Movies Similar to Up the Yangtze

Gifted and Challenged: The Making of 'Shortbus'(2007)

A look at the unusual process used in the making of the film Shortbus (2006) featuring interviews, behind the scenes footage and clips from the feature film. Director John Cameron Mitchell starts with the concept of using real sex in a film with a positive message. The cast of unknowns is selected from homemade audition tapes and then a callback audition workshop. More acting workshops are used to develop the characters and script. The project overcomes a number of obstacles and the rest of the film's development is followed up until its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival.

6.3

River of Gold(2016)

Narrated by Academy Award winners Sissy Spacek and Herbie Hancock, River of Gold is the disturbing account of a clandestine journey into Peru's Amazon rainforest to uncover the savage unraveling of pristine jungle. What will be the fate of this critical region of priceless biodiversity as these extraordinarily beautiful forests are turned into a hellish wasteland?

0.0

Dogtown and Z-Boys(2002)

This award-winning, thrilling story is about a group of discarded kids who revolutionized skateboarding and shaped the attitude and culture of modern day extreme sports. Featuring old skool skating footage, exclusive interviews and a blistering rock soundtrack, DOGTOWN AND Z-BOYS captures the rise of the Zephyr skateboarding team from Venice's Dogtown, a tough "locals only" beach with a legacy of outlaw surfing.

7.0

Marilyn, Her Final Secret(2022)

Thanks to DNA, this documentary establishes the identity of Marilyn's biological father, thus revealing her new paternal family, 60 years after the icon's death.

6.5

Night and Fog(1959)

Filmmaker Alain Resnais documents the atrocities behind the walls of Hitler's concentration camps.

8.2

Into Great Silence(2005)

An intimate portrayal of the everyday lives of Carthusian monks of the Grande Chartreuse, high in the French Alps (Chartreuse Mountains). The idea for the film was proposed to the monks in 1984, but the Carthusians said they wanted time to think about it. The Carthusians finally contacted Gröning 16 years later to say they were now willing to permit Gröning to shoot the movie, if he was still interested.

7.0

State of Bacon(2014)

State of Bacon tells the kinda real but mostly fake tale of an oddball group of characters leading up to the annual Blue Ribbon Bacon Festival. Bacon-enthusiasts, Governor Branstad, a bacon queen, Hacksaw Jim Duggan, members of PETA, and an envoy of Icelanders are not excluded from this bacon party and during the course of the film become intertwined with the organizers of the festival to show that bacon diplomacy is not dead.

0.0

Into the Deep(1994)

An underwater exploration beneath kelp forests in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Southern California. The film captures the birth of a shark, squids mating, a lobster molting, a fish protecting its nest from an octopus and a sea urchin, and the sea bed covered with brittle stars.

5.1

loudQUIETloud: A Film About the Pixies(2006)

When college rock darlings the Pixies broke up in 1992, their fans were shocked and dismayed. When they reunited in 2004, those same fans and legions of new listeners were ecstatic and filled with high hopes. loudQUIETloud follows the rehearsals and live shows of the band as they struggle through the reunion tour "Sell Out"

6.8

Valentino: The Last Emperor(2008)

Film which travels inside the singular world of one of Italy's most famous fashion designers, Valentino Garavani, documenting the colourful and dramatic closing act of his celebrated career and capturing the end of an era in global fashion. However, at the heart of the film is a love story - the unique relationship between Valentino and his business partner and companion of 50 years, Giancarlo Giammetti. Capturing intimate moments in the lives of two of Italy's richest and most famous men, the film lifts the curtain on the final act of a nearly 50-year reign at the top of the glamorous and fiercely competitive world of fashion. (Storyville)

6.6

Terror's Advocate(2007)

A documentary on Jacques Vergès, the controversial lawyer and former Free French Forces guerrilla, exploring how Vergès assisted, from the 1960s onwards, anti-imperialist terrorist cells operating in Africa, Europe, and the Middle East. Participants interviewed include Algerian nationalists Yacef Saadi, Zohra Drif, Djamila Bouhired and Abderrahmane Benhamida, Khmer Rouge members Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan, once far-left activists Hans-Joachim Klein and Magdalena Kopp, terrorist Carlos the Jackal, lawyer Isabelle Coutant-Peyre, neo-Nazi Ahmed Huber, Palestinian politician Bassam Abu Sharif, Lebanese politician Karim Pakradouni, political cartoonist Siné, former spy Claude Moniquet, novelist and ghostwriter Lionel Duroy, and investigative journalist Oliver Schröm.

