Sophiatown

A Soweto schoolgirl named Sarafina is galvanized to protest apartheid after her teacher is arrested for her activism, leading her to join the student resistance movement.

In the 1930s, jazz guitarist Emmet Ray idolizes Django Reinhardt, faces gangsters and falls in love with a mute woman.

It's 1974. Muhammad Ali is 32 and thought by many to be past his prime. George Foreman is ten years younger and the heavyweight champion of the world. Promoter Don King wants to make a name for himself and offers both fighters five million dollars apiece to fight one another, and when they accept, King has only to come up with the money. He finds a willing backer in Mobutu Sese Suko, the dictator of Zaire, and the "Rumble in the Jungle" is set, including a musical festival featuring some of America's top black performers, like James Brown and B.B. King.

South Africa, 1978. Tim Jenkin and Stephen Lee, two white political activists from the African National Congress imprisoned by the apartheid regime, put a plan in motion to escape from the infamous Pretoria Prison.

Two South Africans set out to discover what happened to their unlikely musical hero, the mysterious 1970s rock 'n' roller, Rodriguez.

Home movies, photographs, and recited poetry illustrate the life of Tupac Shakur, one of the most beloved, revolutionary, and volatile hip-hop MCs of all time.

The story of sex, violence, race and rock and roll in 1950s Chicago, and the exciting but turbulent lives of some of America's musical legends, including Muddy Waters, Leonard Chess, Little Walter, Howlin' Wolf, Etta James and Chuck Berry.

The true story of Vera Brandes, teenage patron saint of the 1970s Cologne music scene, who risked everything to organize the greatest solo concert in music history: Keith Jarrett’s legendary Köln Concert.

A semi-fictionalized documentary about a day in the life of Australian musician Nick Cave's persona.

Thirty years ago, aliens arrive on Earth. Not to conquer or give aid, but to find refuge from their dying planet. Separated from humans in a South African area called District 9, the aliens are managed by Multi-National United, which is unconcerned with the aliens' welfare but will do anything to master their advanced technology. When a company field agent contracts a mysterious virus that begins to alter his DNA, there is only one place he can hide: District 9.

From Spike Lee comes this vibrant semi-autobiographical portrait of a school-teacher, her stubborn jazz-musician husband and their five kids living in '70s Brooklyn.

Sarah Barcant, a lawyer in New York City who grew up in South Africa, returns to her childhood dwelling place to intercede for Alex Mpondo, a Black South African politician who was tortured during apartheid.

Ndola, Northern Rhodesia (currently Zambia), September 18, 1961. Swedish economist and diplomat Dag Hammarskjöld, Secretary General of the UN, dies mysteriously in a plane crash. Decades later, Danish journalist and filmmaker Mads Brügger and Swedish researcher Göran Björkdahl investigate the case in search of definitive closure.

A documentary on the life of Amy Winehouse, the immensely talented yet doomed songstress. We see her from her teen years, where she already showed her singing abilities, to her finding success and then her downward spiral into alcoholism and drugs.

The relationship between an aspiring dancer and a popular songstress provides a retrospective of the great African-American entertainers of the early 1900s.

The time is the late '80s, a crucial period in the history of South Africa. President P.W. Botha is hanging on to power by a thread as the African National Congress (ANC) takes up arms against apartheid and the country tumbles toward insurrection. A British mining concern is convinced that their interests would be better served in a stable South Africa and they quietly dispatch Michael Young, their head of public affairs, to open an unofficial dialogue between the bitter rivals. Assembling a reluctant yet brilliant team to pave the way to reconciliation by confronting obstacles that initially seem insurmountable, Young places his trust in ANC leader Thabo Mbeki and Afrikaner philosophy professor Willie Esterhuyse. It is their empathy that will ultimately serve as the catalyst for change by proving more powerful than the terrorist bombs that threaten to disrupt the peaceful dialogue.

The story of legendary blues performer, Bessie Smith, who rose to fame during the 1920s and '30s.

When a Jewish songstress is plucked from the stage and sent to Auschwitz, she and other musicians find themselves assigned to a terrible task—using their talents to soothe fellow prisoners who are sentenced to die in the gas chambers.

A vibrant tribute to one of America's legendary bandleaders, charting Glenn Miller's rise from obscurity and poverty to fame and wealth in the early 1940s.

Mercenary soldiers Jamie and Drew are hired by a large corporation to liberate Zangaro, a small African nation, from an despot. Havoc ensues.