo gather to reflect on the meaning and impact of their name on their lives. Is the use of Urpo still decent in 2023?

Germany: A Summer's Fairytale

October 2006 •German

A documentary of the German national soccer team’s 2006 World Cup experience that changed the face of modern Germany.

Riding Giants

July 2004 •English

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

Dave Chappelle's Block Party

September 2005 •English

The American comedian/actor delivers a story about the alternative Hip Hop scene. A small town Ohio mans moves to Brooklyn, New York, to throw an unprecedented block party.

42nd Street Memories: The Rise and Fall of America's Most Notorious Street

July 2015 •English

The story behind the rise and fall of New York's 42nd Street. The cinemas, the films, the people, the crime and the rebirth of the block as "New 42nd Street" - this is the document of the world's most notorious movie strip.

Rockin' at the Red Dog: The Dawn of Psychedelic Rock

July 2005 •English

This documentary pays tribute to the contributions and importance of the title watering hole in the creation of the psychedelic dancehalls that littered the West during the late '60s and helped launch such super groups as The Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane and The Quicksilver Messenger Service. Music by Big Brother and the Holding Company, and the Charlatans is also featured. The Red Dog Saloon had its genesis in 1964 when a group of free-thinking, LSD-enhanced Northern California students and young folks had a party and began thinking about starting up a saloon that would evoke the old West. They decided to build their saloon in Virginia City, Nevada, a once prosperous town that was by then nearly empty. The ambience of the saloon blended Old West sensibilities with modern psychedelia, go-go girls and plenty of illegal drugs. The film is comprised of interviews with surviving founders, actual archival footage, and even a performance of some of the musicians who appeared there.

The Eyes of Thailand

April 2012 •English

Tells the true story of one woman's quest to help two elephant landmine survivors-Motala and Baby Mosha-walk on their own four legs.

Paris à tout prix

June 2001 •French

Shot as a political thriller, this documentary in 4 acts go behind the scenes of the Parisian municipal elections of June 1999.

The Hooping Life

April 2014 •English

Learn the origins and rise of modern day hula-hooping through eight extraordinary stories of hoop devotees who have embraced it as an art form, a teaching aid, and even an instrument of redemption. From the streets, to intimate clubs, to giant arenas, we alternate between self-filmed video diaries, verité documentary footage, and spectacularly filmed performances in an attempt to celebrate the healing power of movement and the spirit of human inventiveness.

The Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players: Off & On Broadway

August 2006 •English

A documentary on the vaudevillian art-pop band.

Sniper: Bulletproof

October 2011 •English

Sniper: Bulletproof deconstructs and analyzes the little-known sniper events that have occurred when no other course of action was possible. The people who planned the takedowns, or pulled the trigger, share their techniques and bring to light the many factors that had to be considered in each mission: terrain, wind speed, temperature, elevation changes... all are critical to taking out targets considered bulletproof. A sniper has one chance, one breath, to rise to the occasion and save the day... if they miss, there may never be another opportunity. As these never told before stories unfold, the viewer also learns about the high-tech gear each sniper carries on their classified missions.

The Godmother

March 2014 •Greek

Α few years after the Fall of the Berlin Wall, an unknown physicist from Eastern Germany, who was not interested in politics, is the most powerful woman in the world. Her teacher in the small town where she grew up remembers that she was the smartest student he ever had. Those who have worked with her claim that “Merkiavelli” exercises power without moral barriers, just as Machiavelli taught. A journalist, who knows her well, claims that she uses the methods of a Mafia godmother. In 2008, the German Chancellor was asked to handle the international financial crisis. The countries of the South were placed in the test tube. “If I had to write a book on the Shock Doctrine at this moment,” says Naomi Klein, “it would be on Greece.” How did Merkel manage to impose German hegemony in Europe?

Journey to the Safest Place on Earth

October 2013 •German

Over 350,000 tons of highly radioactive waste and spent fuel rods are in temporary storage on site at nuclear power complexes and at intermediate storage sites all over the world. More than 10,000 additional tons join them every year. It is the most dangerous waste man has ever produced. Waste that requires storage in a safe final repository for hundreds of thousands of years. Out of reach of humanity and other living creatures. The question is, where? Together with Swiss-British nuclear physicist Charles McCombie, who has been searching for a safe final storage site for highly radioactive nuclear waste for thirty-five years, director Edgar Hagen investigates the limitations and contradictions involved in this project of global significance. Supporters and opponents of nuclear energy struggle for solutions whilst dogmatic worldviews are assailed by doubt

Garbage

September 1996 •English

Waste disposal through the eyes of Jimmy, a janitor who dreams of being a rock 'n' roll star.