Five young filmmakers share stories of their families, who were on the frontlines during the first wave of the Coronavirus. These intimate accounts shine a light on families caught in chaos and crisis, in a city hiding from a deadly virus, in a country riven by social upheaval.
Escape from everyday life in freedom and community and live utopias - for many organizers and artists, the secret of the music festivals that make culturally weak Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania a place of pilgrimage for tens of thousands of people every summer. But instead of freedom, community and utopia, there was one thing above all in the festival summers of 2020 and 2021: silence.
A moving account, in his own words, of the personal life and work of the brilliant Czech filmmaker Miloš Forman (1932-2018): his tragic childhood, his major contribution to the cultural movement known as the Czech New Wave, his exile in Paris, his troubled days in New York, his rise to stardom in Hollywood; a complete existence in the service of cinema.
Filmmakers Alan and Susan Raymond spent three months in 1976 riding along with patrol officers in the 44th Precinct of the South Bronx, which had the highest crime rate in New York City at that time.
Under the Trump administration, USA is a deeply divided country. One side feeds populism and religious rectitude in a monochromatic landscape, painted white, lamenting for a past that never will return. The other side fuels diversity and multiculturalism, a biased vision of a progressive future, quite unlikely. Both sides are constantly confronted, without listening to each other. Only a few reasonable people gather to change this potentially dangerous situation.
A grandmother, mother, and daughter quarantine together in a Tribeca apartment as they laugh about life over wine.
A feature length documentary that tells the story of nine young men and women constructing positive lives as they face the challenges of growing up poor in one of America's most famous African American communities.
Francois the Tree Man is far from his wife and three small children in Quebec, selling Christmas trees and living in a van on the streets of New York City. He does it for them. But this is home, too. Like the hundreds of Christmas tree sellers who descend upon the city from Canada, New England and even Europe, Francois delivers the magic of the season over a grueling month in his adopted neighborhood. He's a star, a storyteller, a Santa Claus in a sap-stained coat, a confidant, a friend, and a father figure to the local characters who are his New York family. They also need him. TREE MAN is the story of Francois's journey, how he arrived here, what holds him, and the conflict that will cause him to leave. As one of Francois' long-time customers says: "This has nothing to do with the trees anymore."
At the beginning of the year 2020, a relentless plague sweeps the planet and, as a consequence, a global lockdown is gradually decreed: how did people from very different latitudes, living necessarily very different situations, experience this shared solitude? How did people adapt to the restriction by decree of their personal freedoms and the transformation of many bustling metropolises into ghost cities?
Johnny Thunders was the legendary hard-living rock'n'roll guitarist who inspired glam-metal, punk and the music scene in general. 'Looking For Johnny' is a 90-minute film that documents Thunders' career from his beginnings to his tragic death in 1991. The film examines Johnny Thunders' career from the early 70's as a founding member of the influential New York Dolls; the birth of the punk scene with The Heartbreakers in New York City and London; Gang War and The Oddballs. It also explores Johnny's unique musical style, his personal battle with drugs and theories on his death in a New Orleans hotel in 1991 at age 38. The film includes forty songs with historic film of Johnny, including unseen New York Dolls and Heartbreakers footage and photos. Cult filmmakers Bob Gruen, Don Letts, Patrick Grandperret, Rachael Amadeo and others contribute classic archive footage.
In 2019, 1.2 million people stepped off a cruise ship into the small, south-east Alaskan town of Ketchikan. The next year, in 2020, zero did. After decades of diligent work building a sleepy fishing, mining, and logging town into one of the most sought after cruise destinations in the world, the COVID-19 pandemic has transformed Ketchikan into an empty shell—lined with restaurants, shops, and attractions for the visitors who no longer come. Now, the town must find a way to survive without its key economy until the day arrives when cruise visitors once again pour into its docks.
We no longer see children running around playing in the alleys of Seoul. Starting from elementary school, children go to private classes after their school. However, we see these people who are making efforts to protect children’s right to be a child and play like a child.
Portrait of the birth of a friendship between two men, while one helps the other to die. The acceptance of pain, the sense of humour and the commitment to family and friends, will accompany the virtual chats between Fernando and Eric, who were unable to meet due to the pandemic.
The Mona Lisa Curse is a Grierson award-winning polemic documentary by art critic Robert Hughes that examines how the world's most famous painting came to influence the art world. With his trademark style, Hughes explores how museums, the production of art and the way we experience it have radically changed in the last 50 years, telling the story of the rise of contemporary art and looking back over a life spent talking and writing about the art he loves, and loathes. In these postmodern days it has been said that there is no more passé a vocation than that of the professional art critic. Perceived as the gate keeper for opinions regarding art and culture, the art critic has supposedly been rendered obsolete by an ever expanding pluralism in the art world, where all practices and disciplines are purported to be equal and valid. Robert Hughes, however, is one art critic who has delivered a message that must not be ignored.
This documentary recounts the experiences of people on the ground in the earliest days of the novel coronavirus and the way two countries dealt with its initial spread, from the first days of the outbreak in Wuhan to its rampage across the United States.
Following the class of 2020 at Oakland High School in a year marked by seismic change, exploring the emotional world of teenagers coming of age against the backdrop of a rapidly changing world.
In 1910, the Pennsylvania Railroad successfully accomplished the enormous engineering feat of building tunnels under New York City's Hudson and East Rivers, connecting the railroad to New York and New England, knitting together the entire eastern half of the United States. The tunnels terminated in what was one of the greatest architectural achievements of its time, Pennsylvania Station. Penn Station covered nearly eight acres, extended two city blocks, and housed one of the largest public spaces in the world. But just 53 years after the station’s opening, the monumental building that was supposed to last forever, to herald and represent the American Empire, was slated to be destroyed.
Profiles the culture, lifestyles, and rituals within the New York City subways.
50 years ago, assemblyman George Michaels cast a single vote on New York's abortion bill that changed the course of American history but destroyed his political career in the process.