Yael Hersonski's powerful documentary achieves a remarkable feat through its penetrating look at another film-the now-infamous Nazi-produced film about the Warsaw Ghetto. Discovered after the war, the unfinished work, with no soundtrack, quickly became a resource for historians seeking an authentic record, despite its elaborate propagandistic construction. The later discovery of a long-missing reel complicated earlier readings, showing the manipulations of camera crews in these "everyday" scenes. Well-heeled Jews attending elegant dinners and theatricals (while callously stepping over the dead bodies of compatriots) now appeared as unwilling, but complicit, actors, alternately fearful and in denial of their looming fate.
NESHOBA tells the story of a Mississippi town still divided about the meaning of justice, 40 years after the murders of civil rights workers James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner. Although Klansmen bragged openly about what they did in 1964, no one was held accountable until 2005, when the State indicted preacher Edgar Ray Killen, an 80-year-old notorious racist and alleged mastermind of the killings. Through intimate interviews with the families of the victims, candid interviews with black and white Neshoba County Citizens, and exclusive, first time interviews with Killen, the film explores whether healing and reconciliation are possible without telling the unvarnished truth.
A portrayal of a hidden enclave of auto shops and junkyards fated for demolition in the shadow of a new baseball stadium in Queens. The film observes this vibrant community of immigrants – where wrecks, refuse, and recycling form a thriving commerce – as it struggles for daily survival and contests New York City's development scheme.
The Parking Lot Movie is a documentary about a singular parking lot in Charlottesville, Virginia. The film follows a select group of parking lot attendants and their strange rite of passage.
On the eve of her 70th birthday, Canadian writer Margaret Atwood set out on an international tour criss-crossing the British Isles and North America to celebrate the publication of her new dystopian novel, The Year of the Flood. Rather than mount a traditional tour to promote a book's publication, Atwood conceived and executed something far more ambitious and revelatory--a theatrical version of her novel. Along the way she reinvented what a book tour could (and maybe should) be. But Atwood wasn't selling books as much as advocating an idea: how humanity must respond to the consequences of an environmentally compromised planet before her work of speculative fiction transforms into prophesy.
The Japanese sword ... prized as much for its exceptional beauty as for it's deadly cutting ability. It has endured for a thousand years as the pinnacle of Japanese culture. Now you can enter a world rarely seen by outsiders. To experience the true story of the Art of the Samurai Sword. A story told in the swordsmiths own words that separate the myth from the fact. Follow the swordsmiths dream of creating a masterpiece. From the quest to making an ancient steel to forging a blade equal to those of the Kamakura, a medieval period that produced the greatest swords in history.
A father, his adult son, and two mates head off on a journey to discover the grittiest, most beautiful bush the country has to offer. Yet what they find is something they were not prepared for, confronting their own mortality. Arrows of Fire is more than just a chronicle of a picturesque ride in the Australian Outback. It takes four men on a journey into their physical and mental limits on their quest for life through adventure.
On a tiny Caribbean island of Curaçao, they take their Little League® Baseball very seriously. So seriously, in fact, that Manager Vernon Isabella has sent his Little League All-Stars to the Little League World Series for an unprecedented seven consecutive years. However, in the summer of 2008, the boys are faced with new challenges that could jeopardize their eighth chance at the championship. They must overcome injuries, team bickering and Puerto Rican Little League® players who’ve already matured – some have already started to grow mustaches – in order to do their team, manager, and nation proud.
Actor Dustin Hoffman narrates this decade-spanning documentary that highlights the contributions of Jewish Americans to the most American sport of them all: baseball. Highlights include a rare interview with legendary pitcher Sandy Koufax.
At 89 years old, Stan Lee's name appears on more than one BILLION comics in 75 countries in 25 languages. Arguably the most recognized name in comics, Stan Lee has co-created over 500 legendary pop culture characters including Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, X-Men, Iron Man, Thor and The Hulk. Stan continues to create new material and entertain fans of all ages with fantastic stories and characters in all areas of entertainment. With Great Power: the Stan Lee Story, explores the vivid life and imagination of Stan Lee, from the early days of his Depression-era upbringing through the Marvel Age of Comics and beyond! The film uncovers original transcripts, illustrations, photographs and stories of Lee's fascinating journey from his early years at Timely Comics and World War Two, the comic book industry's censorship battle of the 1950's led by Dr. Fredric Wertham, the dawn of Marvel Comics and the legendary characters Stan co-created, to his current company POW! Entertainment.
On a quest for emotional healing and spiritual awakening, a naturopathic doctor and an accountant join others in the Peruvian Amazon to drink a psychedelic brew called ayahuasca.
María lives with her mother May, in the Canary Islands, 3,000 km from Barcelona, where Miguel Gallardo has his home. Sometimes Miguel and María go on holiday together, spending a week at a resort in southern Gran Canaria, a rather unusual setting where the guests don't normally include a single father and his fourteen year-old autistic daughter. This is the story of one of their journeys, but above all it's an original tale, full of humor, irony and sincerity, about how to live with a disability.
Philadelphia TV host Butch Cordora is on a mission to publish a calendar that recreates iconic photos in pop culture, featuring himself alongside a cast of exclusively straight male models--all in the nude, all for a starkly revealing creative journey.
Focusing on ten Michelin 3 Star chefs, Three Stars depicts the everyday drama of life in gourmet restaurants and includes exclusive interviews and behind-the-scenes access to some of the world’s most talented chefs as they work in their gastronomic laboratories, hunt for exquisite ingredients in local markets, and gather rare edible plants along rough coastlines. It reveals the business of cooking on the highest level and highlights the various kitchen routines and culinary philosophies of chefs like Jean-Georges Vongerichten, Yannick Alléno, and Olivier Roellinger.
Jack Rebney is the most famous man you've never heard of - after cursing his way through a Winnebago sales video, Rebney's outrageously funny outtakes became an underground sensation and made him an internet superstar. Filmmaker Ben Steinbauer journeys to the top of a mountain to find the recluse who unwittingly became the "Winnebago Man".
For years, debates have raged among scholars, politicians, and concerned parents about the effects of media violence on viewers. Too often these debates have fallen into simplistic battles between those who claim that media images directly cause violence and those who argue that activists exaggerate the impact of media exposure. Based on interviews conducted with George Gerbner before his death in 2005, the film urges us to think about media effects in more nuanced ways. In contrast to behaviorist models that see media violence as causing real-world violence, and limited effects models that question the impact of media altogether, Gerbner encourages us to move outside the frame of this debate to consider how the repetitive stories media tell constitute a pervasive cultural environment - a landscape of ritualized, often violent images that have the power to cultivate how we see and understand the world.
The future of our food resources depends on one small insect - the western honey bee, or Apis mellifera. Indeed, it is the most important agricultural pollinator on our planet, given that one third of our food supply depends directly on pollination from bees. This documentary tells the story of a worldwide ecological disaster that has been waiting to happen for several generations.
Although Wikipedia is the 8th most popular website on the Internet today, and it is already the 3rd most widely read 'publication' in human history, attracting 100 million unique visitors a month, this great social and academic experiment of our age is riddled with vandals and challenged by skeptics, posing compelling questions about whether Wikipedia's model can truly achieve its goal. The film intersperses founder Jimmy Wales' unusual rise to Internet super-stardom among the global implications of Wikipedia. Are entries factually accurate? Biased? Accountable? Does 'Jimbo' Wales posses the wisdom to ensure that Wikipedians aggregate knowledge correctly?