Documentary

Carol Alt subsisted on "an apple here, a carrot there. " Paulina Porizkova remembers teenage girls routinely propositioned, in vile ways, by powerful men. "What people called sexual harassment," she says, "we called compliments. " Ah, the life of a supermodel. It wasn't all champagne, clubbing, and cocaine, though there was plenty of that, as detailed in HBO's warm and chatty documentary, About Face: Supermodels Then and Now . Candid interviews with a who's who of American beauties from the 1950s through the '80s offer a peek behind the runways and photo spreads that idealized (not to say manufactured)

Here's Alison Klayman's advice for people making documentaries in China: Change the film in your camera. Frequently. If not constantly. That way, if the cops grab your equipment, you won't lose valuable footage. She learned that lesson early in the process of creating Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry , her acclaimed, feature-length documentary about the outspoken artist-dissident. It's Klayman's first movie. Only 27, she directed, filmed, and produced the work, which premiered at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival and won a special jury prize there.

PITTSBURGH - FrackNation is a new documentary that attacks opponents of fracking for oil and gas, but it also raises a bigger question: Is it possible to criticize environmentalists without being a tool for big industry? Fracking - or hydraulic fracturing - is a method of stimulating oil and gas from deep underground that has led to a historic boom in U.S. production while also stoking controversy over its possible impact on the environment and human health. FrackNation , an independent documentary produced by Los Angeles-based filmmakers Phelim McAleer and Ann McElhinney, addresses the issue from an unusual perspective.

For all the talk about immigration, rarely does the conversation veer into why so many Latinos have come to the United States. Harvest of Empire attempts to fill in the gaps, and the reasons don't include some naive notion about streets being paved with gold. The documentary, based on the book by journalist Juan Gonzalez, makes a persuasive argument that immigration from Nicaragua, Mexico, Cuba, and other nations is the direct result of American maneuvering in Latin America. The film follows a pattern, looking at each country individually and hearing personal tales from immigrants before taking a deep dive into the history of that nation.

LOS ANGELES - The anti-bullying film "Bully," the climate-change study "Chasing Ice" and the AIDS chronicle "How to Survive a Plague" are among 15 features on the short list for the Academy Award for best documentary. Other contenders announced Monday are the Ethel Kennedy documentary "Ethel," the health care exploration "The Waiting Room" and the music portrait "Searching for Sugar Man," tracing the fate of acclaimed but obscure 1970s singer-songwriter Rodriguez. Members of the academy's documentary branch will narrow the list to five nominees.

9:30 tonight CHANNEL 12 Here's a documentary about the 2009 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition: 29 pianists compete.

Many a demographic is super-served throughout the year on the Philadelphia film festival calendar. Cineastes with particular interests are catered to by the Latin American, Jewish, Terror, Gay & Lesbian, Science, Asian American and Animation film festivals, among others, not to mention the overarching Philadelphia Film Festival, which will take place in October this year. Add another group of movie buffs to the list: music fans. Starting this week, the inaugural XPN Music Film Festival will take place in University City, with 20 movies screening, mostly at the Annenberg Center on the University of Pennsylvania campus.

The Philadelphia region supports film festivals targeted to virtually every fan base and demographic, from gays and lesbians to Asian Americans and African Americans to horror geeks. Except, that is, for the region's growing Latino community. It's an oversight that local cineastes David Acosta and Beatriz Vieira are trying to remedy. "It has been such a void in the city and the region," said Vieira, vice president for philanthropic services at the Philadelphia Foundation. "And there is such a breadth of film and video work coming from Latin America and the Latin community in the United States.

How did Philadelphia become home to one of the art world's richest splendors, a collection of impressionist, post-impressionist, and modernist masterpieces so deep that it borders on overwhelming? It is the legacy of one of the city's more confounding native sons, the imperious altruist Albert C. Barnes. His character and his signal achievement are fascinatingly detailed in The Barnes Collection, a documentary produced and directed by Glenn Holsten for WHYY TV12. In one sense, you can't really miss when making a film about Barnes.

Movies The Great Gatsby See Steven Rea's preview on H2. Harvest of Empire This documentary attempts to draw a connection between past U.S. expansionist policy in Latin-America and the current immigration problems. Hava Negila: The Movie A documentary on the meaning and history of the popular Jewish song. Kiss of the Damned See Steven Rea's preview on H2. Midnight's Children See Steven Rea's preview on H2. Tyler Perry Presents We the Peeples Nothing goes as planned when a young man (Craig Robinson)