During the chaotic final weeks of the Vietnam War, the North Vietnamese Army closes in on Saigon as the panicked South Vietnamese people desperately attempt to escape. On the ground, American soldiers and diplomats confront a moral quandary: whether to obey White House orders to evacuate only U.S. citizens.
The portrait of a community as they face their country's economic recession.
A portrait of the internationally acclaimed Spanish film director Isabel Coixet and an analysis of her particular world and her sensibility as a creator: her fictional universe, her career and her life through the words of actors, technicians, family, friends, journalists, specialized critics and those filmmakers who have been inspired by her work.
Eight hundred German filmmakers (cast and crew) fled the Nazis in the 1930s. The film uses voice-overs, archival footage, and film clips to examine Berlin's vital filmmaking in the 1920s; then it follows a producer, directors, composers, editors, writers, and actors to Hollywood: some succeeded and many found no work. Among those profiled are Erich Pommer, Joseph May, Ernst Lubitsch, Fritz Lang, Billy Wilder, and Peter Lorre. Once in Hollywood, these exiles helped each other, housed new arrivals, and raised money so others could escape. Some worked on anti-Nazi films, like Casablanca. The themes and lighting of German Expressionism gave rise in Hollywood to film noir.
In the history of aviation, there have been only 14 of them: sole survivors of a commercial aviation disaster. Most have never spoken publicly about the loss, the guilt, the immense pressure of feeling "spared." Who, after all, could ever truly understand? The answer is only each other. Sole Survivor brings four of them together (George Lamson, Cecilia Cichan, Bahia Bakari and Jim Polehinke) to share their very complex, personal stories for the first time. They revisit the most harrowing moments of their lives in an effort to heal and overcome their most perplexing questions.
Pack your bags for a trip to a Catskills summer camp where the stars of tomorrow go to prepare for their shot at the big time as filmmaker Alexandra Shiva allows viewers a fly-on-the-wall perspective of Stagedoor Manor, the training ground for such notable Hollywood heavyweights as Robert Downey Jr., Jennifer Jason Leigh, and Natalie Portman.
A pragmatic U.S. Marine observes the dehumanizing effects the U.S.-Vietnam War has on his fellow recruits from their brutal boot camp training to the bloody street fighting in Hue.
New York Times reporter Sydney Schanberg is on assignment covering the Cambodian Civil War, with the help of local interpreter Dith Pran and American photojournalist Al Rockoff. When the U.S. Army pulls out amid escalating violence, Schanberg makes exit arrangements for Pran and his family. Pran, however, tells Schanberg he intends to stay in Cambodia to help cover the unfolding story — a decision he may regret as the Khmer Rouge rebels move in.
A Zen priest in San Francisco and cookbook author use Zen Buddhism and cooking to relate to everyday life.
Arguably the most influential creator, writer, and producer in the history of television, Norman Lear brought primetime into step with the times. Using comedy and indelible characters, his legendary 1970s shows such as All In the Family, Maude, Good Times, and The Jeffersons, boldly cracked open dialogue and shifted the national consciousness, injecting enlightened humanism into sociopolitical debates on race, class, creed, and feminism.
In this tense and immersive tour de force, audiences are taken directly into the line of fire between powerful, opposing Peruvian leaders who will stop at nothing to keep their respective goals intact. On the one side is President Alan Garcia, who, eager to enter the world stage, begins aggressively extracting oil, minerals, and gas from untouched indigenous Amazonian land. He is quickly met with fierce opposition from indigenous leader Alberto Pizango, whose impassioned speeches against Garcia’s destructive actions prove a powerful rallying cry to throngs of his supporters. When Garcia continues to ignore their pleas, a tense war of words erupts into deadly violence.
A documentary about a group of pilgrims who travel to Nepal to worship at the legendary Manakamana temple.
A documentary on the once promising American rock bands The Brian Jonestown Massacre and The Dandy Warhols. The friendship between respective founders, Anton Newcombe and Courtney Taylor, escalated into bitter rivalry as the Dandy Warhols garnered major international success while the Brian Jonestown Massacre imploded in a haze of drugs.
In the Realms of the Unreal is a documentary about the reclusive Chicago-based artist Henry Darger. Henry Darger was so reclusive that when he died his neighbors were surprised to find a 15,145-page manuscript along with hundreds of paintings depicting The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What is Known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glodeco-Angelinnian War Storm, Cased by the Child Slave Rebellion.
A comedy about a troop of shield-bearing Amazons who take over city institutions before relaxing in the country. "Superdyke" takes women into the streets when Barbara arms of a platoon of vagina warriors with Amazon shields in an attempt to overthrow San Francisco. They march through City Hall, usurp the bus lines, demythologiz the consumer mentality at Macy's (to the recorded astonishment of casual shoppers), and wander through the erotic art museum. Barbara's frenetic handheld lens catches the startled reactions and the glee of the participants. SUPERDYKE has a home-movie quality to it, but its committed and loose moments in the playground confirm its comic rationale.
Renowned filmmakers D A Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus follow determined animal rights activist Steven Wise into the courtroom for an unprecedented battle that seeks to utilize the writ of habeas corpus to expand legal “personhood” to include certain animals. Wise’s unusual plaintiffs—chimpanzees Tommy and Kiko, once famed showbiz stars—are now living in filth, struggling to survive. Wise and his impassioned legal team take us into the field, revealing gripping evidence of such abuse and plunging us into the intricacies of their case as they probe preconceived notions of what it means to be a non-human animal.
Documentary on the civil rights activist, Viola Liuzzo, who was murdered in 1965 as she campaigned for black suffrage in Selma, Alabama, and its effect on her family.
Four girls living in the lonely vastness of the USA share one passion: The wild world of rodeo. Although they move about in the powerful imagery of the American prairie and the myths of the Wild West, they give it new resonance and break free of it. In a world which used to belong to their fathers and brothers, they prove that "you ride like a girl" is not an insult but a compliment.
An intimate portrait of the woman whose groundbreaking books revolutionized our relationship to the natural world. When 'Silent Spring' was published in September 1962 it became an instant bestseller and would go on to spark dramatic changes in the way the government regulated pesticides.
In 2007 Mobile, Alabama, Mardi Gras is celebrated... and complicated. Following a cast of characters, parades, and parties across an enduring color line, we see that beneath the surface of pageantry lies something else altogether.
"The Pearl" explores the raw emotional and physical experience of being a middle aged to senior transgender woman against the backdrop of post-industrial logging towns in the Pacific Northwest. The film leans into the struggle of those who were reared and successful as men and have reached middle age or later with a burdensome secret that they can no longer keep.