The recession of the 1980s split the country into the haves and have-nots, from family farmers to factory workers and homeless people forced to live in decrepit welfare hotels. On the verge of losing everything, courageous Americans discover the power of community organizing to fight injustice.
The School for the Deaf at the Alabama Institute is organized around a theory of total communication i.e. the use of signs and finger spelling in conjunction with speech, hearing aids, lip reading, gestures and the written word. The film shows sequences dealing with various aspects of this comprehensive training such as teaching students and parents to sign; speech therapy; psychological counseling; regular academic courses; vocational training; disciplinary problems; parents visits; sports and recreational activity; training in living and working independently; and developing skills in home and money management.
Kevin and Garrison are boyhood friends in a sleepy California suburb. They share a love of skateboarding, an evangelical Christian faith and a sense of confusion about romantic relationships.
Don Alfonso plays marimbas, the traditional Guatemalan instrument. Facing extortion and without work due to the population's lack of interest for his instrument, he seeks refuge with his godson Chiquilín. Blacko is a pioneer of the Heavy Metal Guatemalan underground stage. He is also a doctor in the public hospital but nobody wants to be treated by him because of his long hair and his tattoos. Chiquilín makes connections for Don Alfonso and Blacko to combine their talents and create a brand new band called Marimbas from Hell.
Set on the Isle of Wight, the film tells the story of Anthony and Kyle, and their last night together as Kyle moves away leaving Anthony to look after his terminally ill mother. Poetic in nature, the film is concerned with exploring the intimate and often unspoken moment in which we give something special away.
In 1968, Shirley Chisholm becomes the first black woman elected to Congress. In 1972, she becomes the first black woman to run for president. Shunned by the political establishment, she's supported by a motley crew of blacks, feminists, and young voters. Their campaign-trail adventures are frenzied, fierce and fundamentally right on!
Some Days are Better Than Others is a poetic, character-driven film that asks why the good times slip by so fast while the difficult times seem so sticky. The film explores ideas of abundance, emptiness, human connection and abandonment while observing an interweaving web of awkward characters who maintain hope by inventing their own forms of communication and self-fulfillment.
An average guy makes a resolution to stop using plastic bags at the grocery store. Little does he know that this simple decision will change his life completely. He comes to the conclusion that our consumptive use of plastic has finally caught up to us, and looks at what we can do about it. Today. Right now.
Longtime best friends Bebe and DeeDee are both wrestling with love. Bebe has met someone new and is in the exuberant phase of a budding romance. DeeDee is trying to move on from someone she can’t forget – mostly in destructive ways. As Bebe waits for the perpetually late DeeDee at their favorite coffee shop, she meets Clementine, a distraught young woman with love problems of her own. With Clementine in tow, Bebe and DeeDee soon embark on the kind of outrageous misadventure that only New York City can offer.
Robert Mugge filmed jazz great Sun Ra on location in Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C. between 1978 and 1980. The resulting 60-minute film includes multiple public and private performances, poetry readings, a band rehearsal, interviews, and extensive improvisations. Transferred to HD from the original 16mm film and lovingly restored for the best possible viewing experience.
The Runway is inspired by the true story of a South American pilot who landed his plane near Mallow, in 1983. Against all odds, the people of the town came together to build a runway to get him home and briefly caught the imagination of the nation. It is the story of Paco, a young boy without a father who adopts the pilot and convinces the town to build a runway to get him home.
What happens when western anthropologists descend on the Amazon and make one of the last unacculturated tribes in existence, the Yanomami, the most exhaustively filmed and studied tribe on the planet? Despite their "do no harm" creed and scientific aims, the small army of anthropologists that has studied the Yanomami since the 1960s has wreaked havoc among the tribe – and sparked a war within the anthropology community itself.
The Orator (O Le Tulafale) is a contemporary drama about courage, forgiveness and love. Small in stature and humble, Saili lives a simple life with his beloved wife and daughter in an isolated, traditional village in the islands of Samoa. Forced to protect his land and family, Saili must face his fears and seek the right to speak up for those he loves.
Félix, operator of dodgem cars in a fairground, becomes obsessed by one of his customers, a mysterious young woman named Lola. Félix soon discovers that Lola is running away from her former boyfriend, a singer who continues to taunt her. Lola asks Félix to prove his love for her by murdering a man he does not know...
The film traces the rise of one of the world's premier architects, Norman Foster, and his unending quest to improve the quality of life through design.
The Upsetter tells the fascinating story of Lee Scratch Perry a visionary musician and artist from poor rural Jamaica who journeyed to the big city of Kingston in the late 1950’s with dreams of making it in the burgeoning record industry. He burst upon the scene with a brand new sound, inventing a genre of music that would come to be called Reggae, discovering a young Bob Marley and gaining international recognition as a record producer and solo artist. Soon he was being called upon by artists as diverse as The Clash and Paul McCartney to provide his unique sound.
A film about Peter Gatien, the owner of legendary New York nightclubs like Limelight, The Tunnel and the Palladium. The film documents his rise and fall from the 1980s through the 1990s.
When real estate mogul Gavin Ransom announces his plan to cover California's northern coast with scores of mini-mansions, his environmentalist sister, Olive, launches a protest to stop him. But there's trouble ahead when Gavin begins falling for the pretty folk singer who's helping Olive's cause.
Meet Chloe and Owen: best buds since their sandbox days. Now, in med school as they attempt to balance the weight of their studies, his job, her band, their parents, their friends (their sanity), they find little time for relationships...but lots of time for the desire. One fateful day, a brave Owen proposes the "perfect" solution: Friends (read: no messy relationship stuff)...with benefits (read: insanely messy sex stuff). "Perfect," that is...if the two hadn't always been secretly in love with one another So what DOES happen when two close friends decide to secretly blur the lines dividing friendship and relationship...and the rest of their tight knit group of friends finds out? The answer: complications arise. A LOT of complications. In fact, to quote their therapist, "It's brought down empires; imagine what it can do to a group of friends".