The Silk and the Flame

Feb 19, 2018

1h 27m

★ 0.0

Overview

Capturing life of a family with a disabled father and deaf mother in a Chinese village during the lunar New Year. Yao, a successful businessman in Beijing, left home young. Now middle-aged, he returns to face demons from the past and fulfill his parent's dying wish to settle down and complete the family.

Genres

Documentary

Production Companies

Untitled Films

The Silk and the Flame Trailers

Cast

Self

Jordan Schiele

Ricardo, Natalia's father, suffers from Parkinson's disease; in that condition he stopped producing Dopamine. Surviving a very strong family crisis, Natalia told them her sexual orientation. She does not understand why after being left-wing militants and fighting for equality and freedom, they could not accept her choice.

0.0

The Perfumed Garden

Apr 29, 2000

THE PERFUMED GARDEN is an exploration of the myths and realities of sensuality and sexuality in Arab society, a world of taboos and of erotic literature. Through interviews with men and women of all ages, classes, and sexual orientation, the film lifts a corner of the veil that usually shrouds discussion of this subject in the Arab world. Made by an Algerian-French woman director, the film begins by looking at the record of a more permissive history, and ends with the experiences of contemporary lovers from mixed backgrounds. It examines the personal issues raised by the desire for pleasure, amidst societal pressures for chastity and virginity. The film discusses pre-marital sex, courtship and marriage, familial pressures, private vs. public spaces, social taboos (and the desire to break them), and issues of language.

6.9

"Sr."

Sep 2, 2022

A portrait of the life and career of Robert Downey Sr. (1936-2021), the visionary and fearless US filmmaker — father of actor Robert Downey Jr. — who in the sixties and seventies laid the foundations for countercultural comedy.

6.8

Margaret Atwood: A Word After a Word After a Word Is Power

Nov 7, 2019

The views and thoughts of Canadian writer Margaret Atwood have never been more relevant than today. Readers turn to her work for answers as they confront the rise of authoritarian leaders, deal with increasingly intrusive technologies, and discuss climate change. Her books are useful as survival tools for hard times. But few know her private life. Who is the woman behind the stories? How does she always seem to know what is coming?

6.6

Abducted in Plain Sight

May 26, 2017

A family falls prey to the manipulative charms of a neighbor, who abducts their adolescent daughter. Twice.

7.1

A Family

Mar 20, 2024

Award-winning French writer Christine Angot goes on a business trip to Strasbourg where her father lived before dying several years ago. It is the city where she met him for the first time at the age of 13, and where he sexually abused her over the following years. His wife and children still live there. Angot takes a camera and knocks on the doors of her family to push them to clarify their attitudes to her father’s crime that stretched over so many years. A cinematographic journey that challenges social norms and family perspectives in dealing with incest.

7.5

Nomad Meets the City

Mar 7, 2020

Currently Mongolia’s capital has 1.5 million inhabitants - half the population of the country. 50-year Tumurbaatar is only one of many coming to the city to fulfil their dreams of a better life.

4.0

Petit Samedi

Feb 24, 2020

Damien Samedi is 43 years old. When he was a child in his Belgian village on the banks of the river Meuse, they called him the “Petit Samedi”. To his mother, Ysma, Damien is still her child, the one she never abandoned when he got caught up in drugs. A son who sought to protect his mother despite it all, a man attempting to liberate himself from his addictions and faces his past to get through.

0.0

Lili

Feb 13, 2024

A heartwarming story about a precautious, 8-year-old girl exploring the world with her globetrotting father and growing up in an unconventional family.

6.0

Your Mum and Dad

Oct 3, 2019

The film follows Michael Moskowitz’s work with a New York-based therapist named Kirkland Vaughns, one of the few African-American Freudian therapists in the United States, while the director reveals her own family’s devastating trauma.

0.0

My Child Is Trans* – What Now?

Nov 15, 2025

Three teenagers — Amelio, Blake and Kira — each begin their gender transition, supported in different ways by their families. This deeply sensitive documentary follows them between ages 15 and 17 as they navigate the emotional and physical challenges of being transgender. For them, puberty brings intense distress, as their developing bodies do not align with their true gender identity. The film explores the difficult questions faced by parents and doctors: whether to medically delay puberty, start hormonal treatment, or wait and risk worsening the teens’ suffering. Through moments of doubt, upheaval and hope, the documentary offers an intimate look at three young people who want only one thing — for the outside world to see them as they know themselves to be.

6.8

Meine alles außer gewöhnliche Familie

Jul 7, 2021

It is normal for 15-year-old Linn to have two mothers. But when she finds out that there are still numerous siblings, she realizes that she is part of an extraordinary extended family. Her father Eike not only had an appointment with Linn's mothers to donate sperm, Petra and Anny also have three children with him. A film crew followed this rainbow family for twelve years.

3.0

Big Big Big

Nov 12, 2019

A couple decides to watch Big, a successful film released in 1988, starring Tom Hanks and directed by Penny Marshall, not once, but thirty times, sometimes accompanied by family and friends who come to their home to watch and discuss it.

7.7

Annie Leibovitz: Life Through a Lens

May 19, 2007

An account of the professional and personal life of renowned American photographer Annie Leibovitz, from her early artistic endeavors to her international success as a photojournalist, war reporter, and pop culture chronicler.

6.0

Sex: The Annabel Chong Story

Feb 11, 1999

The documentary follows Annabel Chong, former record holder for the world's largest gang bang, which she set in 1995 by having sex with 70 men. It focuses on her reasons for working in porn, and her relationship with friends and family.

6.2

Love, Dad

Oct 6, 2022

A short film about ties and gaps between a child and a parent. The author rediscovers letters her dad used to write her from prison. That love seems to be gone now. She decides to write back in hope to find the connection again. She puts in writing what could not be said: blaming him for family´s break-up but also trying to understand.

10.0

The Sign for Love

May 16, 2017

In his heartfelt documentary, co-director and subject Elad Cohen explores the meaning and experience of family. Growing up deaf and gay in a family of hearing people, Cohen never felt at home and always felt alone. That feeling of estrangement was exacerbated during his adolescence by the sudden death of his mother and the subsequent rift with his father as the family scattered in different directions. Cohen creates a sense of family with a small group of friends, including his best friend, Yaeli, a deaf woman. While he wants a child and a life partner, he fears that he won’t find the right man in the small deaf community in his “sweet little country.” Sharing a desire with Yaeli to be parents, the new “couple” decide to have a child in a shared parenting arrangement.

7.0

Great Photo, Lovely Life

Mar 10, 2023

A photojournalist turns her lens on the decades of sexual abuse her family and community experienced at the hands of her grandfather in this unflinching portrait of intergenerational trauma, family secrets, and redemption.

0.0

Sunflower

Apr 11, 2025

In 2014, the University of Florida women's softball team was the best it's ever been - and it's all thanks to one young woman, Heather Braswell. Though not an official member of the team, Braswell, a cancer patient and huge Gator fan, was their heart and soul. Find out why the ladies still wear sunflowers on game day in their hair to this day.

The Silk and the Flame

Overview

Genres

Production Companies

The Silk and the Flame Trailers