6.7

The Order of Myths(2008)

In 2007 Mobile, Alabama, Mardi Gras is celebrated... and complicated. Following a cast of characters, parades, and parties across an enduring color line, we see that beneath the surface of pageantry lies something else altogether.

6.0

Secrecy(2008)

This film is about the vast, invisible world of government secrecy. By focusing on classified secrets, the government's ability to put information out of sight if it would harm national security, Secrecy explores the tensions between our safety as a nation, and our ability to function as a democracy.

7.8

Before the Music Dies(2006)

B4MD tells the story of American music at this precarious moment. Filmakers Andrew Shapter and Joel Rasmussen traveled the country, hoping to understand why mainstream music seems so packaged and repetitive, and whether corporations really had the power to silence musical innovation. The answers they found on this journey are what makes B4MD both riveting and exciting.

7.0

Videocracy(2009)

In a country where bella figura is a national pastime, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is the maestro of media manipulation. Having risen to political primacy with the aid of his Mediaset empire, he now controls 90% of the bel paese’s television channels including the state-run RAI network. Quantity, it seems, does not equal quality. Fed on a diet of semi-naked dancing girls, inane competitions and rickety reality shows built around the most ridiculous of premises, is it any wonder that Italians are becoming a nation of fame-hungry wannabes?

6.4

Dust to Glory(2005)

An action-adventure documentary chronicling the most notorious and dangerous race in the world--the Tecate SCORE Baja 1000. Rivaling the Indy 500 and 25 Hours of Daytona, the race across Baja's peninsula is unpredictable, grueling and raw--just like the uncharted American West of yesteryear.

6.4

Sir! No Sir!(2005)

Sir! No Sir! is a documentary film about the anti-war movement within the ranks of the United States Military during the Vietnam War. It consists in part of interviews with Vietnam veterans explaining the reasons they protested the war or even defected. The film tells the story of how, from the very start of the war, there was resentment within the ranks over the difference between the conflict in Vietnam and the "good wars" that their fathers had fought. Over time, it became apparent that so many were opposed to the war that they could speak of a movement.

6.7

The Beaches of Agnès(2008)

Filmmaking icon Agnès Varda, the award-winning director regarded by many as the grandmother of the French new wave, turns the camera on herself with this unique autobiographical documentary. Composed of film excerpts and elaborate dramatic re-creations, Varda's self-portrait recounts the highs and lows of her professional career, the many friendships that affected her life and her longtime marriage to cinematic giant Jacques Demy.

7.7

Popatopolis(2009)

In 20 years, he's directed more films than Martin Scorsese, He's produced more profitable movies than Jerry Bruckheimer, And he's infuriated more actors than Alfred Hitchcock. The ultimate B Movie Documentary, focusing on B Movie Giant Jim Wynorski (and B Movie Celebration Mentor) and his attempt to make a feature film in 3 days. He's directed seventy feature films, but he's never made one... in THREE DAYS. Jim cuts the shooting schedule, has the actors cook their own food. A documentary featuring B-Movie legends Roger Corman, Andy Sidaris, Julie Strain, Julie K. Smith and Stormy Daniels, Popatopolis follows Jim Wynorski as he begins to film one of his many opuses "Witches of Breastwick" Jim's frenetic pace demands 100 setups per day (the Hollywood standard is 20), and he reduces his electric package to just two lights so he can concentrate on the task at hand.A great overview of a true master at work and in many ways a laser sharp dialectic on the state of B filmmaking today.

6.7

The Brothers Warner(2008)

An intimate portrait and saga of four film pioneers--Harry, Albert, Sam and Jack who rose from immigrant poverty through personal tragedies persevering to create a major studio with a social conscience.

6.6