A documentary about the legendary series of nationally televised debates in 1968 between two great public intellectuals, the liberal Gore Vidal and the conservative William F. Buckley Jr. Intended as commentary on the issues of their day, these vitriolic and explosive encounters came to define the modern era of public discourse in the media, marking the big bang moment of our contemporary media landscape when spectacle trumped content and argument replaced substance. Best of Enemies delves into the entangled biographies of these two great thinkers, and luxuriates in the language and the theater of their debates, begging the question, "What has television done to the way we discuss politics in our democracy today?"
The great media prankster, Joey Skaggs, wants to fool the world media AGAIN, and, with the most complex hoax of his career in the pipeline, he now must use every trick in his prankster's arsenal to make it work. Art of the Prank is an emotional journey following the evolution of artist Joey Skaggs-a fierce proponent of independent thinking and the man who has turned the media hoax into an art form. With unprecedented access to the man and his archives, the 95-minute documentary interweaves a current unfolding hoax with a look behind-the-scenes at some classic performance pieces (all reported as fact by a wide range of prestigious journalists) plus commentary from co-conspirators and others.
Using masterfully restored footage from recently declassified images, The Bomb tells a powerful story of the most destructive invention in human history. From the earliest testing stages to its use as the ultimate chess piece in global politics, the program outlines how America developed the bomb, how it changed the world and how it continues to loom large in our lives. The show also includes interviews with prominent historians and government insiders, along with men and women who helped build the weapon piece by piece.
In this documentary companion to CHARLIE'S COUNTRY, Australian actor David Gulpilil tells the story of when his people's way of life was derailed by ours.
I am Chris Farley tells his hilarious, touching and wildly entertaining story - from his early days in Madison, Wisconsin, to his time at Second City and Saturday Night Live, then finally his film career (which included hits like Tommy Boy and Black Sheep). The film showcases his most memorable characters and skits from film and television and also includes interviews and insights from his co-stars, family and friends - including the likes of Christina Applegate, Dan Aykroyd, Mike Myers, Bob Odenkirk, Bob Saget and Adam Sandler.
'Black and Cuba' follows street-smart students, who are outcasts at an elite Ivy League university, as they band together and adventure to Cuba to see if revolution is truly possible. While filming their poignant encounters with AfroCuban youth, breathtaking sites and moving hip-hop performances, the travelers confront realities behind myths of color-blindness and social mobility. This edgy and artful documentary of their journey uncovers renewed hope for equality and human rights. 'Black and Cuba' is the feature film directorial debut of international human rights advocate and scholar Robin J. Hayes, PhD.
East L.A. Interchange follows the evolution of working-class, immigrant Boyle Heights, the oldest neighborhood in East Los Angeles from multiethnic to predominately Latino and a cradle of Mexican-American culture in the U.S. The documentary tells the story of how one neighborhood managed to survive the construction of the largest and busiest freeway interchange in the nation and explores the shifting face of community in the United States today arguing why it should matter to us all.
In 2013, seventeen-year-old Rehtaeh Parsons took her own life. The Halifax teenager had been gang-raped a year and a half earlier by her classmates and labeled a "slut" as a result. Despite transferring schools many times, she could not escape constant cyber harassment and in-person bullying. Rehtaeh's is not the only story like this to make headlines in recent years. Why is the sexual shaming of girls and women, including sexual assault victims, still so prevalent in the United States and Canada?
The story of artist Edith Lake Wilkinson, a painter who was committed to an asylum in 1924 and never heard from again. All her worldly possessions were packed into trunks and shipped to a relative in West Virginia where they sat in an attic for 40 years. Edith's great-niece, Emmy Award winning writer and director Jane Anderson, grew up surrounded by Edith's paintings, thanks to her mother who had gone poking through that dusty attic and rescued Edith's work. The film follows Jane in her decades-long journey to find the answers to the mystery of Edith's buried life, return the work to Provincetown and have Edith's contributions recognized by the larger art world.
Focusing on the Western Australian Government's decision in January 2014 to hunt and kill the protected great white shark, filmmaker Skyler Thomas visits Australia, South Africa, and New Zealand to learn more about the shark culling practices in each of those locations. Interviewing scientists, politicians, surfers, and activists, Great White Lies thoroughly examines the history of shark culling.
A Coney Island-inspired, densely-layered visually dynamic documentary portrait of the life and times of the original Nathan's Famous, created in 1916 by filmmaker Lloyd Handwerker's grandparents, Nathan and Ida Handwerker. 30 years in the making, Famous Nathan interweaves decades-spanning archival footage, family photos and home movies, an eclectic soundtrack and never-before-heard audio from Nathan: his only interview, ever as well as compelling, intimate and hilarious interviews with the dedicated band of workers, not at all shy at offering opinions, memories and the occasional tall tale.
NOVA captures New Horizons' historic flyby of Pluto, the culmination of the spacecraft's nine-year, three-billion-mile journey to reveal the first ever detailed images of this strange, icy world at the very edge of our solar system.
An analysis of director Sidney Lumet's work (12 Angry Men, Dog Day Afternoon, Before The Devil Knows You're Dead) in his own words, based on a five-day interview recorded shortly before his death.
It is August 1951 and an entire French village goes crazy. People are screaming in the streets and throwing themselves out of windows. 300 people are affected and 7 end up dead. Wild theories start circulating to explain the tragedy. 60 years later declassified documents from the United States reveal that the CIA conducted experiments on unsuspecting citizens.
Approximately, because so-called "ethnic" statistics are prohibited, there are an estimated 3.3 million black French citizens. Distant descendants of slaves from the Caribbean or "indigenous" peoples from the French colonial empire in Africa, they constitute a minority that is often discriminated against. Isabelle Boni-Claverie, a mixed-race woman raised in the affluent neighborhoods of Paris, daughter of an Ivorian politician and granddaughter of Alphonse Boni, a Black man who became a magistrate of the French Republic in the 1930s, examines what is blocking the social advancement of Black French people and the full recognition of their citizenship.
In the Mexican state of Michoacán, Dr. Jose Mireles, a small-town physician known as "El Doctor," shepherds a citizen uprising against the Knights Templar, the violent drug cartel that has wreaked havoc on the region for years. Meanwhile, in Arizona's Altar Valley—a narrow, 52-mile-long desert corridor known as Cocaine Alley—Tim "Nailer" Foley, an American veteran, heads a small paramilitary group called Arizona Border Recon, whose goal is to halt Mexico’s drug wars from seeping across our border.