Province of Ciudad Real, Spain, December 29, 1990. During the annual march to the Herrera de la Mancha prison, held in support of the members of the terrorist gang ETA imprisoned there, the Basque rock band Negu Gorriak holds a concert, which is recorded, edited on video and turned into a tool of vindication. Decades later, a film crew tries to elaborate a personal essay around this event and its meaning.
While Germany sits as one of the major democratic models, an ex-prisoner of the Stasi delivers from his former cell a frightening testimony that questions the sustainability of our contemporary democracies.
Documentary about the 1980 New Mexico State Penitentiary Riots in which 33 inmates were killed.
A slice of the eccentric lives of Roca and Sammy, two members of the Gay Inmates Organization detained at the Pampanga Provincial Jail, intertwined with animated sequences of an inmate's incarceration story.
The Unusual Suspects: Once Upon a Time in House Music recounts the history and origins of the genre of dance music known as house. The documentary takes a comprehensive look beginning with disco, the mother of house music, to legendary nightclubs such as the Warehouse and The Loft. Lifestyles and the general culture of house fans are also explored. Featured interviewees include Jesse Saunders, Robert Owens, Joe Smooth, Frankie Knuckles, Julius The Mad Thinker, Steve Silk Hurley, Loleatta Holloway, Larry Heard (aka Mr. Fingers), Carl Bias (Master C&J), Jere McCallister and many more.
Documentary about Ben Wilson, a good-natured and beloved teenage basketball phenom from Chicago's South Side whose life was tragically cut short by violence in November 1984.
Everyone knows that the Chicago Bulls are the team of the 1990s, if not all time. In 1998 they won their unmatched sixth NBA title of the '90s. But this was not the same team that squashed all opponents that stood before them, united and led magnificently by players such as Scottie Pippen and the irresistible Michael Jordan. At the beginning of the 1998 season, this team was anything but united. His Airness was still His Airness, but the rest of the Bulls looked less than a shadow of their selves. Pippen stood injured on the sidelines demanding a trade, Rodman looked more interested in Hollywood and his hair, and the supporting cast were beginning to look extremely vulnerable. But as with all great teams, they dusted themselves off, wiped away the cobwebs (not to mention the odd ego or two), and played out the final two-thirds of the regular season like the Chicago Bulls of old.
Movie about prisoners in prison "Thorberg"
In Paradisum relates two disturbing stories simultaneously. The female narrator tells her personal tale of imprisonment as the wife of the notorious Estonian serial killer, Andreas Hanni. Although her story is bizarre, it touches familiar themes that run throughout modern life: the desire to be loved and the fear of being alone. Pille Hanni's tale unfolds over cinema vérité images of life in several Estonian prisons. At times the images reflect in a literary way the events of the narration, yet they are representations and impressions, rather than traditional documentary style footage of the people involved. This opens the story to a more general interpretation, often with unsettling results. The parallel contents reveal, at two levels of story and social organisation, how the bizarre and inhuman can be tolerable and even addictive in the face of our fears.
Kenny Wayne Shepherd's reverence for his musical roots are center-stage on Ten Days Out...Blues From The Backroads. The guitar-slinger is featured with the Double Trouble rhythm section of bassist Tommy Shannon and drummer Chris Layton performing with some of the greatest blues players of our time as well as lesser-known but historically significant bluesmen. Traveling to their hometowns to record everywhere from juke joints to front porches, from New Orleans to Kansas, Shepherd celebrates and becomes part of blues history with Ten Days Out...Blues From The Backroads.
Summaries "The John Wayne Gacy Murders: Life and Death in Chicago", Focuses on serial killer John Wayne Gacy's time in Chicago and includes information about Gacy's childhood, his career of crime in Waterloo, Iowa, and Gacy's becoming a celebrity in prison. Containing interviews with Chicago attorneys, news reporters, law enforcement officers, and history experts, the film illustrates what the atmosphere was like in Chicago when Gacy was murdering and ultimately apprehended. Gacy's time in prison as a celebrity serial killer is also explored in this groundbreaking film by Chicago native filmmaker John Borowski. —John Borowski
Weaving together the voices of women entangled in the criminal justice system, along with leading scholars on prison abolition, this film provides a critical analysis of the disfunctionality and violence of the prison system.
Former First Lady Michelle Obama's story has just begun. The Obamas have remained quite busy with their new life of activism which includes their issue-oriented production company, Higher Ground, which won an Oscar for Best Documentary in 2020. Mrs. Obama's autobiography, Becoming, has become the best-selling memoir of all time and even won a Grammy following the publication of her book. Get lost in the incredible journey of this modern-day First Lady's story in the making...
What Poor Gods We Do Make: The Story and Music Behind Naked Raygun," the 2-disc DVD/CD focuses on the band's history and the development of their music from "Basement Screams" to "Raygun,Naked Raygun" through interviews with the band and many interviews, including Steve Albini, The Lawrence Arms, 88 Fingers Louie, Jake Burns of Stiff Little Fingers, The Effigies and many more. Moreover, the film aspect also focuses on the history and influence of Chicago's independent and punk scene, even though it was often, and still, overlooked by punk historians and more recently, documentary filmmakers. The CD portion of the release will feature live highlights from their shows since Naked Raygun's reunion at Riot Fest 2006, and will include all of the songs most identified with Naked Raygun.
A feature-length documentary on the 1990s Chicago rock scene.
An exchange of video messages between an artist and an inmate, a surprising and intimate portrait from behind prison walls.
A view of the Ferris wheel from the Chicago Exposition of 1893, turning slowly.
The youngsters housed in the "Almafuerte" Maximum Security Juvenile Institute have their first approach to audiovisual recording. A film and documentary video workshop serves as an excuse for them to make a short film inside the prison. The camera is a rabid toy that generates fascination in them and rescues a sheltered, innocent smile that seemed forgotten under the shadows. While inside libertarian cries bounce against the walls, outside sounds fanfares of an iron fist.
January, 1947. The public receives the news of Al Capone's death with indifference, although twenty years earlier he had ruled Chicago's crime underworld with brute force and corrupting many touchable individuals. Until the day the head of the Untouchables Brigade, Eliot Ness, entered the scene. Since then, a cruel battle between the two of them began, a battle that ended in trial, conviction, disease, insanity and death.
MILWAUKEE 53206 chronicles the lives of those living in the ZIP code that incarcerates the highest percentage of black men in America, up to 62%. Through the intimate stories of three 53206 residents, we witness the high toll that mass incarceration takes on individuals and families that make up the community. The film examines Milwaukee’s ZIP code 53206 to illuminate the story of people from across the United States who live with the daily affects of mass incarceration.