Jason Spingarn-Koff

The Last Repair Shop

In a warehouse in the heart of Los Angeles, a dwindling handful of devoted craftspeople maintain more than 80,000 student musical instruments, the largest remaining workshop in America of its kind. Meet four unforgettable characters whose broken-and-repaired lives have been dedicated to bringing so much more than music to the schoolchildren of this city.

Unknown: Cosmic Time Machine

A unique behind-the-scenes access to NASA’s ambitious mission to launch the James Webb Space Telescope, following a team of engineers and scientists as they take the next giant leap in our quest to understand the universe.

The Anthrax Attacks: In the Shadow of 9/11

Days after 9/11, letters containing fatal anthrax spores spark panic and tragedy in the US. This documentary follows the subsequent FBI investigation.

Dick Johnson Is Dead

With this inventive portrait, director Kirsten Johnson seeks a way to keep her 86-year-old father alive forever. Utilizing moviemaking magic and her family’s dark humor, she celebrates Dr. Dick Johnson’s last years by staging fantasies of death and beyond. Together, dad and daughter confront the great inevitability awaiting us all.

The Bleeding Edge

Each year in the United States, unparalleled innovations in medical diagnostics, treatment, and technology hit the market. But when the same devices designed to save patients end up harming them, who is accountable?

End Game

Filmed and edited in intimate vérité style, this movie follows visionary medical practitioners who are working on the cutting edge of life and death and are dedicated to changing our thinking about both.

Shirkers

In 1992, teenager Sandi Tan shot Singapore's first indie road movie with her enigmatic American mentor Georges – who then vanished with all the footage. Twenty years later, the 16mm film is recovered, sending Tan, now a novelist in Los Angeles, on a personal odyssey in search of Georges' vanishing footprints.

Zion

A portrait of Zion Clark, a young wrestler who was born without legs and grew up in foster care.

Ram Dass, Going Home

Ram Dass is one of the most important cultural figures from the 1960s and 70s. A pyschedelic pioneer, author of Be Here Now, beloved spiritual teacher, and outspoken advocate for death-and-dying awareness, Ram Dass is now himself approaching the end of life. Since suffering a life-changing stroke twenty years ago, he has been living at his home on Maui and deepening his spiritual practice — which is centered on love and his idea of merging with his surroundings and all living things. Shot in a nuanced cinematic style, the film is an intimate summary of his life learning and awareness, and is ultimately a poetic meditation on life, death, and the soul’s journey home.

One of Us

Penetrating the insular world of New York's Hasidic community, focusing on three individuals driven to break away despite threats of retaliation.

Cuba and the Cameraman

This revealing portrait of Cuba follows the lives of Fidel Castro and three Cuban families affected by his policies over the last four decades.

Long Shot

When Juan Catalan is arrested for a murder he insists he didn't commit, he builds his case for innocence around unexpected raw footage.

The Mars Generation

Aspiring teenage astronauts reveal that a journey to Mars is closer than you think.

The White Helmets

As daily airstrikes pound civilian targets in Syria, a group of indomitable first responders risk their lives to rescue victims from the rubble.

Into the Inferno

With stunning views of eruptions and lava flows, Werner Herzog captures the raw power of volcanoes and their ties to indigenous spiritual practices.

The Ivory Game

Wildlife activists and investigators put their lives on the line to battle the illegal African ivory trade, in this suspenseful on-the-ground documentary.

Verbatim: Follow the Chicken

This is a dramatization of a deposition given by a chicken farmer in the destruction of his chicken pasture. The chicken farmer goes off on a rant that everyone has to see.

Transgender, at War and in Love

A transgender airman is deployed to Afghanistan as the gender he knows himself to be. But everyday he risks being discharged because outdated U.S. policy bans open trans service.

Shot in the Name of Art

This short documentary celebrates the late conceptual artist Chris Burden’s landmark work “Shoot,” in which a friend shot him in the arm. [Overview Courtesy of The New York Times]

Notes on Blindness

In the summer of 1983, just days before the birth of his first son, writer and theologian John Hull went blind. In order to make sense of the upheaval in his life, he began keeping a diary on audio cassette.

Running on Fumes in North Dakota

A young woman, lured to North Dakota for a truck-driving job in the oil industry, shares her agonizing existence in an isolated boomtown.

West Virginia, Still Home

McDowell County, situated in the coalfields of West Virginia, has experienced a great boom-and-bust since 1950. But despite the economic decline and population loss, many still call it home and feel a great sense of purpose among the mountains. Residents speak about their connection to this place and the meaning of "home."

Death of a Prisoner

The filmmaker Laura Poitras follows the tragic return home to Yemen of a Guantánamo Bay prison detainee, Adnan Latif.

The Program

Filmmaker Laura Poitras profiles William Binney, a 32-year veteran of the National Security Agency who helped design a top-secret program he says is broadly collecting Americans' personal data.

Life 2.0

This feature-length documentary follows a group of people whose lives are dramatically transformed by a virtual world -- reshaping relationships, identities, and ultimately the very notion of reality.