Joe Leahy's Neighbors

Of the Unknown

December 2014 •English

A short visual meditation, OF THE UNKNOWN is set in Hong Kong where millionaires and the ‘working poor’ live side by side in one of Asia’s wealthiest and most densely populated cities. The film explores how our notions of freedom and happiness are shaped by the place we occupy, both literally and metaphorically, in our society. What is the importance of freedom when one faces a daily struggle for survival? Is it even possible to have dreams, or to dream, if one was never given any opportunities in life? https://vimeo.com/113548756

Not Black Enough

April 2017 •English

A deep look at the class warfare and the contradictions that African-Americans face within their own community when many of them are ostracized because they are “not black enough.” An analysis of the reasons behind these absurd acts of hatred.

Far from the Tree

September 2019 •English

Parents of children who have Down syndrome, dwarfism or autism share intimate stories of the challenges they face. Tracing their joys, challenges, tragedies, and triumphs.

I Am Breathing

September 2013 •English

Breathing is about the thin space between life and death. 34-year-old Neil Platt plans his own funeral, muses about the meaning of life and the impossibility of terminating a mobile phone contract. With 5 months left to live, and paralyzed from the neck down by Motor Neurone Disease, he ponders how to communicate about his life in a letter for his baby son. How can he anticipate what he might want to know about his father in a future he can only imagine?

The Tightrope

January 2009 •Spanish

Marce, his wife Adriana, his two sons, Mario and Jacqueline, and groom it, Carmelo, are the only members of Aztlan Circus, who wanders through the villages of Texcoco, north of Mexico City. The tightrope is the history of resistance in this family that persists in taking forward an old-fashioned circus because she is convinced of the importance of his art.

Our City Dreams

August 2008 •English

Filmed over the course of two years, Our City Dreams is the story of a woman's struggles and successes as an artist in New York City. Told through five women artists, from youngest to oldest, the film features Swoon, Ghada Amer, Kiki Smith, Marina Abramovic, and Nancy Spero. From the studio to the streets of New York, from the canals of Venice to the alleys of Cairo and the beaches of Phuket, Our City Dreams takes us deep into the artists' worlds.

Criança, a Alma do Negócio

January 2008 •Portuguese

Filmmaker Estela Renner analyzes the effects that mass media and advertising have on children, showing how the industry discovered that they are the best targets for selling products. In addition to listening to them, the film talks to parents who report how influential their children are at home and how this is directly linked to advertisements, and experts debate the negative effects of this exposure.

Baby, It's You

January 1998 •English

Six adult siblings and the vicissitudes of fertility, infertility, and the desire - met and unmet - for a baby. Focusing on one couple's attempt to become pregnant, and the inevitable highs and lows of a year of hope and disappointment.

The Drift Back

January 1957 •English

The first in a series of films for the Rural Cinema Scheme in the Orkneys, it records the return to the island of Wyre of Neil Flaws, a farmer, and his family at a time when the drift from the northern isles of the Orkneys was of concern to some Orcadians.

Princes Street Edinburgh

January 1955 •English

A short piece of film recording general views of Edinburgh's Princes Street in the 1950s.

Vital Signs

January 1991 •English

In “Vital Signs” (1991), Barbara Hammer demonstratively transforms the horror of death into its opposite. She tenderly cares for a human skeleton, feeding it, dressing and caressing it, taking it for walks in the dark cabaret of an intimate relationship beyond death. She confronts pain and fear rather than repressing them.

Research and Crime: the Reich University of Strasbourg

June 2018 •German

Strasbourg was home to one of three Reich Universities founded by the Nazis, known as a project close to Hitler's heart. The university, founded in 1941, is infamous for the human experiments performed on KZ prisoners by the professors of the medical faculty. What did its dean, Johannes Stein, grandfather of documentarian Kirsten Esch, know of these crimes?

My Beautiful Broken Brain

November 2014 •English

A profoundly personal voyage into the complexity, fragility and wonder of the human brain, after Lotje Sodderland miraculously survives a hemorrhagic stroke and finds herself starting again in an alien world, bereft of language and logic. This feature documentary takes us on a genre-twisting tale that is by turns excruciating and exquisite - from the devastating consequences of a first-time neurological experiment, through to the extraordinary revelations of her altered sensory perception.

Murder Games: The Life and Death of Breck Bednar

January 2016 •English

Murder Games tells the true story of Breck Bednar, the 14 year-old schoolboy who was lured to his death after being groomed online by Lewis Daynes.

Yarn

March 2016 •English

The traditional crafts of crochet and knitting have become one of the hottest movements in modern art. We follow a few International artists and knitters as they bring yarn to the streets and into our lives in new ways. Starting in Iceland, this quirky and thought-provoking film takes us on a colourful and global journey as we discover how yarn connects us all.

Zidane, un destin d'exception

November 2007 •French

Justice

May 2004 •Portuguese

In Justiça, Maria Ramos puts a camera where many Brazilians have never been – a criminal courtroom in Rio de Janeiro, following the daily routine of several characters. There are those that work there every day (public attorneys, judges, and prosecutors) and those that are merely passing through (the accused).

New Wave

October 2024 •English

An endearingly nostalgic exploration of the defiant Vietnamese new wave music scene, as well as a vulnerable and personal look at the filmmaker and her community’s revisiting of their unexamined past.

Yuma Crossing

January 1990 •English

The story of the Yuma Crossing, the place where centuries of travelers crossed the Colorado River as told in a series of reenacted vignettes by colorful characters from the Quechan tribe, the conquistadores, Father Kino, Olive Oatman and others up until the first bridge was built in the 1920's.

Children of Wind River

October 1989 •English

A film made by Victress Hitchcock and Ava Hamilton in 1989 on the Wind River Reservation for Wyoming Public Television.