Every weekend for six years, Jessica takes a bus from NYC, where she lives and works as a set decorator, to Boston, her hometown, where she cares for her dad, Aloysius, who is 87 and has advanced Alzheimer's disease.
Social & External
Upon hearing that farmers in Indiana had taught their llamas to participate in an informal square dance, filmmaker Cevin Soling decided to raise the bar and see if llamas could be trained to perform in a major theatrical production of Swan Lake. The performance fuses high and low brow forms of art including a new rendering of the Tchaikovsky score. The vision takes Soling on a journey to the world of ballet, llamas, and jug bands.
The film is a study of nature and significance of the hands in cinema. Besides review of movements and actions, which creates an independent story, it reveals interactions and interdependence of cinematic traditions of various authors, countries and periods
Norm is a love story pure and simple. But there is nothing simple about it. A loving sister decides to take her older brother with Down syndrome into her home to provide the care and the sense of family she feels he has been denied since childhood. Like many aging adults living with Down syndrome, he begins to experience the symptoms of Alzheimer's disease. Her greatest fears have become a reality, "What if she can't keep him at home forever?"
An experimental sports film made partly during the Scandinavian Open Championships in Halmstad in 1970, partly during the Chinese players' exhibition tour in Denmark immediately after the SOC. First of all, it is a film about their style, about the artistic culmination that is ping-pong at its best, it records China's comeback into the international sports world.
This documentary about the culture of intense cinephilia in New York City reveals the impassioned world of five obsessed movie buffs. These human encyclopedias of cinema see two to five films a day, and from 600 to 2,000 films per year. This is the story of their lives, their memories, their unbending habits and the films they love.
A thoughtful portrait of a renowned artist, this documentary shines the spotlight on New York City painter Jean-Michel Basquiat. Featuring extensive interviews conducted by Basquiat's friend, filmmaker Tamra Davis, the production reveals how he dealt with being a black artist in a predominantly white field. The film also explores Basquiat's rise in the art world, which led to a close relationship with Andy Warhol, and looks at how the young painter coped with acclaim, scrutiny and fame.
For more than 100 years, the Statue of Liberty has been a symbol of hope and refuge for generations of immigrants. In this lyrical, compelling and provocative portrait of the statue, Ken Burns explores both the history of America’s premier symbol and the meaning of liberty itself. Featuring rare archival photographs, paintings and drawings, readings from actual diaries, letters and newspapers of the day, the fascinating story of this universally admired monument is told. In interviews with Americans from all walks of life, including former New York governor Mario Cuomo, the late congresswoman Barbara Jordan and the late writers James Baldwin and Jerzy Kosinski, The Statue of Liberty examines the nature of liberty and the significance of the statue to American life. Nominated for both the Academy Award ® and the Emmy Award ®, The Statue of Liberty received the prestigious CINE Golden Eagle, the Christopher Award and the Blue Ribbon at the American Film Festival.
A rare behind-the-scenes view of the exploding New York “underground” in the late sixities, a turbulent time and place that was to change American culture forever. A German TV crew, led by journalist Gideon Bachmann, explores the epicenter of the sixties revolution in art, music, poetry and film and interviews the main players in the “New American Cinema,” that was born on the streets of New York. Against a backdrop of cultural upheaval in all of the arts and growing political agitation against the Vietnam War, Bachman interviews the most prominent figures in “underground film,” including Jonas Mekas, Shirley Clarke, the Kuchar Brothers and Bruce Connor, and visits the most notorious location in the New York art world of the era - Andy Warhol’s Factory - to conduct an interview with the genius of Pop Art himself.
At 96, Lawrence Herbert reflects on his life, from his Depression-era Brooklyn upbringing to creating the Pantone Matching System, which revolutionized the worldwide use of color.
One second extended to its maximum length. A voice speaks about literature, love, futility and sadness.
Peter Lorre achieved international fame for his performance in the myth-making role in M. This character has held a peculiar fascination for generations of cinephiles. However, at the time, whilst such success meant recognition, it also weighed on the Hungarian actor as a constrictive burden. Using photographs and film extracts, Das doppelte Gesicht reconstructs the ups and downs of Lorre's career, taking into consideration the economic imperatives and workings of the film industry at the time. (Arnold Hohmann, 1984)
Whereas Minki’s older brother benefits from the social stability provided by marrying his girlfriend, Mingi and his partner run into legal hurdles regarding marriage and visas, prompting them to endless search for alternatives. Simultaneously, the documentary explores a gay man’s worries about coming out and marriage through the experiences of straight family members who are coming to terms with what it means to have a queer family member.
Students flooded Columbia University’s lawn to create the Gaza Solidarity Encampment in order to pressure their university to divest from the US and Israeli weapons companies. The film follows the central organizers of the encampment as they are thrust into the spotlight, face violent police repression and suspension, congressional pressure, and a media firestorm, all while fighting to attain their goal of divestment at any cost.
Filmed during Jonas Mekas’s travels through Italy in 1967, this short captures scenes from the country’s cities and countryside. The footage was later included in his 2003 compilation film Travel Songs (1967–1981).
Filmed during Jonas Mekas’s visit to Assisi in 1967, this short documents his time in the city known for its spiritual associations. The footage was later incorporated into his 2003 compilation film Travel Songs (1967–1981).
Innovative dance guru Gabrielle Roth is the instructor (and who better?) of her own brainchild -- a workout program that uses physical movement as a way to achieve spiritual awareness. "The Inner Wave," the third installment of Roth's Ecstatic Dance collection, focuses specifically on trance movements that induce meditation and inner stillness. You'll feel the stress lift off you in no time via this wonderful regimen.
