Mat Hames
2021
Last Best Hope
Mat Hames
A true story of underground escape lines and the Belgian Resistance during World War II, ‘Last Best Hope’ (2006) is an award winning documentary aired on US PBS Nationwide with nearly 2 million viewers, and Belgian broadcast networks. What is the one principle or belief for which you would sacrifice everything? Ethical, spiritual, and ideological values that are central to the human experience find their voice in the documentary film, ""Last Best Hope: A True Story of Escape, Evasion, and Remembrance,"" a poignant, little-known story about the men and women in the Belgian Resistance and their extraordinary acts to save downed Allied airmen during the Second World War.
Last Best Hope
When I Rise
Mat Hames
A documentary about Barbara Smith Conrad, a gifted University of Texas music student who finds herself at the epicenter of racial controversy, struggling against the odds and ultimately ascending to the heights of international opera. A gifted black music student at the University of Texas is thrust into a civil rights storm that changes her life forever. Barbara Smith Conrad is cast in an opera opposite a white male classmate fueling a racist backlash from members of the Texas legislature. Barbara's expulsion from the cast escalates the incident to national news, prompting unexpected support from a pop superstar. This small-town girl, whose voice and spirit stem from her roots in East Texas, emerges as an internationally celebrated mezzo-soprano and headlines on stages worldwide.
When I Rise
Common Ground
Mat Hames
Gus Sorola, Esther Sorola
An internet personality journeys to his hometown on the border between Texas and Mexico to visit family members, only to discover that his family’s immigration story parallels that of people risking everything to immigrate to the U.S. today.
Common Ground
What Was Ours
Mat Hames
Jordan Dresser, Philbert McLeod
Like millions of indigenous people, many Native American tribes do not control their own material history and culture. For the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho tribes living on the isolated Wind River Indian Reservation in Wyoming, new contact with lost artifacts risks opening old wounds but also offers the possibility for healing. What Was Ours is the story of how a young journalist and a teenage powwow princess, both of the Arapaho tribe, travelled together with a Shoshone elder in search of missing artifacts in the vast archives of Chicago’s Field Museum. There they discover a treasure trove of ancestral objects, setting them on a journey to recover what has been lost and build hope for the future.
What Was Ours
The World's Greatest Head Massage: An ASMR Journey
Mat Hames
Gavin Free, Burnie Burns
Two men fly to India to search for Baba, the "Cosmic Barber of Pushkar," whose famous "World's Greatest Head Massage" videos gave them both tingling ASMR sensations.
The World's Greatest Head Massage: An ASMR Journey
Unconventional
Richard De Carvalho, Mat Hames
Gus Sorola, Esther Sorola
An internet personality takes a journey through the small, obscure, and downright bizarre conventions happening every weekend around the country as he tries to fit in and find the common link that unites these communities.
Unconventional
Connected
Mat Hames
Barbara Dunkelman, Blaine Gibson
Follow Barbara Dunkelman and Blaine Gibson as they must survive their work, their social lives and the modern world without the comfort of their cell phones in order to explore how our brains change with our use of technology and analyze how we sustain and build relationships in the 21st century.
Connected
Thirst for Power
Mat Hames
Michael E. Webber
Explore the history of civilization’s quest to procure abundant water and energy — from ancient Roman aqueducts in Europe to modern America’s vast hydroelectric infrastructure. Shot on location across France, California, and Texas, the film explores our dependence on water for energy as well as vulnerabilities in our current systems.
Thirst for Power
Becoming Jessica Nigri
Mat Hames
Jessica Nigri, Barbara Dunkelman
A portrait of cosplayer Jessica Nigri, from a magical childhood growing up with quirky parents in New Zealand, to entering middle school in the U.S. where she was mercilessly teased for her "nerdy" interests.
Becoming Jessica Nigri
