A showcase of the best DOCUMENTARY films in the world today.
AUDIENCE AWARDS (from FEEDBACK Film Festival):
Best Feature Film: Baristas vs Billionaires
Best Short Film: Munkács Miracle
Best Micro-Short Film: A More Colorful World: The Artistry Behind Rita Winkler
Best Inspirational Film: Elevator Pitch
Best Cinematography: Ice Breath
Best Society Film: Back to One – Return to Ground Zero
Best Environmental Film: At the Turning
Best Direction: Follow You There – A War Bride Story
Best Story: Crowning Achievement
Best Human Interest Film: Inside Hurricane Melissa | Jamaica Strong
Elevator Pitch, 7min., Canada
Directed by Raghav Kumar
Before stepping onto the stage of a high-stakes startup competition, an ambitious founder is pulled into a vivid vision of guiding a lost child through the unknown. Only to discover the child is their younger self reminding them to snap back to reality. With the clock ticking down, presenting the pitch that could define their future, the founder conquers the doubt that once defined them.
https://www.wildsound.ca/videos/elevator-pitch-audience-feedback
A More Colorful World: The Artistry Behind Rita Winkler, 4min., USA
Directed by Mark Winkler
An intimate short documentary about artist Rita Winkler, whose watercolor world reveals a creative process shaped by instinct, rhythm, repetition, and color.
https://www.instagram.com/ritawinklerart
https://www.wildsound.ca/videos/a-more-colorful-world-audience-feedback
Munkács Miracle, 26min., USA
Directed by Steve Liss
Born days apart in 1930 and raised in Munkács, Czechoslovakia, Holocaust survivors Magda Bader and Ruth Cohen were transported to Auschwitz on the same day from the same spot when they were 14 years old. A chance encounter with an educator visiting the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. brought them together after 81 years.
https://www.wildsound.ca/videos/munkacs-miracle-audience-feedback
Baristas vs Billionaires, 72min., USA
Directed by Mark Mori
Starbucks baristas in Buffalo, NY, organize against corporate exploitation, sparking a nationwide, generational uprising among working-class Millennials and Gen Z as they challenge a powerful billionaire CEO and fight for their rights – a gripping story of a new generation of young workers, ages 21-35, largely women and from diverse backgrounds—who are fighting for their right to unionize at Starbucks.
https://www.baristasvsbillionaires.com
https://www.wildsound.ca/videos/baristas-vs-billionaires-audience-feedback
Ice Breath, 43min., Romania
Between 2015 and 2024, Leonard Alecu filmed the melting icebergs off Greenland’s East coast. Sailing dangerously close to icebergs, Alecu handled his camera to record the ice masses yielding to the ruthless ocean. Filmed in black and white, Ice Breath is a cinematic poem whose only elusive actor is the filmmaker’s gaze. In 43 minutes, a sequence of flat pictures turn into dynamic tableaux, an existential journey from genesis to extinction. The hypnotic feature of the film is enhanced by the soundtrack Become Ocean, a haunting composition by John Luther Adams suggestive of a relentless tidal surge, of melting polar ice and rising sea levels. Become Ocean received critical acclaim, earning the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Music and the 2015 Grammy for Best Classical Contemporary Composition. More than an environmental documentary, Ice Breath and Become Ocean is an experimental fusion exploring the vast, inscrutable meanings of climate change.
https://www.wildsound.ca/videos/ice-breath-audience-feedback-documentary
Back to One – Return to Ground Zero, 26min., USA
Directed by Sylvester P. Lukasiewicz
An intimate and reflective documentary about a former Windows On The World restaurant employee and 9/11 survivor as he returns to the rebuilt World Trade Center site for the first time in 24 years.
splfilmsllc@gmail.com
https://www.instagram.com/SPLFilmsLLC
https://www.wildsound.ca/videos/back-to-one-audience-feedback
At the Turning, 20min., UK
Directed by Graham Peebles
We live in a time of tension and widespread uncertainty, marked by wars, division, environmental breakdown, deepening inequality. It is also a moment of opportunity and, if embraced, potential renewal.
https://www.instagram.com/attheturningfilmgp
https://www.wildsound.ca/videos/at-the-turning-audience-feedback
Follow You There – A War Bride Story, 55min., Canada
Directed by Brad Tuck, Stephen Green
Andrew Rodgers is a professional musician from St. John’s, NL. As a songwriter, he is always on the hunt for new and interesting stories to write about. After discovering a remarkable story in his own family, Andrew travels to Fair Haven, NL to talk to his Great Grandmother, Joan Masters, who is a war bride originally from the London area of Great Britain. She lived through WWII, met Andrew’s Great Grandfather, Sam Masters, during his service in WWII, and together they travelled back to Sam’s hometown of Fair Haven, NL to begin a new life after the war.
https://centrecitymedia.com/follow-you-there
https://www.wildsound.ca/videos/follow-you-there-audience-feedback
Crowning Achievement, 113min., USA
Directed by Robert Darwell
Crowning Achievement, produced and directed by award-winning documentary filmmaker Robert Darwell, is a sweeping, nostalgic portrait of the iconic American institution told through the voices of the women who lived it. Spanning nine consecutive decades—from BeBe Shopp Waring, Miss America 1948, to Madison Marsh Morris, Miss America 2024—the film weaves together intimate interviews with thirteen remarkable titleholders. Together, their stories form a living tapestry of American history, culture, and evolving womanhood that show that Miss America is not just a beauty pageant, but a great platform for some amazing, accomplished women to change the world. Miss America has been the premier pageant since its inception in 1921 (Miss USA, which at one time was owned by Donald Trump, did not start until 1952).
https://www.wildsound.ca/videos/crowning-achievement-audience-feedback
Inside Hurricane Melissa | Jamaica Strong, 27min.,
Directed by Aleca King
A documentary that takes you inside what hurricane Melissa in Jamaica was really like
https://www.instagram.com/aleca.king
https://www.wildsound.ca/videos/inside-hurricane-melissa-audience-feedback
Documentary Film Festival. Los Angeles & Toronto 