Salsa Lives

The first woman to appear in front of an Edison motion picture camera and possibly the first woman to appear in a motion picture within the United States. In the film, Carmencita is recorded going through a routine she had been performing at Koster & Bial's in New York since February 1890.

A child is born. We see underwater swimmers representing this. He is young, in a jungle setting, with two fanciful "instincts" guiding him as swooping bird-like acrobats initially menace, then delight. As an adolescent, he enters a desert, where a man spins a large cube of metal tubing. He leaves his instinct-guides behind, and enters a garden where two statues dance in a pond. As he watches their sensual acrobatics of love, he becomes a man. He is offered wealth (represented by a golden hat) by a devil figure. In a richly decorated room, a scruffy troupe of a dozen acrobats and a little girl reawaken the old man's youthful nature and love.

A week in the life of the exploited, child newspaper sellers in turn-of-the-century New York. When their publisher, Joseph Pulitzer, tries to squeeze a little more profit out of their labours, they organize a strike, only to be confronted with the Pulitzer's hard-ball tactics.

An account of the short life of genius musician Jimi Hendrix (1942-70), probably the most talented and influential guitarist of the twentieth century: his humble beginnings in Seattle, his time in New York, his rise to fame in swinging London… Live fast, love hard, die young.

Two sailors on shore leave head out for four days of partying – only to become involved in the affairs of an aspiring singer and her precocious nephew.

Young Cuban Rafael just buried his mother, and comes to Houston to meet his father John for the first time. The difficult part is that John doesn't know he is Rafael's father. John runs a dance studio, and everyone prepares for the World Open Dance championship in Las Vegas. It soon becomes clear Rafael is a very good dancer, and Ruby is the biggest hope for the studio at the championship.

Stonewall veterans (including prominent trans activist Sylvia Rivera) and HIV-positive New Yorkers take up residency on the Hudson River piers as cranes raze vacant buildings for a new skyline.

Chronicles the rise and fall of 1970s New York City nightclub Plato's Retreat.

Youthful Father Chuck O'Malley led a colorful life of sports, song, and romance before joining the Roman Catholic clergy. After being appointed to a run-down New York parish, O'Malley's worldly knowledge helps him connect with a gang of boys looking for direction, eventually winning over the aging, conventional Parish priest.

An aspiring DJ, from the South Bronx, and his best friend, a promoter, try to get into show business by exposing people to hip-hop music and culture.

She now lives many miles away from her mother, who is waiting to hear from her. It is a bittersweet, restless, nostalgic moment, and she remembers those vanished years.

An investigation of Edward Brezinski, an ambitious, charismatic Lower East Side painter hell-bent on sucess, who thwarted his own career with antics that roiled NYC’s art elite. Brezinski’s quest for fame gives an intimate portrait of the art world’s attitude towards success and failure, fame and fortune, notoriety and erasure.

Gary, a musician, is trapped in an unhappy relationship with his live-in lover, Dora. He becomes enthralled with a beautiful seductress who enters his dreams, and tries to control his dream-state so he can spend more and more time with her. When Gary sees his mystery woman's face on a bus billboard, he discovers she is real, and fate brings him an opportunity to meet her.

When everyone in town falls under the spell of charismatic cosmetic surgeon Doctor Coppelius, feisty Swan must act to save her sweetheart Franz, before his heart is used to spark life into Coppelia – the ‘perfect’ robot-woman the Doctor has created.

The Hollywood musical is brought to a Glasgow street. Amidst the crush of city life, two street musicians provide the backdrop for a girl meets boy story, with a spark of purely Glasgow magic.

A very graceful dance with voluminous draperies, by Annabelle Moore, well-known on the metropolitan stage.

This short film documents the daily life of the goings-on on Orchard Street, a commercial street in the Lower East Side New York City.

My Really Cool Legs! follows a group of pediatric amputee athletes who challenge themselves beyond their disability. Led by their amputee mentor and coach, these kids dance and ski, ice skate and run, refusing to let their disability define who they are and what is possible.

The rise and fall of salsa singer, Héctor Lavoe (1946-1993), as told from the perspective of his wife Puchi, who looks back from 2002.

"Vlada Goes to London" is a short student film exploring the strong-willed Vlada on her night shift as a pizza delivery girl in her desperate attempt to book tickets to London and fulfill her dream of being a DJ. The end of the night brings more challenges than she expects.