“Movies are about movement,” says documentary filmmaker Frederick Wiseman, and in his newest film, La Danse: The Paris Opera Ballet, he examines the movement of ballet. The film gets inside the workings of the ballet, from rehearsals to marketing sessions, and follows the company through the production of seven ballets: Genus by Wayne McGregor, Le Songe de Medée by Angelin Preljocaj, La Maison de Bernarda by Mats Ek, Paquita by Pierre Lacotte, Casse Noisette by Rudolph Noureev, Orphée and Eurydice by Pina Bausch, and Romeo and Juliette by Sasha Waltz.

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Swedish filmmaker Jacob Andrén bought a few acres of rainforest as a primary school child. Along with 400,000 other Swedish schoolchildren and many others across the world, he raised money to keep the rainforest protected from development. As an adult, he decided to find out if the forest he supported was still there.

The Forest is the story of Jacob’s journey halfway across the world, to Costa Rica, to track down his patch of rainforest and to figure out, along the way, whether one person’s small contribution can make a difference. Thanks to WG Film for the clip.

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“Simmering disaster” is what renowned activist Mahesh Bhatt calls genetically modified foods. Though genetically modified foods have caused countless problems in lab tests, multinational corporations are pushing them into the stores and onto the plates of people across the world, and India’s staple foods are being manipulated without the knowledge of the people.

Poison on the Platter is a documentary examining the impact of GM foods on India’s population.

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This week’s Got Docs? features Zombie Girl.  Filmmakers Justin Johnson, Aaron Marshall, and Erik Mauck came across an ad proclaiming “Need 12-15 year-olds for zombie movie directed by twelve-year-old girl.” That girl, one Emily Hagins, was in the midst of making a feature-length zombie movie and ‘Zombie Girl: The Movie’, takes us all along for the ride, with her parents, her friends, and her dream to direct a scary movie.

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In this week’s Got Docs? we take a look at Subprimed by Kahil Shkymba, Nayo Joy Simmons and GRITtv’s own Sarah Friedland. It tells the story of the national foreclosure crisis through the eyes of hard-hit East New York.

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This week’s Got Docs? is Americana, by director Topaz Adizes.  Looking at the story of two young men who are preparing to enlist, the film follows their story while also traveling the world and looking at people who’ve lived under American bombs and carried American guns.  Beautifully shot, at times it almost feels like a fiction film, alas it is all too real. 

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Raymond Myles was a man of profound contradiction: gospel singer, maverick, prominent representative of the New Orleans Black Church, scorned gay worshipper. Now, he is the subject of Leo Sacks’ A Taste of Heaven: The Heartbreak Life of Raymond Myles, Gospel Genius of New Orleans.   

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In 1966, at the height of the Cold War and Apartheid in South Africa, Senator Robert Kennedy visited Cape Town where his "Ripple of Hope" speech connected the US Civil Rights movement with resistance to racial segregation in South Africa.  On his visit, he spoke with banned African National Congress president Albert Lutuli and at the Afrikaaner University Stellenbosch. Filmmakers Tami Gold and Larry Shore have teamed up to make RFK In The Land of Apartheid: A Ripple of Hope. It’s this week’s Got Docs?

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Barbara Ettinger’s new film, A Sea Change, looks at the effects of ocean acidification on the world’s waters.  As the make-up of the oceans are altered through pollution and global climate change, could we be looking at the possibility of a world without fish? Circling the world, from the Arctic Circle to aquariums and swimming pools, A Sea Change doesn’t just dwell on impending doom, but actively seeks out ways we could turn back the tide. It premieres on Sept 13th in New York City.

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To charter school or not to charter school?  As the new school year kicks off, we talk to Brian Jones, a NYC public school teacher, James Merriman, CEO of NYC Center for Charter School Excellence, and Christian Roselund, a New Orleans-based writer and education advocate about the choice.

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