With a career spanning decades Photographer Rose Hartman is known for her iconic photos from Studio 54 and the fashion world, her boisterous personality, and ever presence capturing the New York social scene. The film follows Rose through her life of entrée as she put the lives of the glamorous and famous on film that serves as one of the few visual histories of NYC.
In 1980s Los Angeles, a professional dwarf basketball team composed of recognizable-but-typecast actors finds itself the unwitting vanguard of a revolution to represent little people as something other than objects of curiosity.
An idealistic collective launches a TV channel in the very early days of portable video cameras. This wonderful lesson in journalism makes it clear just how perilous it is to promote your own view of society via autonomous media. From the tumultuous period of Woodstock, the Black Panthers, women’s lib and anti-Vietnam demonstrations.
Charles Lewis founded TapouT in 1997, prompting a whirlwind life that intersected the birth of a sport. Selling TapouT apparel out of the trunk of his car during road trips throughout California, a hot bed of mixed martial arts in the late 1990s, Lewis took on the superhero persona of “Mask" as he donned war paint on his face and wore outlandish comic book outfits. Mask's vision quickly came to represent hardcore aspects of MMA fandom at a time when the sport floundered under political pressure. The history of MMA cannot be told without mentioning Charles “Mask” Lewis, or the era in which he emerged. On March 11, 2009, Lewis was killed by a drunk driver in Newport Beach, Calif. To honor his contributions, the sport's dominant promoter, the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), posthumously inducted "Mask" as the first and only non-fighter into the UFC Hall of Fame.
In an attempt to launch their careers, two young actors investigate a disturbing viral video of a French psychic's prophecy. As they shed light on the mysterious footage, their journey will test their friendship, threaten their lives and reveal a most troubling secret.
Digital Dissidents are the warriors of the digital age: republican patriots, radical anarchists and cyber-hippies fighting side by side for transparency and privacy in a digital world which is permeating our lives more and more. For this they are imprisoned, live in exile, and have lost careers and families. Why do they do it? What motivates them? What are they warning us about?
Forty years after its people were promised freedom by departing Spanish rulers, Western Sahara remains Africa's last colony. This film chronicles the everyday violence experienced by Sahrawis living under Moroccan occupation and voices the aspirations of a desert people for whom the era of colonialist never ended.
In 2013, United Methodist minister Frank Schaefer was defrocked for officiating at his son's same-sex wedding. Suddenly, the Reverend found himself an accidental LGBTQ activist. Considering all sides of the debate, this powerful documentary shows how the groundwork for a 2016 showdown that may transform American Christianity is being laid.
Between 1900 and 1920 more than 14 million immigrants arrived in the US, like Howard Zinn's parents. They came fleeing poverty or war, or racism, or religious persecution. They dreamed of a promised land, of wealth, or simply of a better life.
Althea Gibson’s life and achievements transcend sports. A truant from the rough streets of Harlem, Althea emerged as a most unlikely queen of the highly segregated tennis world in the 1950s. Her roots as a sharecropper’s daughter, her family’s migration north to Harlem in the 1930s, mentoring from Sugar Ray Robinson, David Dinkins and others, and fame that thrust her unwillingly into the glare of the early Civil Rights movement, all bring her story into a much broader realm of the American story.
Freedom From Choice explores the endless layers of backroom dealing that is the US lobbying industry. Through a series of thought-provoking interviews, experts from numerous industries explain in simple terms how the political 'revolving door' creates unfair regulations which affect their industry. Supplemented by recent news clips and archival footage, the experts paint a startling picture of the overregulation of modern American life.
Mom and Me takes a look at tough guys and the even tougher women who raise them. Set in Oklahoma City, apparently voted the manliest city in the United States, this creative documentary from Irish director Ken Wardrop ("His & Hers") chronicles the relationships between ten sons and their mothers.
Ronnie and Reggie Kray remain two of the most infamous criminals in British history. Legends to many, their fame was built on a fearsome reputation and almost mythical celebrity-like status, but who were the real Kray twins?
Rethinking Cancer is an educational documentary film that provides a rare look into the psychological and therapeutic journeys of five men and women who used biological alternative cancer therapies to overcome serious illness. Their stories represent successes that mainstream medicine and the public ought to know about. Four of the featured subjects had been diagnosed with cancer; two of these patients were considered terminal cases. The fifth patient had a severe case of Lyme disease. All five have outlived their diseases, between 15 and nearly 40 years, thus far.
By following the career of two dancers of the National Cuban Ballet, Amanda, young ballerina and Viengsay Valdez, star dancer, Horizons revisits the extraordinary destiny of Alicia Alonso, prima ballerina assoluta, with a steel temperament who is now in the twilight of her life.
In 2000, a California State Prison inmate serving Life Without Parole (LWOP) approached the warden to request a dedicated yard for men serving life sentences that would break the code of violence dominating prison life. The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) subsequently transformed Yard A at California State Prison into The Progressive Programming Facility, which inmates call The Honor Yard. The only one of its kind in the United States, this experimental prison yard is free of violence, racial tensions, gang activity and illegal drug and alcohol use.
The film was commissioned in 1988 by Leonard Stern as the first of a series on celebrity businessmen and finished in 1991. Back then, the only way for a film to be seen was on television or in the theater. Donald threatened to sue any broadcaster or distributor that took on the film. In effect, it was suppressed. It was screened twice in back-to-back standing room only showings at the Bridgehampton Community House on July 3, 1991, the same day that Donald announced his engagement to Marla Maples.
An out of the box Snowboard Film by PIRATE MOVIE PRODUCTION coproduced by RED BULL MEDIA HOUSE. This unusual Snowboard action movie brings together some of the best european riders, an award-winning production crew and locations every snowboarder dreams of, all blending into one outstanding action packed visual experience. Join a tight group of snowboard professionals on their journeys around the globe, always on the hunt for the best snow, the biggest jumps, the gnarliest lines and the most unique features. From the streets of Russia and Canada, to the mystical forests of Japan; from the steepest mountains of India and Alaska to the endless possibilities of the European Alps; to the spiritual slopes of Greenland, we not only captured the action but also the sense of traveling.
The first name in skateboarding footwear and apparel introduces its highly anticipated first-ever feature-length global skateboarding video, PROPELLER. Directed by acclaimed filmmaker Greg Hunt and featuring full parts from some of the biggest names in modern skateboarding alongside appearances from legends and true pioneers, PROPELLER presents a sweeping snapshot of modern skateboarding that only Vans can deliver.