Schooled: The Price of College Sports is a comprehensive look at the business, history and culture of big-time college football and basketball in America. It is an adaptation of “The Cartel” by Pulitzer Prize Winning civil rights scholar Taylor Branch, and his October 2011 article in The Atlantic, “The Shame of College Sports.” Schooled presents a hard-hitting examination of the NCAA’s treatment of its athletes and amateurism in collegiate athletics; weaving interviews, archival and verité footage to tell a story of how college sports became a billion dollar industry built on the backs of athletes who are deprived of numerous rights.
Seventy-five percent of the American people still refuse to believe the official story of President John F. Kennedy's death. They do not think he was killed by a lone gunman but by a mysterious cabal that somehow conspired to have him killed. How can this be? How can a crime this famous, witnessed and investigated by so many, remain a mystery? This is what veteran Australian police detective Colin McLaren is determined to find out. JFK: The Smoking Gun follows the forensic cold-case investigation McLaren conducted over four painstaking years, taking us back to that tragic day in Dallas at Dealey Plaza where the shooting took place, to Parkland Hospital where the president was pronounced dead, to the Bethesda Naval Hospital where the autopsy was conducted and to the conclusions of the Warren Commission that have remained controversial to this day.
Spinning Plates is a documentary about three extraordinary restaurants and the incredible people who make them what they are. A cutting-edge restaurant named the seventh-best in the world whose chef must battle a life-threatening obstacle to pursue his passion. A 150-year-old family restaurant still standing only because of the unbreakable bond with its community. A fledgling Mexican restaurant whose owners are risking everything just to survive and provide for their young daughter. Their unforgettable stories of family, legacy, passion and survival come together to reveal how meaningful food can be, and the power it has to connect us to one another.
Pierre Dulaine, an internationally renowned ballroom dancer, is starting to fulfill his life long dream - to take his program Dancing Classrooms to Jaffa, where he was born. He is teaching 10-year-old Israeli-Palestinian and Israeli-Jewish children to dance together. Pierre recognizes that the future is built by children. By breaking the syndrome of hatred, he will change their lives, and hopefully, the community around them.
Filmed from 1995 to 1997 in Havana, New York, Los Angeles, Morelia and Mexico City, it tells the story of Yuliet, a Cuban teenager, and Fabiola Quiroz, a Mexican model, who, with humor and frankness, surrounded by quirky supporting characters, show us that the absence of their parents, deprivation and adversity made them stronger.
Vilified by some and venerated by others as the FBI informant largely responsible for the imprisonment of two youths following the 2008 Republican National Convention, Darby was once a charismatic activist mythologized by the American Left for his daredevil aid work in New Orleans’ Ninth Ward in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Informant meticulously constructs a portrait of his life—before and after the death threats—through intimate interviews with Darby and tense reenactments starring the man himself.
The transformation from small-town Canadian boy to international superstar happened almost overnight for recording artist, Justin Bieber. With the help of his mother, Bieber started a You Tube craze fueled by his baby-faced good looks and impressive musical talent. After being discovered by manager Scooter Braun, and then being signed to Usher s record label, it was evident that "Bieber Fever" was just getting started. Now a media fixture and a household name, Bieber lights up the stage with his Top 40 hits and winning smile. Justin Bieber: Rise to Fame delves into not only the musical life of the heartthrob, but also how the young star copes with fame and spends his limited free time. Packed with previously unseen footage and exclusive interviews with the teen idol himself, Rise to Fame chronicles the life of the worldwide pop phenomenon who is tearing up the charts and melting young hearts.
The music speaks for itself in this performance documentary that highlights some of the biggest names within the country-folk scene in Texas and Tennessee during the last weeks of 1975 and the first weeks of 1976, eschewing narration and staged interviews.
SACRED PLANET is a journey away from the hectic "world" we live in. Through stunning cinematography, it transports you to some of the most fascinating, exotic, and remote sites on Earth, giving you new insights into her diverse landscapes, peoples, and animals. You'll be mesmerized by the beauty of these all-but-forgotten faraway places, the majesty of the creatures who live there, and the wisdom of the elders who hold the knowledge of the past. This magical around-the-world odyssey is an awe-inspiring wonder the entire family will enjoy.
