Through examining Fini Straubinger, an old woman who has been deaf and blind since her teens, and her work on behalf of other deaf-blind people, this film shows how the deaf-blind struggle to understand and accept a world from which they are almost wholly isolated.
A collection of two documentaries by Werner Herzog, FATA MORGANA (1971) and LESSONS OF DARKNESS (1992), this program illustrates Herzog's sustained vision, one where nature and man are continually at war with one another. Made more than 20 years apart, these two films are remarkably similar. FATA MORGANA, shot in the Sahara desert, is a mostly silent film, accompanied only ...
As a young boy, Dieter Dengler watched as Allied planes destroyed his village. From that instant, he knew that he wanted to fly.
A searing song cycle about two lovers going to pieces in the shadow of the Berlin Wall, Lou Reed's Berlin was greeted by a chorus of rebuke upon its release in 1973. Crushed, Reed and his producer, Bob Ezrin, left the record to gather dust in the archives. But a funny thing happened on the way to obscurity-Berlin was rediscovered, ...
Diane Hazzard was a loving mother, but like other young, inner city African Americans in the 1980s, she was swept up in the crack cocaine epidemic. Inevitably, her parenting suffered with her addiction, until her own daughter, Love, only eight years old, told a teacher that she and her five siblings were often left home alone and hungry. Love's action ...
With a first-person look at the notorious Crips and Bloods, this film examines the conditions that have led to decades of devastating gang violence among young African Americans growing up in South Los Angeles.
On the afternoon of August 6, 1974, an international group of conspirators, disguised as construction workers and armed with fake IDs, snuck into the World Trade Center to perpetrate what would be called "the artistic crime of the century." The following morning, a young French daredevil named Philippe Petit walked on a cable strung between the Twin Towers-not once but ...
Manufactured Landscapes is the striking new documentary on the world and work of renowned artist Edward Burtynsky. Internationally acclaimed for his large-scale photographs of “manufactured landscapes”—quarries, recycling yards, factories, mines and dams—Burtynsky creates stunningly beautiful art from civilization’s materials and debris. The film follows him through China, as he shoots the evidence and effects of that country’s massive industrial revolution. ...
Our Take:
Baichwal’s doc is equally frightening and awe-inspiring, not least because of how we’re implicated in China’s industrial excesses, as consumers of cheap electronics and prime exporters of e-junk. Somehow, Burtynsky makes gorgeous art out of all the environmental degradation. His point? Gawk, recoil, then connect the dots.
Author and filmmaker James D. Scurlock takes on the powerful financial industry in an insightful and infuriating documentary about credit card debt in America. As he crisscrosses the United States, Scurlock interviews average Americans whose lives have been ruined by predatory financial lenders. His subjects are from all walks of life--everyone from retired widows in the Midwest, to poverty-stricken Southerners, ...
Our Take: Despair over out-of-control credit-card debt is literally killing people in the U.S., a point Scurlock’s doc on corporate loan-sharking makes painfully clear. So why are we addicted to credit cards? Is the lending industry to blame or individual irresponsibility? The makers of Maxed Out go looking for answers in an America seemingly hell-bent on borrowing.
In seven countries across three continents, the family succession saga of Napa Valley power brokers weaves together with the bitter rivalry of two aristocratic Florentine dynasties, and the inter-generational struggle of a Burgundian family trying to preserve its few acres of vineyards. It also connects to the exploits of a gleeful flying winemaker from Bordeaux who preaches the gospel of ...
Muderball features fierce rivalry, stopwatch suspense, dazzling athletic prowess, larger-than-life personalities, and triumph over daunting odds. But "Murderball" the original name of the the full-contact sport now known as "quad rugby", is played by qudriplegics in armored wheelchairs. Murderball is a story like no other, told by men who see the world from a different angel.
In the span of only a few months, 4 year old Marla Olmstead rocketed from total obscurity into international renown- and sold over $300,000 worth of paintings. She was compared to Kandinsky and Pollock, and called “a budding Picasso.” And then, five months into Marla's new life as a celebrity and just short of her fifth birthday, a bombshell dropped. ...
Academy-Award winning director Jonathan Demme beautifully captures Rock & Roll Hall of Fame legend, Neil Young as he prepares and presents the performance of a lifetime with the help of his wife Peggi and friends country star Emmylou Harris, steel guitarist Ben Keith and more at Nashville's Grand Ole Opry.
The epic story of a family forced to emigrate from Laos after the chaos of the secret air war waged by the U.S. during the Vietnam War. Kuras has spent the last 23 years chronicling the family's extraordinary journey in this deeply personal, poetic, and emotional film.
Nerdcore Rising is a documentary that uncovers a new wave of hip-hop called nerdcore. The film follows the godfather of the genre, MC Frontalot, on his first national tour.
Portrait of an artist as a young man. Roughly chronological, using archival footage intercut with recent interviews, a story takes shape of Bob Dylan's coming of age from 1961 to 1966 as a singer, songwriter, performer, and star.
The first film of its kind to chronicle the reasons behind the Iraq's descent into guerilla war, warlord rule, criminality and anarchy, No End in Sight is a jaw-dropping, insider's tale of wholesale incompetence, recklessness and venality. Based on over 200 hours of footage, the film provides a candid retelling of the events following the fall of Baghdad in 2003.
In "Not Your Typical Bigfoot Movie," filmmaker Jay Delaney provides a look at the trials and triumphs of friendship and life in the Appalachian foot hills. Through the experiences of two amateur bigfoot researchers in southern Ohio, we see how the power of a dream can bring two men together and provide a source of hope and meaning that transcend ...
On the Ropes is the compelling true story of three aspiring boxers and their venerable trainer, Harry Keitt, one time sparring partner with Muhammad Ali. Delving into the world of boxing at one of its sources- the Brooklyn neighborhood gym that produced superstars Riddick Bowe, Mark Breland, and other champions- the film examines a new generation of boxers training at ...
Married at 16 years old in the small community of Grant Pass, Oregon, Wendy Maldonado looked forward to a long life of wedded bliss with her husband. Instead, the days and years after their wedding turned into an endless cycle of fear, neglect and violence that left Wendy terrified for both her own welfare and that of her children.