docs are films

A train arrives at La Ciotat station.

An engine moves from the roundhouse to a track where it couples with several passenger cars. At 2:10 in the afternoon, it starts a trip out of the station through the countryside to its destination. The film consists of a montage of shots, some close up, of the engine and its gears and wheels. With the accompanying ambient sounds and an orchestral score, the emphasis is on the engine's power and speed. Parallel lines of multiple tracks, telephone wires, and trees confirm a careful composition.

Hossain Sabzian and some of his associates discuss his character, his life-long obsession with cinema and his attitude towards the film he starred in, Close-Up (1990).

A film that excavates layers of myth and memory to find the elusive truth at the core of a family of storytellers.

Since gaining independence in 1947, India has been a secular state. But now, as religious fundamentalism grips much of India's population, the greatest danger to the nation's extremely strained social fabric may come not from Sikh or Muslim separatists, but from Hindu fundamentalists who are appealing to the 83% Hindu majority to redefine India as a Hindu nation.

A collection of expertly photographed scenes of human life and religion.

A documentary on 85-year-old sushi master Jiro Ono, his renowned Tokyo restaurant, and his relationship with his son and eventual heir, Yoshikazu.

An Israeli film director interviews fellow veterans of the 1982 invasion of Lebanon to reconstruct his own memories of his term of service in that conflict.

Democracy in China exists, that is, in a primary school in Wuhan where a grade 3 class can vote who they want as class monitor.

Makhmalbaf puts an advertisement in the papers calling for an open casting for his next movie. However when hundreds of people show up, he decides to make a movie about the casting and the screen tests of the would-be actors.

A film that successfully argued that a man was wrongly convicted for murder by a corrupt justice system in Dallas County, Texas.

A surrealist film, a pseudo-documentary portrait of Las Hurdes, a remote region of Spain where civilisation has barely developed, showing how the local peasants try to survive without even the most basic utilities and skills.

The infamous propaganda film of the 1934 Nazi Party rally in Nuremberg, Germany.

The true story of Hossain Sabzian, a cinephile who impersonated the director Mohsen Makhmalbaf to convince a family they would star in his so-called new film.

A man travels around a city with a camera slung over his shoulder, documenting urban life with dazzling invention.

This documentary is the most comprehensive look at the "untouchables" in India. Motivated by ancient religious edicts, no amount of governmental encouragement has been able to stem the tragic custom that separates human beings according to their birth. Those considered untouchable suffer more than isolation, they are forced to fulfill menial tasks in their communities, drink from separate containers, remove their shoes on the street as a sign of respect and perform or exhibit many other outward signs of their perceived inferiority. While the media projects a positive image of a democratic India, filmmaker Stalin K spends four years traveling the country to expose the continued oppression of the Dalits, "the broken people," in a wide variety of communities, including Sikhs, Christians and Muslims.

A documentary in which various 20 year old's from India are interviewed about their hopes and aspirations for the future.

In a cramped suburban apartment in Mumbai, an eccentric patriarch and his family consider killing and eating their hell-raising pet rooster, so that they can reclaim their normal lives.

No Fire Zone: In the Killing Fields of Sri Lanka is an investigative documentary about the final weeks of the Sri Lankan Civil War.

While examining the influence of the fast food industry, Morgan Spurlock personally explores the consequences on his health of a diet of solely McDonald's food for one month.

A devastating and heart-rending take on grizzly bear activists Timothy Treadwell and Amie Huguenard, who were killed in October of 2003 while living among grizzly bears in Alaska.