How the West Was One

Benedict Arnold is not the villain of American history most people were taught to believe. New facts and never before presented material illuminate his heroic contributions to the American Revolution and explains his later change of allegiance.

Donald is vacationing at a dude ranch. After all the beautiful women pick the best horses, Donald ends up with the sad sack Rover Boy. But Rover Boy wants nothing to do with Donald.

The Texas Rangers chase down a gang of outlaws led by Butch Cavendish, but the gang ambushes the Rangers, seemingly killing them all. One survivor is found, however, by an American Indian named Tonto, who nurses him back to health. The Ranger, donning a mask and riding a white stallion named Silver, teams up with Tonto to bring the unscrupulous gang and others of that ilk to justice.

Twenty-five years after the verdict in the Rodney King trial sparked several days of protests, violence and looting in Los Angeles, LA 92 immerses viewers in that tumultuous period through stunning and rarely seen archival footage.

For the first time fashion designer Dries Van Noten allows a filmmaker to accompany him in his creative process and rich home life. For an entire year Reiner Holzemer documents the precise steps that Dries takes to conceive of four collections, the rich fabrics, embroidery and prints exclusive to his designs. As well as the emblematic fashion shows that bring his collections to the world and have become cult “must sees” at Paris Fashion Week. This film offers an insight into the life, mind and creative heart of a master fashion designer who, for more than 25 years, has remained independent in a landscape of fashion consolidation and globalization.

A film about the controversial world of exotic animal ownership within the suburbs of the United States. "The Elephant in the Living Room" offers an unprecedented glimpse into the fascinating subculture of trading and raising the most deadly and exotic animals in the world as common household pets.

Mitrice Richardson, a lovely 24 year old African-American woman, was released late at night from the Malibu, California Sheriffs jail after having been detained for not paying her bill at an upscale restaurant. She was described as 'acting crazy' and, in fact, was having a mental crisis. She was released into the mountainous region with no cell, no purse, no ID, no car, no way home and vanished. Eleven months later her remains were found in a desolate Malibu canyon. 'Lost Compassion,' shot from ten days after Mitrice went missing, tells the complex, emotional inside story of the search for Mitrice and struggles with the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department, whose deputies lied about her arrest and likely were involved with her disappearance and murder.

Award-winning comedian Rich Hall takes a country music journey from Tennessee to Texas to look at the movements and artists that don't get as much notoriety but have helped shape the genre over the years. With the help of prominent performers and producers including Michael Martin Murphey, Robbie Fulks and Ray Benson, Rich explores the early origins of country music in Nashville and Austin. He visits the rustic studios where this much-loved sound was born and discovers how the genre has reinvented itself with influences from bluegrass, western swing and americana.

At the heart of "Dreaming in America" is Lucero's story about that amazing thing, too often overlooked: a blue-collar rock group's struggle to survive. As the music industry has exploded over the past few decades and the ability to "move units" has become the defining calculus of the business, it's an incredibly emotional experience to see a band who does it because they have to, because their lives depend on it, and because they love it. There are hundreds of such bands criss-crossing the country at any given moment. This is a film about one of them-a band on the edge of greatness, working to break through. In a happy bit of rock kismet, "Dreaming in America's" cameras started rolling just as Lucero was breaking from its indie rock past and considering the treacherous leap to a major label deal unlike anything seen by the industry before. At that point, the band was between labels and, though it had sold north of 20,000 records.

A camera crew follows Helmut Newton, the fashion and ad photographer whose images of tall, blond, big-breasted women are part of the iconography of twentieth-century erotic fantasy. He's on the go from L.A., to Paris, to Monte-Carlo, to Berlin, where he was a youth until he escaped from the Nazis in 1936. We see him on shoots, interviewing models, and discussing his work.

A documentary on the Z Channel, one of the first pay cable stations in the US, and its programming chief, Jerry Harvey. Debuting in 1974, the LA-based channel's eclectic slate of movies became a prime example of the untapped power of cable television.

Brothers Dan and Neil Hammond return to Texas after the Civil War. Ambitious Dan turns to rustling and then shady land deals to build an empire. Being held for a murder, he is rescued from a lynch mob by Neil, who is now the Marshal, but there is eventually a falling out between the brothers, good triumphing over evil.

California, 1848. An invading army has defeated the few opposing forces and the territory has become part of the United States. Don César de Echagüe, an old gentleman, begs his son César to return from Europe, confident that he will know how to confront the oppressor.

With humor, chutzpah and a piece of vinyl siding firmly in hand, Peabody Award-winning filmmaker Judith Helfand and co-director and award-winning cinematographer Daniel B. Gold set out in search of the truth about polyvinyl chloride (PVC), America's most popular plastic. From Long Island to Louisiana to Italy, they unearth the facts about PVC and its effects on human health and the environment.

This documentary goes to coral reefs of the Bahamas and the waters of the Kingdom of Tonga for a close encounter with the surviving tribes of the ocean: wild dolphins and belugas, the love of a Humpback mother for her newborn calf, the singing Humpback males, an orca the mighty King of the ocean, and the gentle manatee. Little-known aspects of these creatures capable of sophisticated communication and social interaction. Documents the life of these graceful, majestic yet endangered sea creatures

This documentary examines the life and work of the late fashion designer Yves Saint-Laurent, recounting how a frail prodigy prone to bouts of depression became an icon of the fashion world. Initially appointed head of the House of Dior in 1957 before growing into a globally recognized designer in his own right, Saint-Laurent overcomes his struggles with substance abuse, accumulating a large art collection alongside his lifelong personal and professional partner, Pierre Bergé.

Footage of Devil's Gate Dam insterspersed with text occultist text by Jack Parsons, co-founder of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, who some believe opened a portal for dark energy nearby.

Black Eagle is based on The Passing of Black Eagle, a short story by O. Henry. William Bishop stars as Jason Bond, who stays out of trouble by the simple expedient of avoiding other people. Unfortunately, the plot dictates that Bond must come into contact with several characters, all of whom end up fleecing our hero in one way or another. Even so, Jason manages to enjoy a brief romance with pretty Ginny Long (Virginia Patton) before returning to his life of carefree vagabondage. A very minor film, The Black Eagle makes the most of its excellent supporting cast, including Gordon Jones, Trevor Bardette, Will Wright and stuntman extraordinaire Richard Talmadge.

In Fabrizio Terranova’s film, Donna Haraway – an original thinker and activist, one of the founders of cyberfeminism and the author of A Cyborg Manifesto, which proposed a number of innovative theories about the existence of scientific knowledge – calls for the abandonment of the idea of human exceptionalism and for a conception of the world as complex web of interconnections between people, animals and machines. Jellyfish can be seen flying around her home while she discusses the stories that are necessary for Earth’s preservation and reads her fantastic tale of the art of survival on a broken planet, and of fusion and care between the species.

In post-Civil War Kentucky, young David Burnic becomes the unexpected heir to the family secret, a map leading to buried treasure on the Florida isle of Matecumbe.