Rapper, record producer, songwriter, and actor, Eminem has a wide range of talents. Despite his struggles, this rap artiste has won the hearts of critics and fans alike, earning more than a dozen Grammy awards.
German actor Conrad Veidt is best remembered for playing Nazi Major Strasser in Casablanca. In reality, he was an ardent anti-fascist who left Nazi Germany for Britain, falsely claiming to be Jewish in solidarity with his Jewish wife. Using clips from Veidt’s films, acclaimed director Mark Rappaport imagines the actor narrating his life and career from the silent era—including his leading roles in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and The Man Who Laughs through to his Hollywood years where he often played a Nazi.
On December 10th, 2006, General Pinochet dies unexpectedly at Santiago's Military Hospital. His decease triggers a 24 hours revival of political divisions that marked with violence and death Chilean recent history. With high quality original footage and testimonies of four characters that deeply experienced a journey of strong contrasts and surrealistic nuances, the film narrates in an innovative, exciting way the ending of a key chapter in Chilean history.
The Unbookables is a narrative documentary about stand-up comics who have spent their careers pushing limits--on stage and off. Relegated to small venues and touring in a crappy van through the Midwest they careen between the desire to succeed and the reality that there may be nothing left to lose. Road life is far from glamorous: comics come and go and cruel pranks and hard drinking punctuate their obsidian dark comedy on stage. They succeed and fail-spectacularly. When they face being fired for going too far on stage, the conflict culminates in a showdown: compromise or double down?
Despite restrictions beginning under the regime of Fidel Castro, heavy metal band Zeus became icons of the Cuban music scene. Over the decades, the band and their front man, Diony Arce, have challenged the status quo under threat of government suppression. As the bandmates approach their 30th anniversary together in a shifting political and social climate, they embark on a national tour while contemplating the cultural influence of metal as a genre and music as their life's purpose.
The Reality of Time takes viewers on an immersive journey through the mysteries of time, from the Big Bang to modern physics, ancient philosophy, and myth. Using groundbreaking generative AI to re-create scientific phenomena, historical epochs, and mythological concepts, the film brings to life complex ideas that bridge science and storytelling. It is the world's first feature length cinematic movie created with Generative AI.
Destroyed in a dramatic and highly-publicized implosion, the Pruitt-Igoe public housing complex has become a widespread symbol of failure amongst architects, politicians and policy makers. The Pruitt-Igoe Myth explores the social, economic and legislative issues that led to the decline of conventional public housing in America, and the city centers in which they resided, while tracing the personal and poignant narratives of several of the project's residents. In the post-War years, the American city changed in ways that made it unrecognizable from a generation earlier, privileging some and leaving others in its wake. The next time the city changes, remember Pruitt-Igoe.
More recently, in the middle of the last century, a group of enthusiasts began to develop a sport unique to Russia: water skiing. Very quickly, riding on the water behind the boat became popular: tricks became more complicated, new champions appeared. And a few decades later, water skiing was replaced by modern wakeboarding — with its own unique path and bright characters.
Filmed at the Yale University Art Gallery, "Mel Bochner: Thoughts Made Visible", approaches a major retrospective exhibition of the artist's early work while providing an opportunity to experience his notable, site-specific installations. Known for his use of common material, Bochner's elements are easily understandable yet his art is founded on the unexpected questioning of how simple things hold the ability to reveal eye-opening complexities. A relationship established through language, Bochner's work takes the form of a dialogue between practice and theory, defining his subject as "the contradiction between physical space and mental space." Bochner uses that contradiction to create visual think pieces, locating his own intention- and thus emotion- through his process, his sites, and the mind of his viewer.
Born in Portugal, Paula Rego is one of Britain's leading artists. This intimate film follows the artist from her retrospective in Madrid to the privacy of her studio in London while she talks with humor and candor about her compulsion to produce works that, though accessible, deal with the most private themes.
Nénette, an orangutan, is the star of the Parisian zoo where she has lived most of her long life. She is a mother of four and has survived three mates, and she bonds only with a few select keepers. The camera rests throughout on Nénette and the other apes in everyday situations. We only see the visitors as occasional reflections in the glass, but we hear their recorded comments and conversations alongside interviews with the zoo keepers.
A short, educational animation about the history of fonts and typography. In a paper cutout stop-motion style, it begins with Gutenberg's creation of the first typeface, travels through the innovations of Jenson, Caslon, and Bodoni, to the modern creation of Futura and the democratization of fonts in the digital age. A charming, engaging film about a technology that is all around us, but few people know much about.
Peace Officer is a documentary about the increasingly militarized state of American police as told through the story of Dub Lawrence, a former sheriff who established his rural state's first SWAT team only to see that same unit kill his son-in-law in a controversial standoff 30 years later. Driven by an obsessed sense of mission, Dub uses his own investigation skills to uncover the truth in this and other recent officer-involved shootings in his community, while tackling larger questions about the changing face of peace officers nationwide.
OBSCENE BEAUTY dives into the NYC Neo-Burlesque scene — its history, impact, and players. As an exploration of sexuality, culture, comedy and art, the documentary follows performers within the community and examines how they utilize their three minutes on stage as a platform for their own socio-political commentary. Through a night of performance, OBSCENE BEAUTY explores the raw artistry and self-expression of a genre that has been able to withstand the test of time.
The story of James Cotton, harmonica powerhouse, whose music shaped blues and rock. Orphaned at 9, Cotton’s life tracks America’s history—from the post-depression cotton fields of the Mississippi Delta to being mentored by the original Delta bluesmen, to Chicagoland’s artistic reinvention to the live music scene in Austin, Texas.
An exploration of the cinematic history of the folk horror, from its beginnings in the UK in the late sixties; through its proliferation on British television in the seventies and its many manifestations, culturally specific, in other countries; to its resurgence in the last decade.
In 1918, when New York City hired its first scientifically trained medical examiner Charles Norris. Over the course of a decade and a half, Norris and his extraordinarily driven and talented chief toxicologist, Alexander Gettler, would turn forensic chemistry into a formidable science, sending many a murderer to the electric chair and setting the standards that the rest of the country would ultimately adopt.