Spiritual cousins of the Mennonites and Amish, the Hutterites live simply with austerity. By a way of life that is supremely communal rather than individualistic, the Hutterites have rid themselves of poverty, homicide and anxiety about the future.
FLYIN' CUT SLEEVES, completed in 1993, portrays street gang presidents in the Bronx. Their world was the streets, set against a backdrop of uprooted families, cultural alienation, drugs and violence. Neighborhood teenagers responded by organizing into street groups known to the members as "families", but labeled in the most alarming terms as violent gangs by the press. The documentation of these lives over a twenty-year period offers a remarkable perspective on life in the ghetto (spanning four generations), and the means that people devise to cope from the time that they are children to when they serve as parents and role models for a new generation.
The film is an improvised story about a young man who meets a young woman in a public place. He attempts to establish a friendship. This situation is played out three times, each time with different characters and different actors in different locations. What occurs unfolds differently with each story. In each situation the actors don't know each other. They respond spontaneously as they create the dialogue and the narrative.
This powerful film, produced from a Native perspective, has won many awards in recognition of its exploration of the history and current circumstances of the Sayisi Dene, a people of the ecological and cultural borderlands between tundra and forest in Canada. While specific to the Sayisi Dene, the film provides an excellent introduction to complex issues of politics, land rights, cultural ecology and processes of cultural destruction and rebirth that are of widespread concern in the circumpolar Arctic. It is a well-integrated film using historical photographs, archival material and contemporary film records that, together with the strong testimony of the Sayisi Dene people themselves, combine to provide a positive statement of human potential."
This animated short film traces the adventures of a young Muttaburrasaurus who gets separated from his family. He wanders through wooded and coastal areas encountering other prehistoric animals and reptiles as he tries to find his way home.
The Sensual Nature of Sound portrays four New York based composers and performers in terms of their musical lives and artistic passion. Though Laurie Anderson, Tania Leon, Meredith Monk and Pauline Oliveros are all pioneers in American music, each composer pursues a distinct direction of her own. Their rehearsals and performances show a common pursuit of lyrical storytelling through which a new set of contemporary narratives has been forged. Through body, sound, movement and composition, these women have forged their own path through the wild world of modern music.
This moving documentary recounts the two months leading to Martin Luther King Jr.'s death in 1968, coinciding with the 65-day strike of 1300 Memphis sanitation workers.
Takes place in the Saharawi refugee camps in Algeria against the historical backdrop of Spanish colonialism and the Moroccan invasion of the Western Sahara. The Saharawi women, who make up 80% of the adult refugee population, provide a powerful voice as they reveal how they came to assume primary responsibility for the survival of the remains of their families and in turn the entire refugee population.
Documentary - They're clean, educated, articulate and rarely receive public assistance. But following a divorce, job loss or a long illness, a growing number of middle-class women are forced to live out of their cars. Directed by Michèle Ohayon (Colors Straight Up) and narrated by Jodie Foster, It Was a Wonderful Life chronicles the hardships and triumphs of six "hidden homeless" women as they struggle to survive, one day at a time. - Jodie Foster, Lou Hall, Reena Sands
Ladakh, or Little Tibet, is a wildly beautiful desert land high in the western Himalayas. It is a place of few resources and an extreme climate. Yet, for more than a thousand years, it has been home to a thriving culture. Traditions of frugality and co-operation, coupled with an intimate and location-specific knowledge of the environment, enabled the Ladakhis not only to survive, but to prosper. Then came development. Now in Leh, the capital, one finds pollution and divisiveness, inflation and unemployment, intolerance and greed. Centuries of ecological balance and social harmony are under threat from modernisation. The breakdown of Ladakh's culture and environment forces us to re-examine what we really mean by progress - not only in the developing parts of the world, but in the industrialized world as well. The story of Ladakh teaches us about the root causes of environmental, social and psychological problems, and provides valuable guidelines for our own future.
A poet among architects and an innovator among educators, John Hejduk converses with poet David Shapiro at The Cooper Union about the mystery and spirit of architecture. His own sketches and structures are shown
This is the true story of Malcolm Charles Smith who, like many Aboriginal people, was taken from his family as a child and died a shocking and early death after a life of institutionalisation and deprivation. In this documentary Richard Frankland, who helped investigate his death for the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, revisits Smith's friends and family who tell the story of Malcolm's life and death.
Brother Howie is a Jamaican Rastifari who dreams of the land of his ancestors: Africa. On a journey in search of his roots and his identity he travels through three continents and (with great humor and sensitivity) discovers the world and Africa.
In this revisionist documentary, actor Eric Farr re-creates the character of Rock Hudson in order to take a look back at his films. It compares the actor's screen (and public) image with his real life and shows certain scenes, lines and situations in his films to insinuate that Hudson may have been gay.
This documentary by Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky details the murder trial of Delbert Ward. Delbert was a member of a family of four elderly brothers, working as semi-literate farmers and living together in isolation from the rest of society until William's death.
A hilarious, unorthodox look at the colorful, Byzantine political culture of Louisiana, home to Huey and Earl Long, David Duke, and Edwin Edwards, where politics is a long-running spectator sport. Winner of the duPont-Columbia Journalism Award.