Stars of the 1940s and 1950s, were they cast for their mutual affinities or for their commercial appeal? If and when they were re-starred years later, did the magic still work? Did sparks still fly? The movie business, a machine that manufactured romance and desire at the same time that it documented the process of aging. A meditation on youth and beauty, aging and box office.
Between 1900 and 1920 more than 14 million immigrants arrived in the US, like Howard Zinn's parents. They came fleeing poverty or war, or racism, or religious persecution. They dreamed of a promised land, of wealth, or simply of a better life.
A fragile and depressed university student disappears from his apartment in the middle of a cold winter's night. Four weeks later his name and photo explode across social media and into the mainstream media as 'suspect 2' in the Boston Marathon bombings. The search for truth by citizen journalists, mainstream journalists and members of social media Web sites derails with tragic consequences as collective fear and suspicion rule the day and rain down upon a vulnerable family. Exclusive access and never released footage reveal the enduring love of a family in crisis.
For a gay filmmaker, filming in Saudi Arabia presents two serious challenges: filming is forbidden in the country and homosexuality is punishable by death. For filmmaker Parvez Sharma, however, these were risks he had to assume as he embarked on his Hajj pilgrimage, a journey considered the greatest accomplishment and aspiration within Islam, his religion. On his journey Parvez aims to look beyond 21st-century Islam’s crises of religious extremism, commercialism and sectarian battles. He brings back the story of the religion like it has never been told before, having endured the biggest jihad there is: the struggle with the self.
On 15 March 1921, Talat Pasha, a high-ranking Turkish dignitary, was shot dead in a Berlin street by a young Armenian. A few months later, Soghomon Tehlirian, his assassin, appeared before a German court. He faced the death penalty. Yet, during the trial, the victim gradually changed into the guilty party, and the accused was finally acquitted.
In 2008 an Independent film crew set out to make an epic horror feature film in outback South Australia on a $30 000 budget. Three weeks later, they left defeated and without a film.
Venture out to the Masumoto Farm – eighty acres of prime, peach-growing orchards – where seven varieties of the sweet juicy fruit are cultivated to sun-kissed perfection by a dynamic father-and-daughter team of David “Mas” and Nikiko Masumoto. Director Jim Choi succinctly captures this underrepresented facet of the CA farming industry about an Asian American family-run business, three generations strong, which in turn presents us with the changing idea of the American Dream. - See more at: http://laapff.festpro.com/films/detail/changing_season_2015#sthash.54OdJcdi.dpuf
The Day the '60s Died chronicles May 1970, the month in which four students were shot dead at Kent State. The mayhem that followed has been called the most divisive moment in American history since the Civil War. From college campuses, to the jungles of Cambodia, to the Nixon White House, the film takes us back into that turbulent spring 45 years ago.
Over 2000 Union soldiers, passengers and crew were crammed aboard the steamboat Sultana, licensed to carry 376. Graft, greed, overcrowding, a poorly maintained boat, and the Mississippi River was swollen with spring snowmelt conspired together to create a disaster. On April 27, 1865, the boat’s boilers exploded, causing the worst maritime disaster in US history.
Doglegs is a cheerfully iconoclastic underground scene where the disabled battle the able-bodied - all in the name of exploding stereotypes. When the disabled champ seeks life and love beyond the ring, his idol, the able-bodied organizer, tries to sabotage his bid for independence. In a battle of the human spirit, can the power of disability win our hero his dreamgirl?
Three men, one an actor, one a dancer and the other a soldier, are all casualties of war in some way. The men explore the relationships between art and artist, and historical and contemporary truth in search of a way to bind the wounds of conflict.
Thousands of three-wheeled motorized rickshaws - called tuk-tuks - zip through the frenetic streets of Cairo everyday, driven by industrious young men, many of them not even teenagers. Across gorgeously photographed sun-drenched streets, Tuk-tuk follows Abdallah, Sharon and Bika, who, while too young to shave or even obtain a legal license, are forced to drive to feed their families. Besieged on all sides by police, thieves and other taxis, the boys take every chance to find a happy diversion or fleeting escape from the prison of poverty. Pulsating with comedy and danger, the film illustrates the resilient outlook of three children who have to become adults before their time, and their struggle to hold on to some semblance of childhood.
When Dr. Haing S. Ngor was forced into labor camps by the Khmer Rouge, little did he know he would escape years of torture and recreate his experiences in a film that would win him an Academy Award®. "The Killing Fields of Dr. Haing S. Ngor" tells the dramatic story about arguably the most recognizable survivor of the Cambodian genocide, a man who became a worldwide ambassador for justice in his homeland, only to be murdered in a Los Angeles Chinatown alley - a case still muddled with conspiracy theories. Through an inspired blend of original animation and rare archival material - anchored by Ngor's richly layered autobiography - the years encapsulating the Khmer Rouge's tyrannical rule over Cambodia are experienced though a politically charged transnational journey of loss and reconciliation.
From the 1960s to the 1980s, the rock radio DJ played an unprecedented creative role in the rock music world. I Am What I Play profiles four disc jockeys in major markets during this period: their programming, their politics and their deep connections with musicians and fans in the heyday of rock radio. Where are they now - and how did they reinvent themselves as the medium changed? Featuring the music of The Ramones, Joni Mitchell, Rush, David Bowie, The Cars, The Sonics and more.
Game Face shows the quest to self-realization of LGBT athletes and the acceptance in society. The film follows athletes during their coming out process, and sheds light on the obstacles LGBT sports players deal with throughout their career.
The Mayan doomsday prophecy looms over a dark night in Poland. A late-night radio host takes in calls from citizens expressing their concerns, predictions and speculations on what may happen when—or even if—the sun comes up. Simultaneously, a crisis centre dispatcher fields panicked calls from people experiencing real-life traumatic situations in need of immediate attention. The voices of these callers are interwoven with an intimate therapy session and a wandering taxicab to build a profile of a place where citizens want to be heard. Never showing the callers on the other end of the line, the film creates an aural overview of a darkened city. As the night progresses, the calls continue coming in, revealing the various struggles people are experiencing in dealing with conceptual fears and current woes—all in a world that soon may be over.
Ted "Black Lightning" Patrick's practice of "deprogramming," also known as "reverse brainwashing," started in the early 1970s and quickly snowballed into a vast underground movement composed of concerned parents, ex-cultists-turned-deprogrammers and some sympathetic law-enforcers whose mission was to physically and mentally remove individuals from cults.