It’s 1984 and Venice Beach, CA, is at the epicenter of a pop culture explosion. Young people of color seeking refuge from the turmoil of inner city life flock to the eclectic ocean community to create a brand new phenomenon: roller dancing! The talent and vibrant personality of this multicultural roller ‘family’ draws massive crowds and influence Hollywood. But just as roller dancing flourishes, politics, money and gentrification conspire to take their dreams away.
A documentary about Basque inmigrants who went to USA looking for work and a better future. Basically, Amerikanuak talks about feeling homesick, about struggling in a different country to make a decent living and about being part of a comunity.
A feature length documentary film representing the 'B' side to the 2012 release 'Something from Nothing: The Art of Rap'. A hard hitting story of life and death in South Central Los Angeles. A struggle beyond the nearby Hollywood limelight among people for whom state intervention comes mostly with a siren attached. Amsterdam Film Festival Winner World Cinema Documentary Editing Award 2014.
Follows the development of a brand new winery, Italics Winegrowers, seen through the eyes of elite Napa Valley winemakers in this small but highly revered wine region. Like a vine extending itself far underground seeking nourishment, the story digs deep to analyze what kind of person it takes to enter this highly competitive and well-established arena. Explore what it takes to succeed at building a brand, staking a claim, and realizing a lifelong dream.
Sons of Shiva is a sustained attempt to film a four-day ceremony concerned with the worship of Shiva. Devotees of the God Shiva are shown from the initial taking of the Sacred Thread through gradually intensifying action to a culmination in a variety of ascetic and self denying practices.
Recent discoveries of dinosaur eggs, nests, and even embryos, are providing new evidence to unlock the mysteries of dinosaur reproductive behavior. This educational program explores the mysteries of dinosaur reproduction with animation and interviews with renowned dinosaur experts including Robert Bakker, Philip Currie, Mark Norell, and others. Were dinosaurs social animals? Did they care for their young? What was life like for baby dinosaurs? These are some of the intriguing questions addressed in this informative program.
'Don't build prisons, they cost too much!' In this era of Great Recession, the conservative and tough-on-crime State of Texas takes an unprecedented path by becoming a social justice leader with programs that rehabilitate offenders. Looks like rape, abuse and death are no longer parts of the solution for modern-day Bonnie and Clyde...
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.
Set in the aftermath of the devastating financial crash of the Thai baht and the Asian monetary crisis, Ghosts and Numbers is a fantastic meditation on Thai encounters with the spirit world and the world of numbers, as these intersect in unexpected ways.
Between 2010 and 2014, nearly 3,000 Palestinian children were arrested by Israeli forces for reasons like throwing stones. Many are kept in solitary confinement for days, shackled and subjected to intimidating questioning without the presence of their parents or a lawyer. Mohammad Zedani, 14, has been arrested six times. The experience has left him traumatised: he struggles to sleep and displays symptoms of PTSD. We tell his story, along with those of Rami and Ahmed, three out of thousands of children affected by the occupation. We also hear from those working to stop the abuses.
Set deep in the traditional territory of Tahltan First Nation, Northern British Columbia’s Red Chris gold and copper mine is the backdrop to a lyrical tapestry of landscapes and diverse personal stories from the land. Language preservation initiatives and mining opposition evoke emotional tones as the story swells with ravishing images of wilderness as a rough and untamed beauty. A thoughtful shift from Wild’s traditional narrative style of radical point of view documentary, "KONELĪNE" is a meditation on nature, culture, and economy as experienced by those who live and work on the land.
Ningla A-Na documents the activism of the Black movement in south-east Australia in the 1970s and shows how the activists changed the direction of the movement both nationally and internationally.
At the height of the war in Iraq, thousands of Iraqis were fleeing the country each day. Among them was Mohamed, a 23-year-old from Baghdad, whose strikingly Western appearance and manner resulted in threats to his life. Forced into exile in Syria, Mohamed crosses path with Jennifer, a freelance video journalist from Brooklyn, New York, who begins to document his life as a refugee. Drawn into the fantasy world he invents to escape his harsh reality, Jennifer forms a unique friendship with Mohamed, embarking on a series of adventures around the city of Damascus.
Seeking to storm the man-fortress of the DJ booth, a 29-year-old university grad is forced to deal with an old feminist dilemma: use your sexuality and get noticed, or refuse to and linger in the shadows.
For a gay filmmaker, filming in Saudi Arabia presents two serious challenges: filming is forbidden in the country and homosexuality is punishable by death. For filmmaker Parvez Sharma, however, these were risks he had to assume as he embarked on his Hajj pilgrimage, a journey considered the greatest accomplishment and aspiration within Islam, his religion. On his journey Parvez aims to look beyond 21st-century Islam’s crises of religious extremism, commercialism and sectarian battles. He brings back the story of the religion like it has never been told before, having endured the biggest jihad there is: the struggle with the self.
Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant looms just 35 miles from Times Square. With over 50 million people living in close proximity to the aging facility, its continued operation has generated controversy for the surrounding community. In the brewing fight for clean energy and the catastrophic possibilities of complacency, director Ivy Meeropol weaves a startling portrait of our uncertain nuclear future.
Over 4,000,000 Poles immigrated to the United States between 1870 and 1920 in search of a better life form their partitioned country. In Chicago, they worked in some of the most dangerous factories and mills in the United States, and fought to free their homeland. Their story is known as the Fourth Partition.