New York City's beloved Ukrainian restaurant Veselka is best known for its borscht and varenyky, but it has become a beacon of hope for Ukraine. As the second-generation owner Tom Birchard reluctantly retires after 54 years, his son Jason faces the pressures of stepping into his father’s shoes as the war in Ukraine impacts his family and staff.
SUPER, GIRLS! follows ten female teenagers on their quest to become instant superstars on China's biggest television show. The Chinese equivalent of "American Idol," the "Super Girls Singing Contest" spawned an unprecedented pop culture phenomenon. Drawing over 400 million viewers, the show's runaway popularity spurred the Chinese government to ban it after only two seasons.
When Thomas Jefferson died in 1826, he left behind a mountain of personal debt, which forced his heirs to sell his beloved Monticello home and all of its possessions. The Levys of Monticello is a documentary film that tells the little-known story of the Levy family, which owned and carefully preserved Monticello for nearly a century – far longer than Jefferson or his descendants. The remarkable story of the Levy family also intersects with the rise of antisemitism that runs throughout the course of American history.
JB Smoove is a gifted writer, comedian and actor who continues to entertain audiences all over the world with his unique brand of comedy. When JB's not touring the country with his stand-up act, he's making millions laugh at home with his reoccurring roles in Everybody Hates Chris and Curb Your Enthusiasm. This hilarious extended and uncensored feature-length special includes exclusive behind-the-scenes special features and is a must-own for all stand-up fans.
Artists Peter Fischli and David Weiss create the ultimate Rube Goldberg machine. The pair used found objects to construct a complex, interdependent contraption in an empty warehouse. When set in motion, a domino-like chain reaction ripples through the complex of imaginative devices. Fire, water, the laws of gravity, and chemistry determine the life-cycle of the objects. The process reveals a story concerning cause and effect, mechanism and art, and improbability and precision, in an extended science project that will mesmerize the mind.
FREEWAY: CRACK IN THE SYSTEM tells the story of broken dreams, drug dealers, dirty cops, and government complicity—more compelling than fiction, it’s the real story behind America’s longest war. This documentary by award-winning filmmaker Marc Levin (SLAM, Mr. Untouchable, Brick City) exposes how the infiltration of crack cocaine destroyed inner-city neighborhoods across the country. At the center of it all is the rise, fall and redemption of Freeway Rick Ross, a street hustler who became the King of Crack, and journalist Gary Webb, who broke the story of the CIA’s complicity in the drug war. Featuring exclusive interviews with Freeway Rick Ross, not to be confused with the rapper who took his name Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Gary Webb, his source Coral Baca, and wife Susan Webb former Los Angeles Deputy Sheriff Roberto Juarez drug trafficker Julio Zavala and many more.
This comedic documentary follows 3 divorcees on an exciting escapade to France, revealing that regardless of age, it's never too late to take an impromptu trip!
To be called the Fittest on Earth, one would have to be capable of conquering a number of both physical and mental challenges. In the year of 2020, those challenges were plentiful. "Resurgence" captures all the drama as the organization of CrossFit pivots to pull off an in-person event amidst a world pandemic. Developing a new competition format to narrow a large field of athletes to only 5 men and 5 women. These athletes descend on a small ranch in California to take on whatever challenges are necessary to be crowned the Fittest on Earth.
Originally produced in 1997 on the threshold of the Third Millennium of the Christian Era, and in celebration of the Jubilee of the Year of Our Lord 2000, The Vatican Museums was the culmination of three years of research and filming, the collaboration of thirty-two scholars and historians from around the world, a crew of forty directors of photography, operators, and lighting technicians, state-of-the-art digital cinematography, lighting, animation, and computerized editing, and the work of a famous composer with original performances by master musicians. Now available on DVD for the first time, this historic three-disc collection features seven hours of magnificent documentary film that illuminates and chronicles the great journey of the human spirit. Here then is the world's most spectacular and sacred repository of art, history, and faith.
A deep dive into the mysteries that led a young American man name John Walker Lindh, who became known as the “American Taliban,” to the battlefield in Afghanistan fighting alongside the people who were supposed to be his enemy.
Immersed in the colorful and vibrant setting of Dharamsala (India), four individuals from very different backgrounds come together to face their deepest fears as they approach the transformational power of the Kalachakra initiation, led by the Dalai Lama. Through this film, we enter and discover an ancient yet unknown dimension where death meets life, a dimension that changes someone forever.
It seems like two disparate realms. One occupied by some of the most acclaimed dancers in the world, people who move for a living. The other occupied by people who often struggle to move, people who have Parkinson's disease. This is the story of what happens when those worlds intersect. We followed individuals with Parkinson's as they prepared to stage a first ever dance performance, under the tutelage of two long time dancers at the Mark Morris Dance Group. It's a story about determination, adversity, contending with doubt, the transformative power of art and the strength of the human spirit. This is the story of a remarkable community of dancers who have come together to rediscover the meaning of grace.
Two American filmmakers travel undercover in China and Tibet during one of the most precarious times in the country's recent history. Their journey begins in hot-bed areas of Tibetan activism in India and Nepal, before continuing into the most closed off regions of Tibet, during the full scale media blackout that began in 2008 and continues to this day. Their goal is to meet with leading Tibetan activists who are risking their lives to peacefully protest against oppression by the Chinese government's police state in a region kept "in the dark". Traveling undercover, a dangerous cat-and-mouse game unfolds as secret police maintain 24 hour surveillance of the filmmakers. Unable to document their intended subjects, they are forced to turn the cameras on themselves as they become the targets. All their moves are followed, leading to hotel break-ins, equipment theft, and cyber-hacking and spying - ultimately putting the filmmakers' very lives in danger. Forced to flee and return to the US.
Visionary composer and performer Meredith Monk overcame hostile critics to become one of the great artists of her time. In her seventh decade of creativity, she ponders how her unique work can continue without her.
A documentary chronicling the shared experiences of prominent former child stars and the personal and professional price of fame and failure on a child.
FRONTLINE, the Portland Press Herald and Maine Public investigate the deadliest mass shooting in Maine history and the missed opportunities to prevent it. The documentary examines breakdowns with police, military and mental health care in the lead-up to the Lewiston shooting in October 2023.
Chicago artists Jackie and Don Seiden are a half-century into their marriage, time spent creating distinct yet congruous bodies of work. Jackie makes art of everything around her. Central to her practice is a recognition of the fragility of materials. That conceptual interest has turned into daily reality, as both her body and one of her most ambitious art projects, her canary-yellow Victorian house, start to fall apart. Don’s work reveals a mind resigned to death. He has always been interested in the rules of nature, and now he finds himself facing inevitable health scares. So Late So Soon is a sensitively constructed, playful character study that honors Jackie and Don’s art, and even becomes a part of it, while also locating in it glimmers of their essence.