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Young shoulders, huge burdens. Since 2009, eleven high school students, in one of the most affluent and achievement focused high schools in the world, have taken their own lives. The Edge of Success looks at the phenomenon, and why so many Palo Alto, CA teens find themselves on the edge. Told through intimate interviews with students, parents, teachers, and community members, The Edge of Success shows the realities of being a teenager today, and the increasingly treacherous path to adulthood.
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Is death always permanent? A haunting supernatural thriller starring and produced by Shane Carruth (Primer, Upstream Color), The Dead Center finds a mysterious "John Doe" waking in a body bag in a morgue and wandering into a psychiatric ward. There, he becomes the charge of a devoted doctor who is fascinated by the man's claims of being controlled by a "blackness" inside of him. Meanwhile, a curious medical examiner searches for clues investigating the man's disappearance.
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The treasure hunt with dead bodies as clues. Paul Herzfeld is a criminal forensic doctor. During an autopsy, he finds a capsule in the victim's skull holding a piece of paper with the name and telephone number of his 13-year old daughter. When he receives a voice message from his own daughter, Hannah, saying that she is being kidnapped, Paul sets on a hunt for her with the help of a bumbling intern. Chasing clues across the city, and an isolated island, seeking help of unlikely aides - a graphic artist, and a janitor, Paul must get to his daughter. Gore, and horrors abound.
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In some families, the monsters live within. An unconventional, widowed father brings his two remaining children to their secluded family-owned "Sanctuary", to pay homage to his eldest, deceased daughter, Magda. The family has deep-seated beliefs in ancient Greek mythology. The father believes in Harpocrates, Greek God of Silence, and has entirely homeschooled his children to protect them from "The Otherness". The youngest is Perseus, a fearful hypochondriac. The coming-of-age daughter, Sprout, dresses as a woman warrior and wonders which god she will follow.
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Laugh and the world laughs with you. Reconnect with yourself, love your inner self, and, by humanitarian clowning, heal yourself and others. This is a powerful concept put in practice by the legendary and inspiring Patch Adams. For decades, Patch and his team of extraordinary volunteers have traveled the world and helped heal veterans suffering from PTSD constantly working to relieve invisible wounds.
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Four children living in a garbage dump get a chance in life. At La Chureca, a massive dump in Nicaragua, young Manuel, Zulema, Chico and Edgar wait eagerly for the dump trucks, hoping to find left over food. They work alongside their demanding mother, pulling out any usable discards in order to salvage an existence. Everything they know is this life of extreme poverty until an American philanthropist steps in and buys them a modest home with land to farm. With the kids in school for the first time, can they catch up to their peers, even with the new duties of farming?
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An inspirational teacher finds his son beaten in jail. Eric Butler, a Hurricane Katrina survivor, settled in Oakland, California where he counseled vulnerable Black and Latino teenagers and facilitated grief circles to overcome the effects of homicide and violence in area schools. Butler nurtures troubled youth and works to keep them in school. The film reaches a critical juncture when Eric's son is arrested and beaten in jail. Eric begins to question his methods and his ability to function as a father.
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Pilates, internet dating, and fear of unemployment. Uncertainty abounds in this biting comedy about life while working in a controversial oil and gas industry. Circle of Steel follows Wendy Fong, a young engineer just getting started in a new company when rumors of layoffs threaten her future. She fights the monotony of her wintery surroundings with Pilates workouts and internet dating, but her routine soon falls apart as the likelihood of losing her job becomes a probability.
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Love and longing in the roaring '20s. Downton Abbey's Elizabeth McGovern, Julian Fellowes, and Michael Engler reteam for a high drama set at the height of the Jazz Age. A Kansas woman, Norma, chaperones the budding, talented dancer Louise to a dance school in New York. Louise's free-spirited temperament clashes with Norma's demure personality. Norma has additional motives to travel to New York: she strives to find her birth parents. The search takes an unexpected turn when she meets a kind janitor.
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A young girl tests her luck. In an unspecified future time, somewhere in Mexico, women are disappearing at an alarming rate, and drug cartels run the area. Huck, a 12-year-old girl, lives with her addicted father in a trailer, helping him take care of an abandoned baseball camp where narcos gather to play. Her father tries to protect Huck by disguising Huck as a boy using a face mask. Daily gunfights erupt all around them; death and destruction is the norm. Every day they are alive is reason enough to celebrate. With the help of her friends, three lost boys, Huck fights for survival.