Zeitgeist Films (Firm)

In 1994 the Zapatista National Liberation Army, made up of impoverished Maya Indians, took over five towns and 500 ranches in southern Mexico. Fighting for indigenous Mexicans to regain control over their lives and the land, the Zapatista Army, led by Subcommandante Marcos, started sending their message to the world via the Internet. The result was what the New York Times called "the world's first post-modern revolution." Here the filmmaker, who traveled...

A film portrait of the creative community of women writers, artists, photographers and editors (including Colette, Djuna Barnes, Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas) who flocked to the Left Bank of Paris in the early decades of the 20th century. Utilizing groundbreaking research and newly discovered home movies, PARIS WAS A WOMAN re-creates the mood and flavor of this female artistic community in Paris during its most magical era. Winner of the Siegessäule...

Mao’s death begins BORN UNDER THE RED FLAG, which follows the country’s new leadership of Deng Xiaoping and its unlikely transformation into an extraordinary hybrid of communist-centralized politics with an ever-expanding free market economy.

Twelve short works by Tony Buba, the director of LIGHTNING OVER BRADDOCK, chronicling the rise and fall of Braddock, PA. Includes J. ROY: NEW AND USED FURNITURE, about an indefatiguable entrepreneur who has failed at a dozen businesses; SWEET SAL, an engaging portrait of part-time hustler; the hilarious WASHING WALLS WITH MRS G., a hilarious film starring Buba’s grandmother; and THE MILL HUNK HERALD, a trip inside a Steel Valley workers’ magazine...

Astonishingly gripping, LET THE FIRE BURN is a found-footage film that unfurls with the tension of a thriller. On May 13, 1985, a longtime feud between the city of Philadelphia and controversial radical urban group MOVE came to a deadly climax. By order of local authorities, police dropped military-grade explosives onto a MOVE-occupied rowhouse. TV cameras captured the conflagration that quickly escalated—and resulted in the tragic deaths of eleven...

One of Himalayan Buddhism’s most revered lamas, Khyentse weaves parallel fable-like tales about two men who seek to escape their mundane lives in TRAVELERS & MAGICIANS. Young government official Dondup dreams of escaping to America while stuck in a ravishingly beautiful but isolated village. Along the way, a perceptive yet mischievous monk tells Dondup a story of another young man who sought a land far away: a tale of lust, jealousy and murder that...

In China, it is simply known as “The River.” But the Yangtze—and all of the life that surrounds it—is undergoing a truly astonishing transformation wrought by the largest hydroelectric project in history, the Three Gorges Dam. Canadian documentary filmmaker Yung Chang returns to the gorgeous, now-disappearing landscape of his grandfather’s youth to trace the surreal life of a “farewell cruise” that traverses the gargantuan waterway....

The Mao Years examines the turbulent era of Mao’s attempts to forge a “new China” from the war-ravaged and poverty-stricken nation.

Yvonne Rainer continued her preoccupation with the contradictions between public and private personas with this story of a female lion tamer from Budapest who comes to New York to become a choreographer.

In January 2011, millions of Egyptians took to the streets in a spontaneous eruption against thirty years of oppression under the regime of Hosni Mubarak. Communicating via Facebook and Twitter, the largely peaceful protesters braved tear gas, beatings, and live bullets in the hope of facing down security forces and overthrowing the government. Over eight hundred lost their lives, and several thousand were arrested and tortured by security forces....