What happens when America's most joyous, dysfunctional city rebuilds itself after a disaster? New Orleans is the setting for Getting Back to Abnormal, a film that serves up a provocative mix of race, corruption and politics to tell the story of the re-election campaign of Stacy Head, a white woman in a city council seat traditionally held by a black representative. Supported by her irrepressible African-American aide Barbara Lacen-Keller, Head polarizes the city as her candidacy threatens to diminish the power and influence of its black citizens. Featuring a cast of characters as colorful as the city itself, the film presents a New Orleans that outsiders rarely see.
The Who perform a live set at The Summit, Houston, Texas on 20 November 1975. Probably the best 'official' bootleg ever. All the classics including Substitute, I Can't Explain, My Generation & Won't Get Fooled Again.
Alien Boy: The Life and Death of James Chasse is a feature length documentary film about one mans struggle with schizophrenia and the extraordinary brutality that ended his life. It is the story of a city in denial that was forced to face the truth and learn, grow and change as a result. Alien Boy explores issues of impunity, police brutality, and mental illness.
This feature documentary tells the stories of 5 asylum seekers who flee their native countries to escape homophobic violence. They face hurdles integrating into Canada, fear deportation and anxiously await a decision that will change their lives forever.
Before her death in 2006 from lung cancer, Dana Reeve filmed this thought-provoking program exploring the use of holistic remedies in modern medicine. Moving beyond traditional treatments and examining more lifestyle factors, an increasing number of doctors are supplementing their work with a host of healing alternatives -- including meditation, hypnosis and acupuncture -- to treat the whole body and restore their patients' health.
This new documentary focuses on the moving, unforgettable stories of Nagasaki and Fukushima survivors. Their stories are interlaced with expert commentary illuminating the largely unknown connection between nuclear weapons and nuclear power plants.
A documentary chronicling the rise of art as a response to political change that defined the 1980s. A mixed media documentary incorporating art, music, animation, and spoken work Let Fury Have the Hour is told through the voices of the artists of the day.
Greece: 2012. Khaos: The Human Faces of the Greek Crisis starting from numerous accounts and stories, Khaos presents without varnish the daily life of the Greek people with Panagiotis Grigoriou, historian and war economical blogger as our recurring character. This road movie is pace by jazz and rap that bring us from Trikala to Kea Island including Athens at the encounter of the Greek citizen from the fisherman to the political tagger.
The 'bertsolari' is a kind of minstrel sings and improvises verses in Basque. This oral tradition has evolved with the times and connecting with younger generations, getting to meet at the end of the last championship to 14 thousand people. An austere aesthetic art of surprising in this age of spectacle and special effects.
The suspenseful chronicle of how the prodigious Polish violinist Bronislaw Huberman helped save Europe’s premiere Jewish musicians from obliteration by the Nazis during World War II. In three years, he transformed from a world renowned violinist to a humanitarian racing against time.
March 1989: two respected chemists from the University of Utah stand in front of a wall of reporters. Flashbulbs pop as they announce they have solved the world's energy problems using seawater, batteries and a mysterious glass contraption. 'Cold Fusion' is born. Within days, Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann are on the cover of Time Magazine. But three short months later, their careers in tatters and their reputations ruined, they flee the US as Cold Fusion becomes synonymous with 'bad science.' Twenty-two years later, despite continued disdain from mainstream science, a group of scientists, entrepreneurs and one high school student are confident that Cold Fusion will save the world, and that we're closer than ever to the Holy Grail of civilization. They're The Believers.
What happens when a woman goes in search of her identity and discovers that the cycle of violence she's been working hard to break in the US is part of her family history and culture on another continent?
This surprisingly open and revealing documentary follows two years in the private life of a minister. Marilyn Sewell is successful and beloved in the pulpit, but behind the scenes she is lonely and yearning for change. As she considers leaving the ministry, she realizes she will be leaving her only social network. Yet when she falls in love for the first time, she realizes she does not trust intimacy. A study in contrasts, Marilyn must rely on raw faith as she questions her future, her difficult past, her God, and most importantly... her ability to love.
The project began as a way to explore, educate about, and advocate change around the overcrowding in the Philadelphia jail system. It has come to focus on mass incarceration across the nation and the intersection of race, poverty, and the criminal justice and penal systems. The documentary centers around Michelle Alexander's theory in her book, The New Jim Crow: since the rise of the drug war and explosion of prison populations, because discretion within the system allows for prosecution of people of color at disproportionately high rates, mass incarceration is a new version of Jim Crow. The movie also dissects the War on Drugs and 'tough on crime' movement, and offers possible reforms and solutions to ending mass incarceration and this new racial caste system.
Fixation is a documentary, focusing on the thrilling world of fixed gear cycling. This film captures the excitement and popularity of this growing sport from all perspectives. With the resurgence of this original form of cycling, we discover the appeal to having only one gear. Though technology has developed multiple speed bicycles, for faster and easier riding, both fixed and freewheel single speeds continue to have a strong following. The range of riders is vast, from professionals to the casual everyday rider. Their styles and motives are different, but their outcome seems to be the same: the freedom, the simplicity and the challenge of having one gear is what brings them back to the basics. We explore the full spectrum of this lifestyle: Messengers, Olympic Racing, City Riders, Bike Polo, Brakeless, Freestyle and more. "Fixation" showcases the different personalities of those involved with fixed gear cycling community, in San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Jose.
Public schools don’t have to be a minefield of metal detectors, minimal expectations, and mind-numbing routine. An alternative exists right here in Chicago, at the Dixon Elementary Public School in the Chatham neighborhood, where former principal Joan Crisler and her successor Sharon Dale have implemented the idea that art should be an integral part of the learning environment, with museum-quality works openly adorning the halls. The results, in terms of student performance and morale, have been spectacular, but, as this inspiring but pragmatic documentary demonstrates, there are no miracle solutions: Crisler’s protégé Carol Briggs has an uphill battle applying the same approach at another school, and recent budget cuts have left even the most successful programs vulnerable to the axe.