The complex and beautiful hieroglyphic script of the ancient Maya was until recently one of the last great undeciphered writing systems. Based on the best-selling book by Michael Coe, called by the New York Times "one of the great stories of 20th century scientific discovery", Breaking the Maya Code traces the epic quest to unlock the secrets of the script across 200 years, nine countries and three continents.
For centuries the Japanese warred among themselves and their neighbors, creating a colorful, rich and sometimes brutal legacy. Intriguing to outsiders for centuries, modern Japan is no less so In the 21st century. Focuses on Tokyo and its environs, with attention to scenery, shopping and shrines.
Guerilla filmmaker Brendan Toller unleashes I NEED THAT RECORD! THE DEATH (OR POSSIBLE SURVIVAL) OF THE INDEPENDENT RECORD STORE, "an elegy for a vanishing subculture...a lively, bittersweet film that examines - with caustic humor, brutal candor, and, ultimately, great affection - why roughly 3,000 indie record stores have closed across the nation over the past decade," (Johnathan Perry, Boston Globe). A tour-de-force tale of greed, media consolidation, homogenized radio, big box stores, downloading, and technological shifts in the music industry told through candid interviews, crestfallen record store owners, startling statistics, and eye-popping animation. Fat cats or our favorite record stores? You decide. Featuring- IAN MACKAYE, NOAM CHOMSKY, MIKE WATT, THURSTON MOORE, LENNY KAYE (Patti Smith), CHRIS FRANTZ (Talking Heads), GLENN BRANCA, PATTERSON HOOD (Drive By Truckers), PAT CARNEY (Black Keys) , LEGS MCNEIL, BOB GRUEN, BP HELIUM, and many indie record stores across the U.S.
Chronicles the first-ever, senior citizen hip-hop dance team for the New Jersey Nets Basketball team, 12 women and man - all dance team newbies, from auditions through to center court stardom.
With extraordinary access, BLAST exposes a world of risky, hardcore, scientific adventure. The story follows an international team of astrophysicists trying to launch a multi-million dollar telescope on a NASA high-altitude balloon. Their journey to discover thousands of early galaxies takes them from the Arctic to the Antarctic. Revealing frustrations, inevitable failures and ultimate triumph, BLAST puts a human face on the quest to answer our most basic question - How did we get here?
Burning the Future: Coal in America examines the explosive forces that have set in motion a groundswell of conflict between the Coal Industry and residents of West Virginia. Confronted by an emerging coal-based US energy policy, local activists watch the nation praise coal without regard to the devastation caused by its extraction.
Korea is a divided nation. Filmmaker Min Sook Lee sets out on a revelatory, emotion-charged journey into Korea’s broken heart, exploring the rhetoric and realism of reunification through the extraordinary stories of ordinary people.
Spiritual Revolution examines Eastern Spirituality in the West: its origins, forms, and the many ways it has evolved and been embraced in the United States as a philosophy and an ethical approach to life. The film explores various forms of Hinduism and Buddhism through interviews with a Whos Who of spiritual leaders, swamis, gurus, Zen Masters and Tibetan Lamas as well as scientists, psychotherapists and scholars.
Coach Joe Newton has used the sport of Cross Country Running to teach simple but important lessons to high school boys for the last 50 years. "Always do your best", "be on time" and "it's nice to be great but far greater to be nice" are mantras, which have turned the Boys Cross Country team at the public York High School in Elmhurst Illinois into the most winning high school team in any sport in America. Along with mastery of their sport, Newton turns boys into men, who carry his teaching and his love for each of them throughout their lives. The Long Green Line documents the York Duke's 2005 Cross Country season as the runners seek their record 25th state title in 50 years.
Set in New York City, the epicenter of a phenomenon cropping up in communities across the United States, "Nursery University" reveals the oddly competitive process of nursery school admissions. The film tells the story of five families attempting to place their toddlers in preschool classrooms that have limited space and high price tags.
The film follows 8 of the top high school basketball players in the US at the time of filming, in 2006. The plot centers around the first annual Boost Mobile Elite 24 Hoops Classic game at the legendary Rucker Park in Harlem.
A documentary film that illustrates the current oil and energy crisis that our world is facing. Whatever measures of ignorance, greed, wishful thinking, we have put ourselves at a crossroad, which offers two paths with dire consequences. If we continue to burn fossil fuels we will choke the life out of the planet and if we don't our way of life will collapse.
The printing press was the world's first mass-production machine. Its invention in the 1450s changed the world as dramatically as splitting the atom or sending men into space, sparking a cultural revolution which shaped the modern age.
The town Minot is home to a U.S. Air Force base that guards 150 nuclear missiles buried in northern North Dakota. The weapons of mass destruction placed there 50 years ago are still targeted at Russia. Minot, North Dakota portrays an American landscape where people live with nuclear bombs in their backyard.
“The Soviet Story” is a story of an Allied power, which helped the Nazis to fight Jews and which slaughtered its own people on an industrial scale. Assisted by the West, this power triumphed on May 9th, 1945. Its crimes were made taboo, and the complete story of Europe’s most murderous regime has never been told. Until now...
American engineer George Westinghouse revolutionized the American electricity system in the late 1880s with his endorsement of AC power distribution. This historical documentary chronicles Westinghouse's legendary rivalry with Thomas Edison and the birth of his many inventions, including the rail-road air brake.
A documentary film that reviews and recaptures this golden decade and, with the aid of his friends, colleagues, fellow musicians and other notable contributors, helps discover why Prince Rogers Nelson simply stole the 80s as far as music was concerned. Includes classic Prince performances reassessed by a team of esteemed experts, with live and studio footage, brand new interviews with Prince's closest confidantes, and rare photographs.