Solid Ground

Farmsteaders

April 2018 •English

Clear-eyed and intimate, Farmsteaders follows Nick Nolan and his young family on a journey to resurrect his late grandfather’s dairy farm as agriculture moves toward large-scale farming. A study of place and persistence, Farmsteaders points an honest and tender lens at everyday life in rural America, offering an unexpected voice for a forsaken people: those who grow the food that sustains us.

American Teen

July 2008 •English

A documentary on seniors at a high school in a small Indiana town and their various cliques.

My Life Inside

January 2007 •Spanish

Rosa is a Mexican woman who, at the age of 17, migrated illegally to Austin, Texas. Some years later, she was jailed under suspicion of murder and then taken to trial. This film demonstrates how the judicial process, the verdict, the separation from her family, and the helplessness of being imprisoned in a foreign country make Rosa’s story an example of the hard life of Mexican migrants in the United States.

Los posibles

April 2013 •Spanish

Santiago Mitre co-directs his first movement following The Student together with choreographer Onofri Barbato. Although it would have been more accurate to say “his first film-story-adventure-movie-great movie following The Student”, the word movement fits perfectly in Los posibles, the most overwhelmingly kinetic work Argentine cinema has delivered in many, many years. The film deals with the adaptation of a dance show directed by Onofri together with a group of teenagers who came to Casa La Salle, a center of social integration located in González Catán, trying to find some refuge from hardship. Already entitled Los posibles, the piece opened in the La Plata Tacec and was later staged in the AB Hall of the San Martín Cultural Center. Now, it dazzles audiences out of a film screen, with extraordinary muscles and a huge heart: Los posibles is a rhapsody of roughen bodies and torn emotions. Precise and exciting, it’s our own delayed, necessary, and incandescent West Side Story.

#BKKY

August 2017 •Thai

Jojo, a 17-year-old girl from Bangkok, is about to graduate from high school. After her friend Q reveals a secret to her, the two girls grow close and spend all their time together. Jojo's father wholeheartedly approves of the friendship and is just glad that Jojo is not going on any dates with boys.

Lost for Life

June 2013 •English

A documentary about juveniles who are serving life in prison without parole and their victims' families.

Maineland

March 2017 •English

Chinese teenagers from the wealthy elite, with big American dreams, settle into a boarding school in small-town Maine. As their fuzzy visions of the American dream slowly gain more clarity, their relationship to home takes on a poignant new aspect.

Diary of a Teenage Nudist

December 2004 •English

Documentary from the point of view of a now 18 year old girl who grew up in a nudist colony.

Cow

January 2022 •English

A close-up portrait of the daily lives of a pair of cows: told by way of some narrative-free, intimate POV photography, with plenty of close shot images, we follow the daily routine of these animals as they live what can only be described as mundane, boring lives - all with an ultimate purpose within the human food chain.

Hinterkaifeck - Die wahre Geschichte hinter Tannöd

November 2009 •German

Still today, people say that during the stormy night from March 31st to April 1st, 1922, the devil had come to Hinterkaifeck. On the farmstead near Schrobenhausen, all 6 inhabitants – 4 Adults and two children – are struck down bestially. The police did not manage to seek out the murderer(s). As the case is still unsolved as of today, the story still lives on in the minds of the people. Motion pictures, theatre plays, and the bestselling novel “Tannöd”, behind all of them stands Hinterkaifeck. Aspiring police investigators and a self-declared “Internet – special commission ‘Hinterkaifeck’” have now once again taken up the trail of the case. This exciting search for traces is followed by the film, and its findings are recreated in elaborate play scenes. Thereby, a picture of an era thought to be bygone and an idea of what really happened back then comes into existence. More precise than any fiction, the docudrama manages to get closer to the truth.

The Cheese & The Worms

July 2006 •Japanese

A documentary that records the daily life of a mother with a limited life expectancy and a grandmother, directed by the daughter, Haruyo Kato.

Comitiva Esperança

Invalid date •Portuguese

Teen Spirit: Teenagers and Hollywood

September 2009 •English

Teen movies have had a great impact on the movie industry - especially in the 80s. This documentary takes a closer look at the genre's origins and the impact it has made up till today.

A Life on the Farm

May 2023 •English

A strange story from Somerset, England about a filmmaking farmer and the inspiring legacy of his long-lost home movies.

Where is heaven

November 2023 •English

Maverick soul mates Ged and Dave are on a mission through the winding lanes and hidden tracks of North Devon, to record the lives and experiences of people living without mains electricity.

Rara Avis

April 2020 •French

On a sailboat in the middle of the Ocean, five teenagers in rehabilitation are travelling with adults of different ages and backgrounds. Off unknown coastlines, the boat’s space becomes a huis-clos in which everyone faces their own difficulties, the challenge of living together and also the manoeuvres of sailing, the Ocean and its turmoil—until the arrival on land.

Ceres

February 2018 •Dutch

Ceres is a poetic yet realistic documentary that follows four children as they experience the natural cycle of life on a farm. Each child lives on a remote farm in the southwest of the Netherlands and is learning the profession of their ancestors from a young age. They each dream that one day they will take over the farms of their father or grandfather.

Gunda

April 2021 •English

A glimpse into the raw and simple power of nature through encounters with farm animals: the eponymous Gunda, a mother pig; two cows, and a one-legged chicken.

Mike on the Farm

May 2022 •English

89-year-old Italian immigrant Mike Nardone operates a farm all by himself in Alberta, Canada.

The Sadies Stop and Start

October 2022 •English

The Sadies Stop and Start captures a moment in time. That time was uncertain and dark. Still reeling from losing Dallas, we found out that Mike needed to have emergency wrist surgery. We needed to play these songs, not knowing if we would ever have the opportunity again. With one day's notice, documentary filmmaker Ron Mann and a stellar crew pulled together to help us capture these songs. Friends and family gathered to help out and show their support. James McKenty engineered in his mobile recording trailer, In Record Time Studio. The resulting film looked and sounded better than we could have hoped. We are thankful to share that Mike's surgery was successful and we are back out on the road and coming to a city near you.