Supermen of Malegaon

What it is: A documentary about resourceful amateur filmmakers in a bleak Indian industrial town who make a Superman spoof starring local textile workers. Scrawny, nasal-voiced Malegaon Superman takes on—and beats—a hulking villain known as “Ding Dong Ding, the Number One Tobacco King,” a tobacco merchant who wants every Indian to spit and says, “I love filth.”

Lesson learned: The meaning of a labor of love. Malegaon filmmakers aren’t looking for fame and fortune so much as a temporary respite from their town’s economic and social ills.

True fact: Because of Malegaon's growing reputation as a source of homemade Bollywood (and now Hollywood) spoofs, proud residents refer to their town as Mollywood. “When [Superman director Shaikh Nasir] said Superman was going to fly, we felt like all of Mollywood was going to fly with him,” says one local.

-Hannah Bloch

Carmen Meets Borat

What it is: “Borat” comes to a poor Romanian village and convinces them to help him make a “documentary.” The villagers play the primitive people of his fictional hometown. When they realize they’ve been duped, they try to sue 20th Century Fox for $30 million. The chaos leads a local girl, 17-year-old Ionela Carmen Ciorobea, to rethink her dreams of leaving Glod and her family behind for a brighter future elsewhere.

Lessons learned: Not everyone is a fan of freedom. According to Carmen's father, the "liberty" that resulted from the fall of communism is a bad thing, only worsening conditions in Glod.

True fact: Glod means “mud”—a fitting name for a village whose proximity to the Carpathians results in lots of rain and muck.

-Matthew Hill

Mine: Taken by Katrina

What it is: Thousands of pets were left behind in the wake of the storm—including the five dogs profiled in this documentary. But sometimes, foster homes don’t want to give the pets back to the original owners.

Lessons learned: The road to retrieving pets in the aftermath of Katrina is a long and winding for former evacuees, especially since pet adoption gives new "parents" full legal ownership. As the film shows, however, some Gulf region residents--through incredible persistence and devotion--were able to reunite with their pets.

True fact: Responding to a deluge of news stories about pets being left behind in the storm, Congress passed the PETS (Pets Evacuation and Transportation Standards) Act in 2006, requiring state and local authorities to include household pets in their disaster response programs.

-M.H.

Ella Es El Matador

What it is: In gritty, narration-free style, the film follows Italian Eva Florencia, who at 16 ran away from her family to a small Spanish town to chase an unlikely dream: to become a matador. As Florencia struggles to succeed, the film weaves in the story of Maripaz Vega, the world’s only active female professional matador.

Lessons Learned: Becoming a bullfighter is a radical financial, physical and emotional challenge, requiring would-be matadors to train year-round, spend months (if not years) on the road away from their families, and compete fiercely for a limited number of fight slots.

True fact: Women—including nuns--have been fighting bulls for centuries. But over the years some men have banned female fighters, claiming that the tight-fitting matador’s suit reveals too much of a woman's figure.

-Patrick Walters

Lieux Sants/Sacred Places

What It Is: A Cameroonian documentary maker visits the humble neighborhood of St. Leon in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. While the city hosts a famous African film festival, residents watch their movies at "Votre Cine (Your Cinema) Club," with benches for seats, reed mats for walls, and a modest-sized TV for a screen. Showings are announced by a djembe (drum) player and paper notices tacked to a board.

Lesson Learned: Economics keeps Africans from seeing African-made movies. Votre Cine Club can buy or rent foreign films for a couple of bucks, while African films cost about $25 apiece. With tickets just 10 cents, that’s why action films and kung fu flicks are the main attraction.

True Fact: According to a woman interviewed, women don't generally go out to see movies at makeshift theaters like Votre Cine because of the unwanted attention they receive when the lights go down from the male viewers.

-Karen Lange

Enjoy Poverty

What It Is: Dutch artist and documentary maker Renzo Martens (think a subtler, less obnoxious, more daring Michael Moore) breaks all the rules for international journalists covering poor, conflict-ridden countries--in this case the Democratic Republic of the Congo--in this sad but very funny expose of the way in which the West profits from poverty in Africa. Rather than documenting the noble efforts of groups like Doctors Without Borders, Martens turns his camera on the humanitarian aid industry and the benefits that flow to expats, including journalists like himself, from the misery of Africans. By the end of the film, his press credentials have been revoked.

Lessons Learned: Hunger is even worse than you can imagine. There are images of malnourished children on an oil palm and coffee plantation in central Congo and a harrowing scene in which a starving girl dies. Perhaps even more startling is a sequence where a child gobbles down a mouse with relish and another where his father is brought almost to tears because he is so happy to have meat and eat until his belly is full.

True fact: In one recent year, the Democratic Republic of the Congo received more money in humanitarian aid--$1.8 million--than it took in from sales of its abundant gold, diamonds, and coltan (a mineral used in cell phones). -K.L.

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