In the summer of 2005, a package arrived at the Hollywood offices of Highway 61 Entertainment from London with no return address. Inside were two mini-cassette audio tapes dated December 30, 1999 and labeled "The Last Testament of George Harrison". A voice eerily similar to Harrison's tells a shocking story: Paul McCartney was killed in a car crash in November of 1966 and replaced with a double!
Filmmaker Alan Berliner chronicles his lifelong battle with insomnia in this intimate documentary. The cameras roll as he tries to quiet his overly active mind so he can get a decent night's sleep, capturing the details of what it's like to suffer from a chronic sleep disorder. As he struggles to find balance, his friends and family -- who endure the worst of Berliner's bouts with insomnia -- question whether he really wants to find a cure.
Traces the Beats from Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac's meeting in 1944 at Columbia University to the deaths of Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs in 1997. Three actors provide dramatic interpretations of the work of these three writers, and the film chronicles their friendships, their arrival into American consciousness, their travels, frequent parodies, Kerouac's death, and Ginsberg's politicization. Their movement connects with bebop, John Cage's music, abstract expressionism, and living theater. In recent interviews, Ginsberg, Burroughs, Kesey, Ferlinghetti, Mailer, Jerry Garcia, Tom Hayden, Gary Snyder, Ed Sanders, and others measure the Beats' meaning and impact.
On October 12th, 1978, New York Police discovered the lifeless body of a young woman, slumped under the bathroom sink in a hotel room. She was Nancy Spungen, an ex-prostitute, sometimes stripper, heroin addict, and girlfriend of Sex Pistols' bassist Sid Vicious.
Filmmaker and author Kevin Rafferty takes viewers back to 1968 to witness a legendary college football game and meet the people involved, interweaving game footage with players' reflections. The names may be familiar, but their views on the game's place in the turbulent history of the 1960s college scene add an unexpected dimension.
In the 1970s the North American Soccer League marked the first attempt to introduce soccer to American sports fans. While most teams had only limited success at best, one managed to break through to genuine mainstream popularity - the New York Cosmos. The brainchild of Steve Ross (Major executive at Warner Communications) and the Ertegun brothers (Founders of Atlantic Records), the Cosmos got off to a rocky start in 1971, but things changed in 1975 when the world's most celebrated soccer star, the Brazilian champion Pele, signed with the Cosmos for a five-million-dollar payday. With the arrival of Pele, the Cosmos became a hit and the players became the toast of the town, earning their own private table at Studio 54. A number of other international soccer stars were soon lured to the Cosmos, including Franz Beckenbauer, Rodney Marsh, and Carlos Alberto, but with the turn of the decade, the team began losing favor with fans and folded in 1985.
Boogie Man is a comprehensive look at political strategist, racist, and former Republican National Convention Committee chairman, Lee Atwater, who reinvigorated the Republican Party’s Southern Strategy to increase political support among white voters in the South by appealing to racism against African Americans. He mentored Karl Rove and George W. Bush and played a key role in the elections of Reagan and George H.W. Bush.
How do you reconcile a commitment to non-violence when faced with violence? Why do the poor often seem happier than the rich? Must a society lose its traditions in order to move into the future? These are some of the questions posed to His Holiness the Dalai Lama by filmmaker and explorer Rick Ray. Ray examines some of the fundamental questions of our time by weaving together observations from his own journeys throughout India and the Middle East, and the wisdom of an extraordinary spiritual leader. This is his story, as told and filmed by Rick Ray during a private visit to his monastery in Dharamsala, India over the course of several months. Also included is rare historical footage as well as footage supplied by individuals who at great personal risk, filmed with hidden cameras within Tibet.
The story of how George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley's Wham! turned one song into a cultural phenomenon. As well as new interviews with Wham! fans and friends, figures such as Mary J Blige, Sir Bob Geldof, Neil Tennant and Sam Smith give their views on the song's themes of unrequited love and loss.