“Showrunners” is the first ever feature length documentary film to explore the fascinating world of US television showrunners and the creative forces aligned around them. These are the people responsible for creating, writing and overseeing every element of production on one of the United State’s biggest exports – television drama and comedy series. Often described as the most complex job in the entertainment business, a showrunner is the chief writer / producer on a TV series and, in most instances, the show’s creator. Battling daily between art and commerce, showrunners manage every aspect of a TV show’s development and production: creative, financial and logistical.
In Palestinian East Jerusalem, Singer-Songwriter David Broza records a new album with American, Palestinian and Israeli musicians in defiance of the Middle East's dark realities.
"The Principle" brings to light astonishing new scientific observations challenging the Copernican Principle; the foundational assumption underlying the modern scientific world view. The idea that the Earth occupies no special or favored position in the cosmos has launched the last two scientific revolutions - the Copernican Revolution and Relativity - and, as Lawrence Krauss has said, we could be on the verge of a third, with "Copernicus coming back to haunt us". Interviews with leading cosmologists are interspersed with the views of dissidents and mavericks, bringing into sharp focus the challenges and implications not only for cosmology, but for our cultural and religious view of reality.
In June 2013, Laura Poitras and reporter Glenn Greenwald flew to Hong Kong for the first of many meetings with Edward Snowden. She brought her camera with her.
IRIS pairs legendary 87-year-old documentarian Albert Maysles with Iris Apfel, the quick-witted, flamboyantly dressed 93-year-old style maven who has had an outsized presence on the New York fashion scene for decades. More than a fashion film, the documentary is a story about creativity and how, even in Iris’ dotage, a soaring free spirit continues to inspire. IRIS portrays a singular woman whose enthusiasm for fashion, art and people are life’s sustenance and reminds us that dressing, and indeed life, is nothing but an experiment.
Jack Coleman's Nameless Direction Underground premieres his fourth fully independent feature length surf film. Groove Move celebrates the pure heart and soul of surfing, with the world's top experimental board riders. It features surfing's underground, as well as some of its most recognized faces. Shot entirely on SUPER 8 film, digitally transferred to HD with the newest technology, for a truly nostalgic cinematic adventure.
Possessed of an incredible artistic talent, Steve Rude is "The Dude," an eccentric personality as colorful as his comic book art. Filmmaker Ian Fischer (Magritte Moment) presents Rude's rise through the comic book world and difficult transition from comic book shops to art gallery walls, made all the more challenging by Rude's battles with mental illness.
After a life altering discussion with his holocaust-surviving Grandfather, a disillusioned student seeks to find answers on the other side of the world.
IN PLAIN SIGHT: Stories of Hope and Freedom is a feature-length documentary focused on six modern-day abolitionists as they fight sex trafficking across America. Journeying to six US cities, the film opens the viewer's eyes to what's happening down the street "in plain sight". Through engaging interviews with numerous victims of sex trafficking, the force, coercion, and deception of the children and women becomes apparent. In the midst of the darkness, stories of hope and freedom emerge as each survivor shares how she was impacted through the work of a sex trafficking aftercare home.
A young teacher in Zurich in the 1950s falls in love with a transvestite star but is torn between his bourgeois existence and his commitment to homosexuality. He joins a gay organization that is eventually seen as the pioneer of gay emancipation in Europe.
Deep Purple is one of the most influential and important guitar bands in history, one of the godfathers of the heavy metal genre, with over 100 million album sales worldwide to their name. To celebrate the 40th anniversary of Deep Purple's groundbreaking double live album Made in Japan, this documentary explores these recordings and Deep Purple Mark 2, the line-up between 1969 and 1973.
In the early 1970s a young guitarist from Austin, Texas began to make his name on the local blues circuit, committed to a musical form many thought outdated. A decade on, that same guitarist became an international superstar. A player of passion, energy and awe-inspiring technical virtuosity, Stevie Ray Vaughan not only brought the blues heritage of his home state to a global audience, he reinvigorated the genre itself, introducing it to a new generation of listeners in the process. This film reveals and dissects the formative years of Stevie Ray Vaughan's career; his influences, his first recordings and the bands with whom he honed his craft and traces the history of Texas blues itself, identifying Vaughan's place within this larger tradition. It is the journey of both a musical form and the single-minded musician who brought it firmly back into the spotlight after decades of neglect.
Winner of Indie Fest USA's Best of Festival Award, FALLING... is award winning actor Michael Zelniker's directorial debut. Heralded as "brilliant, evocative and touching, an incredible cinematic experience", FALLING... is an experiment in narrative film making.
The Price of Honor is a documentary about the murders of Sarah and Amina Said, two teenage sisters from Texas who were killed in a premeditated Honor Killing planned and executed by their father Yaser Said back in 2008.
‘When it comes to climate change, why do we do so little when we know so much?’ Through a relentless investigation to find the answer, Disruption takes an unflinching look at the devastating consequences of our inaction. The exploration lays bare the terrifying science, the shattered political process, the unrelenting industry special interests and the civic stasis that have brought us to this social, moral and ecological crossroads.The film also takes us behind-the-scenes of the efforts to organize the largest climate rally in the history of the planet during the UN world climate summit.
Lullabies is a false autobiography. A game that sometimes is blue or has no color. A story that, as Dominican conversations, won't finish its ideas and finds in onomatopoeias conclusions to its thoughts. A tale about a glance, a space, an action, or a love, but that definitely belongs to the boy that appears and disappears in the abstraction of a childhood memory.
Legendary Canadian documentarian Alanis Obomsawin digs into the tangled history of Treaty 9 — the infamous 1905 agreement wherein First Nations communities relinquished sovereignty over their traditional territories — to reveal the deceptions and distortions which the document has been subjected to by successive governments seeking to deprive Canada’s First Peoples of their lands.
Activist-pranksters Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonnano pull the rug out from under mega-corporations, government officials and a complacent media in a series of outrageous stunts designed to draw awareness to the issue of climate change.