Frontier University Dreams

MIAU

July 2022 •Portuguese

1968 - Without Losing Tenderness

May 2001 •Portuguese

The story of the University of Brasília, since it was only a project in Darcy Ribeiro's head until the fateful events in August 1968 when its campus was invaded by the police, during the military dictatorship, thus putting an end to its independence.

American Animals

June 2018 •English

Lexington, Kentucky, 2004. Four young men attempt to execute one of the most audacious art heists in the history of the United States.

The Hunting Ground

February 2015 •English

A startling expose of rape crimes on US campuses, their institutional cover-ups, and the devastating toll they take on students and their families. The film follows the lives of several undergraduate assault survivors as they attempt to pursue—despite incredible push back, harassment and traumatic aftermath—both their education and justice.

Sparni

December 2023 •English

It’s the second semester of junior year for Pierce “Sparni” Sparnroft, a gifted jazz vibraphonist studying at Montclair State University in New Jersey. Sparni’s prospects on the vibes were rejuvenated by their new professor, the world-renowned Steve Nelson, and are to be showcased during a student-driven recital in May 2023. But all the while, Sparni must face a crisis within.

Euller Miller Between Two Worlds

June 2018 •Portuguese

Euller Miller is a young native Brazilian of kaiwá ethnicity who leaves his small village just outside of Dourados (MS) to study dentistry at a public university in the crowded capital city of the state of Paraná. The film follows the complex transition between two very different worlds and the search for new horizons without abandoning his indigenous roots.

Crisis: Behind a Presidential Commitment

October 1963 •English

During a two-day period before and after the University of Alabama integration crisis, the film uses five camera crews to follow President John F. Kennedy, attorney general Robert F. Kennedy, Alabama governor George Wallace, deputy attorney general Nicholas Katzenbach and the students Vivian Malone and James Hood. As Wallace has promised to personally block the two black students from enrolling in the university, the JFK administration discusses the best way to react to it, without rousing the crowd or making Wallace a martyr for the segregationist cause. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with The Film Foundation in 1999.

We, Students!

February 2022 •French

Nestor, Aaron, Benjamin and Rafiki are economics undergraduates at the University of Bangui. Navigating between the overcrowded classrooms, the petty trades that allow students to survive, bribery lurking everywhere, Rafiki shows us what students lives are like in the Central African Republic, a shattered society where the youth keeps dreaming for a brighter future for their country.

State of Exception

May 2007 •Portuguese

Estado de Excepção is a documentary about CITAC (Coimbra Theater Initiation Circle), a university theater group, revealing history since it was constituted in 1956 until the aftermath of the 1974 revolution. It is the history of the theater group university and, through it, the history of theater in Portugal, revealing two remarkable decades of the History of Portugal. Through the Academy of Coimbra, the documentary reproduces student life, the position of women in society, and the change in mentalities of being and being in the world. It reproduces the existing censorship and the fight against the dictatorship, the resistance to an exhausted regime, as well as the emerging contradictions of the democratic revolution. CITAC has a heritage of 50 years of experience in Coimbra. It carries with it the possibility of the theatrical and civic formation of thinking bodies, constituting a proper ball of a possible model, generation by generation, between studies, theater, and social drama.

Playboy: College Girls

February 1994 •English

Year in, year out, Playboy magazine's college pictorials are a big hit. Now, for the first time ever, our course in collegiate beauty comes to video with some of the most beautiful student bodies in the nation.

Final Score

January 2007 •Thai

In this documentary, four boys spend their senior year of high school studying for college-entrance exams that only one in five students will pass.

Aberdeen

January 1970 •English

Explore the growth of Aberdeen’s sparkling streets.

The Great Learning

July 2021 •Chinese

At Tsinghua University's campus, four people are standing at the intersection of their lives. Among them, there are those who just passed the college entrance examination, the first-generation of post-00 college students who entered their favorite universities with twists and turns , some are leaving their ivory towers, PhD graduates facing difficult choices and some have returned from the United States to enter Tsinghua University. Young teachers are full of "viewing the sky" ideal but face challenges, there are old academicians who still stand behind lectern after their retirement. The film tells the life ideals of the four Tsinghua people and the eternal youth that belongs to this university behind them.

Near Light

October 2023 •English

A young man, convicted murderer, has a chance of redemption when he enters the best Italian university of economics, going back and forth from prison to university every day.

Clio Capers

March 1948 •English

"Clio Capers" is a short film about the Clio Club, the Latin club James Blue belonged to at Jefferson High School in Portland, Oregon. The film features "Jupiter" and his fellow immortals atop Mt. Olympus looking back through the "Clio scrapbook," actual home movie footage James Blue shot of club activities between 1946-1948. Originally shot on 8mm film. No sound.

The Night in IV Chapters

April 2023 •Indonesian

A group of students surround their beloved campus. But what they did was unnatural. In general, other people will surround the campus in the afternoon or evening, but they will circle the campus at night, to be more precise, starting at 11 pm. There are various things that they find while circling their beloved campus…

Tell Them We Are Rising: The Story of Black Colleges and Universities

January 2017 •English

A haven for Black intellectuals, artists and revolutionaries—and path of promise toward the American dream—Black colleges and universities have educated the architects of freedom movements and cultivated leaders in every field. They have been unapologetically Black for 150 years. For the first time ever, their story is told.

At Berkeley

November 2013 •English

Direct cinema pioneer Frederick Wiseman takes an in-depth look at the preeminent American university during a fall semester that saw a vigorous debate taking place over tuition hikes, budget cuts, and the future of higher education in the United States.

The Thinnest Line

June 2022 •Catalan

A fist-person story of the director of the documentary, who talks about the loneliness that entails living with an eating disorder and her vision now thar she is entering into adulthood.

Four Years of Solitude

June 2023 •English

A written testimony by co-director Jin Ryoo on his experience preparing for Korean compulsory military service is juxtaposed with images of an empty UCSD campus, the desolate construction sites sprawling off of it, and the Mt. Soledad Veterans Memorial.