Miyamoto-cho is a community of Mom-and-Pop stores and family enterprises located near the center of Tokyo. Competition from supermarkets and shopping centers threatens the livelihoods of long-term residents. High land prices tempt owners to tear down old homes and replace them with apartment buildings; this in turn is changing the composition of the population. Against this backdrop, residents strive to maintain the close social ties, symbols of local identity, and community rituals that keep Miyamoto-cho from becoming just another mailing address. Theodore Bestor began his research here in 1979. His prize winning book of the same name is available through Stanford University Press. This documentary is one of a series depicting the variety of life in today's Japan in the context of human problems common to all industrial nations. A comprehensive study guide is available.
Studio 54 was the epicenter of 70s hedonism - a place that not only redefined the nightclub, but also came to symbolize an entire era. Its co-owners, Ian Schrager and Steve Rubell, two friends from Brooklyn, seemed to come out of nowhere to suddenly preside over a new kind of New York society. Now, 39 years after the velvet rope was first slung across the club's hallowed threshold, a feature documentary tells the real story behind the greatest club of all time.
Experimental film inspired by Andy Warhol's 'Sleep'.
Over many years, the director’s father filmed his family life almost obsessively. His daughter’s birth, his son’s first steps, and always Valérie, the young mother. An impressive fund of material which their now grown-up daughter Faustine appropriates to tell quite a different story: that of a woman who sees her role as a mother and its demands take away her freedom step by step.
With this inventive portrait, director Kirsten Johnson seeks a way to keep her 86-year-old father alive forever. Utilizing moviemaking magic and her family’s dark humor, she celebrates Dr. Dick Johnson’s last years by staging fantasies of death and beyond. Together, dad and daughter confront the great inevitability awaiting us all.
Serving life in prison for murdering their parents, Lyle and Erik Menendez speak out in this documentary explaining the shocking crime and ensuing trials.
Al Pacino's deeply-felt rumination on Shakespeare's significance and relevance to the modern world through interviews and an in-depth analysis of "Richard III."
Tells the history and importance of The National Film Registry, a roll call of American cinema treasures that reflects the diversity of film, and indeed the American experience itself.
BBC Arena's documentary on the Dames of British Theatre and film featuring Maggie Smith, Eileen Atkins, Judi Dench and Joan Plowright on screen together for the first time as they reminisce over a long summer weekend in a house Joan once shared with Sir Laurence Olivier.
A comedic, brutally honest documentary following self-destructive TV writer Dan Harmon as he takes his live podcast on a national tour.
A documentary film detailing Glen Campbell's final tour and his struggle with Alzheimer's disease.
For over 40 years Val Kilmer, one of Hollywood’s most mercurial and/or misunderstood actors has been documenting his own life and craft through film and video. He has amassed thousands of hours of footage, from 16mm home movies made with his brothers, to time spent in iconic roles for blockbuster movies like Top Gun, The Doors, Tombstone, and Batman Forever. This raw, wildly original and unflinching documentary reveals a life lived to extremes and a heart-filled, sometimes hilarious look at what it means to be an artist and a complex man.
A teen slams her car into a building, killing her boyfriend and his friend. What seems like a tragic accident becomes a murder case.
An IMAX 3D camera chronicles the effort of 7 astronauts aboard the Space Shuttle Atlantis to repair the Hubble Space Telescope.
A short kid from a Canadian army base becomes the international pop culture darling of the 1980s—only to find the course of his life altered by a stunning diagnosis. What happens when an incurable optimist confronts an incurable disease?
Where does voguing come from, and what, exactly, is throwing shade? This landmark documentary provides a vibrant snapshot of the 1980s through the eyes of New York City's African American and Latinx Harlem drag-ball scene. Made over seven years, PARIS IS BURNING offers an intimate portrait of rival fashion "houses," from fierce contests for trophies to house mothers offering sustenance in a world rampant with homophobia, transphobia, racism, AIDS, and poverty. Featuring legendary voguers, drag queens, and trans women — including Willi Ninja, Pepper LaBeija, Dorian Corey, and Venus Xtravaganza.
An inside look at the years of effort and craft that went into the final installment of the Duffer Brothers' generation-defining series.
Marlon Riggs, with assistance from other gay Black men, especially poet Essex Hemphill, celebrates Black men loving Black men as a revolutionary act. The film intercuts footage of Hemphill reciting his poetry, Riggs telling the story of his growing up, scenes of men in social intercourse and dance, and various comic riffs, including a visit to the "Institute of Snap!thology," where men take lessons in how to snap their fingers: the sling snap, the point snap, the diva snap.
The life of Mr. Spock, as well as that of Leonard Nimoy, the actor who played him for almost fifty years, written and directed by his son: Adam.
After the high-profile killing of Damilola Taylor, Cornelius' family move out of London. But when they discover their new town is run by racists, Cornelius takes a drastic step to survive.
A purely observational non-fiction film that takes viewers into the ethically murky world of end-of-life decision making in a public hospital.
JB Smoove and Martin Starr host a celebration of 20 years of "Spider-Man" movies, from the Sam Raimi trilogy to Marc Webb's movies and the trio from Jon Watts.
Locked away from society in an apartment on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, the Angulo brothers learn about the outside world through the films that they watch. Nicknamed ‘The Wolfpack’, the brothers spend their childhood reenacting their favorite films using elaborate home-made props and costumes. Their world is shaken up when one of the brothers escapes and everything changes.
From the heights of her modeling fame to her tragic death, this documentary reveals Anna Nicole Smith through the eyes of the people closest to her.