23 films that will educate, enlighten, entertain, shock and, hopefully, open your mind. From the 4 corners of the world, SCFF's documentaries explore a range of topics including global democracy, women's health, the Pakistani film industry, HIV/AIDS, Proposition 8, spiritual enlightenment, Barack Obama, the phenomenon of latter day hula hooping and more.
Daniel Pinchbeck, author of the best-selling book, 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl, investigates ways to rapidly transform our unsustainable society into a regenerative planetary culture through a change of consciousness and the systemic implementation of ecological design. ...
8: The Mormon Proposition is an indictment of the Mormon Church's historic involvement in the promotion and passage of California's Proposition 8 and the Mormon religion's secretive, decades-long campaign against gay rights. The film takes place in California and Utah as Mormons,...
What social, economic and political environments create the mindset of a Jihadist, especially an American one? What makes a person willing to pick up a gun for their religion? Are the underlying causes purely religious? Or might religious militancy be a means of addressing chronic social,...
26-year-old charmer Daniel Dembele is equal parts West African and European, and looking to make his mark on the world. Seizing the moment at a crossroads in his life, Daniel decides to return to his homeland in Mali and start a local business building solar panels - the first of its kind in the sun-drenched nation. Daniel's goal is...
Most of us are aware of the threat from global warming. But, what if global warming was just the tip of a much larger threat? What is virtually unknown to the public is that human activity is causing a Mass Extinction event, which is the greatest crisis that we have ever faced because it...
“On the Hawaiian island of Kauai, where the road ends and the trail begins, winding 11 miles along the Na Pali Coast, is a hidden valley called Kalalau.” Some people travel there to get away, others to find themselves, but all who go there are forever impacted by the magical place. Thus starts, Drop In Drop Out: 11 Miles to...
Filmed over four years, Garbage Dreams follows three teenage boys: Adham, a bright, precocious 17 year-old, Osama, a charming impish 16 year-old, and Nabil, a shy, artistic 18 year-old who were born into the trash trade and grew up in the world’s largest garbage village, a ghetto located on...
An uplifting fly-on-the-wall documentary that portrays the monumental time of change during the Obama campaign that led up to his presidency in 2008. Combining his own personal story with the experiences and discoveries he makes on the campaign trail, Director Satti interweaves complex cultural...
Almost everyone in the western world has heard Denny Doherty sing. As lead vocalist for The Mamas & The Papas, his radiant tenor voice is the essence of such hits as Monday, Monday and California Dreamin’. In this joyous and heartbreaking documentary, the tumultuous...
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What is HIV? What is AIDS? What is being done to cure it? These questions sent Canadian filmmaker Brent Leung on a worldwide journey, from the highest echelons of the medical research establishment to the slums of South Africa, where death and disease are the order of the day....
The true story of Santa Cruz’s Wo/Men's Alliance for Medical Marijuana (WAMM), a “collective of patients and caregivers [who have been] providing hope, building community and offering medical marijuana on a donation basis” for over a decade. In the film, we meet Valerie and Mike Corral, and follow their journey as they dedicate their...
A dramatic and awe-inspiring feature documentary following three of the world’s greatest ski mountaineers to Mount St. Elias in their attempt to realize the longest ski descent of the world. Stunningly shot and set against the backdrop of Alaska’s brilliant beauty, Mount St. Elias traces...
Struggling to survive the worst drought since the dustbowl, three desperate Montana families hire a rainmaker, a retired New York cab driver, in a last ditch effort to save their farms. Like Burt Lancaster's magnetic Bill Starbuck in 1956’s, The Rainmaker, who barnstormed the windswept...
In the shocking and hilarious documentary Orgasm Inc., filmmaker Liz Canner takes a job editing erotic videos for a drug trial for a pharmaceutical company. Her employer is developing what they hope will be the first Viagra drug for women to treat a new disease: Female Sexual Dysfunction (FSD)....
For 97 days, best friends J.J. Kelley and Josh Thomas traveled the 1,300-mile inside passage from Anchorage to Seattle during its rainiest summer in 15 years. Paddling in homemade wooden Pygmy kayaks, they captured exquisite footage of the natural beauty they encountered along North America’s...
Whoever thought that Florida, with its George H.W. Bush spawned Governor, its Girls Gone Wild and its hanging chads would be a leader in new, green urban planning? Shades of Green: Sustainable Initiatives looks at what is happening in the Sunshine State as it takes needed steps towards...
Soundtrack for a Revolution tells the story of the American civil rights movement through its powerful music: the freedom songs protesters sang on picket lines, in mass meetings, in paddy wagons, and in jail cells as they fought for justice and equality. These songs evolved from slave...
Is access to clean drinking water a basic human right, or a commodity to be bought and sold under the rules of basic capitalism? From the producers of Who Killed the Electric Car and I.O.U.S.A., Tapped is an incisive documentary that takes a blistering look at how one of Earth’s...
West Coast Premiere. The Hooping Life uncovers the real-life adventures of young mavericks transformed by the modern resurgence of hula-hooping. Today, “hooping” is vibrant with singular moves, outrageous styles, and a strong sense of community.
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Australian filmmaker and artist, George Gittoes, spent 2 years in Taliban-occupied Pakistan, risking life and limb to make a documentary about the film industry there – which is massive! Third in the world to Hollywood and Bollywood, “Taliwood” has produced hundreds of films featuring hilarious...
In a first for the Santa Cruz Film Festival, we are thrilled to present an Academy Award-nominee for Best Documentary: The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers.
In the film, we are catapulted back to...
The Westsiders is the awe-inspiring, eye-popping tale of a special piece of Santa Cruz history: the rise and fall of The Westsiders surf gang as portrayed through the experiences of our own hometown’s surfers.
Best friends Darryl “Flea”...
Is it possible to organize a worldwide referendum, applying the principle of "one person, one vote" to create a global democracy? Filmmaker Joel Marsden went in search of the answer to this question in this provocative new documentary.
In...
