Three young commuter cyclists set out to bike from San Francisco to Orlando, interviewing crash victims, urban planners, activists and law enforcement to investigate what makes the U.S the most dangerous developed country for cyclists. Shot on location, the trio travel to each interview by bicycle, with cameras, tripods and microphones strapped to their front-racks. Carrying the stories of fellow cyclists killed on American roads, SPOKE is an adventure-tale that looks to empower users of the humble bicycle.
The life of Jeremiah Tower, one of the most controversial, outrageous, and influential figures in the history of American gastronomy.
"A man stands amid unpacked boxes in his new home, delivering an extended monologue on indecision and dislocation. This rarely seen, overlooked gem created by Akerman for television explores the quotidian crises and profound feelings of alienation that run through her work." - BAM
A Bit of Scarlet excavates clips from Britain's cinema archives to create a moving and humorous testament to the closeted gay and lesbian images from filmmaking's earliest days.
A biographical documentary following the life of a young Japanese priest and bar-owner.
This observational documentary follows the journey of Beyoncé’s super-fans who, unable to pay for the most expensive tickets, camped out for two months to secure their front row spots. Living with this makeshift community bring to light important issues, such as economic class, black identity, homophobia, feminism, and what it means to make this sacrifice for a media phenomenon larger and more powerful than themselves.
Women's unwritten history is passed down through memories. Shows women talking about their experiences of the Great Depression in Australia. Covers such areas as: aboriginal women; paid and unpaid work; mothering; marriage; women's participation in the political struggles of the 1920's and 30's.
Tongue-in-cheek look at the French Riviera, especially in summer when it overflows with tourists. Reviews its history and famous visitors; displays its faux-exotic buildings, its crowded beaches, its trees and monuments; and, pokes fun at the colors women wear and the vagaries of fashion. The film celebrates the use of "Eden" as a place name, suggesting that paradise comes to the coast after all are gone, perhaps only on a remote island beach.
Recording of the play 1789, a collective creation by Théâtre du Soleil at La Cartoucherie de Vincennes in 1970, edited from several shows.
This is a David and Goliath story of one veterinarian's battle to protect her patients (tigers, lions and even house cats) from big corporations, with their big corporate money, that will shamelessly do anything to animals to increase their bottom line. She starts a grassroots movement that is fueled by passion, but appears to be losing the battle. Then, unexpectedly, she realizes that the corporations accidentally left her a giant loophole. In a scramble to take advantage of this unforeseen gift, she leads the crusade passing legislation protecting animals from de-clawing in seven cities in just six weeks.
We Came Home is the story of Afghanistan through Afghan American musician, Ariana Delawari. Born in LA, the year the Soviets invade Afghanistan, her home's filled with refugees, Afghan music and her father's dedication to Afghanistan, a country nobody else seemed to care about. After 9/11, her parents move to Kabul to help reconstruct. Ariana spends ten years between LA and Afghanistan, documenting her father's homeland in photographs, film and music. During the Taliban resurgence, Ariana records an album with master musicians in Kabul, revealing the challenges of building anything in this country. Ariana experiences firsthand the threat of war and corruption when her father is arrested. Through this, she unexpectedly realizes why her father could never abandon his people. She now understands Afghanistan cannot be forgotten.
A documentary of insect life in meadows and ponds, using incredible close-ups, slow motion, and time-lapse photography. It includes bees collecting nectar, ladybugs eating mites, snails mating, spiders wrapping their catch, a scarab beetle relentlessly pushing its ball of dung uphill, endless lines of caterpillars, an underwater spider creating an air bubble to live in, and a mosquito hatching.
An experimental film poem in celebration of life and visions. Techniques include live action, animation, montage and found images. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2011.
A film poem using found film and stock footage altered by printing, home development and solarization. It is a film using visual relationships to invoke a feeling of flow and movement.
The panoramic shots are breathtaking: a majestic mountain landscape in winter, flat-roofed tin shacks cowering next to one other, women perched on steep slopes using primitive tools to break through pieces of rock. La Rinconada is situated over 5,000 meters high in the Peruvian Andes, on the edge of a gold mine. This 21st century El Dorado is an inhospitable place, where untold numbers of people live and work in the most precarious of conditions, hoping both for gold and a better life. Salomé Lamas has constructed a cinematic diptych to convey the extremity of this situation and the dimensions of its misery without having to resort to graphic images.
Dance for All
Money & Life is an inspirational essay-style documentary that asks a provocative question: can we see the economic crisis not as a disaster, but as a tremendous opportunity? This cinematic odyssey connects the dots on our current economic pains and offers a new story of money based on an emerging paradigm of planetary well-being that understands all of life as profoundly interconnected.
Aztec romance and the dream of love. The anthropologist’s most human desire, the ultimate contact with the informant. The denial of intellectualism and the acceptance of the romantic heart, and a soul without innocence. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2011.
The unknown story behind the Native Hawaiian singer whose cover medley "Somewhere Over the Rainbow/What a Wonderful World" is known around the world.
Homeless since the age of nine, South African skateboarder Thalente Biyela travels to the US to pursue his dream of becoming a professional skateboarder. Through his eyes, we experience what it takes to rise up out of circumstance and escape a lifetime on the streets.