Looney Lens: Tenth Avenue, NYC

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When Harvard PhD student Jennifer Brea is struck down at 28 by a fever that leaves her bedridden, doctors tell her it’s "all in her head." Determined to live, she sets out on a virtual journey to document her story—and four other families' stories—fighting a disease medicine forgot.

Programming prodigy and information activist Aaron Swartz achieved groundbreaking work in social justice and political organizing. His passion for open access ensnared him in a legal nightmare that ended with the taking of his own life at the age of 26.

In 2007, the Writers Guild of America, the Screenwriters Union, hit an impasse in their contract negotiations with the Studios. At the center of the dispute was jurisdiction over the internet. Unable to make progress, the WGA called a strike which brought Hollywood to a halt for 100 days.

Should we believe everything we hear on the news? Can we trust the national media? Are we being fed the truth or an agenda? The 60 Minutes Deception takes you behind the scenes of one of America's most popular and longest running news magazine shows and reveals a shocking web of deceit! In The 60 Minutes Deception you will witness firsthand: How a dedicated and courageous journalist was viciously smeared by "60 Minutes" at the request of the White House. How Mike Wallace, the host of "60 Minutes," deliberately omitted crucial evidence and distorted interview responses through manipulative editing. Why the major news media refuses to report the truth about certain political scandals and the abuse of power. The 60 Minutes Deception is one of the most important and damaging expos�s ever produces, clearly showing the dishonest tactics used by the mainstream press in providing misinformation to the American people. Must viewing for all concerned Americans!

Mid-Missouri cult hero Nathan Truesdell sifts through a Cleveland TV station's archives and unearths a fancy wrist watch, blistered fingers and other casualties of a misbegotten exercise in civic pride. In September 1986, the city of Cleveland attempted to set a special record: the simultaneous launch of 1.5 million balloons. But fate intervened, and the result was both crazier and more tragic than anyone could have imagined.

For the first 50 years of film history, the newsreel was a fixture in American movie theaters. From 1911 to 1967, these shorts proved an influential source of information – and misinformation – for generations of American moviegoers. Television news and public affairs programs became a great improvement over the scanty information offered by the newsreels. This documentary offers insight into a medium which has disappeared.

Information Violence

An 18-minute long single-channel video which uses CNN footage cut so that each word is spoken by a different newsperson. The pieces literally asks the viewers questions about media authenticity and give CNN a distinct voice

In a field dominated by men, five pioneering camerawomen Mary Rogers, Cynde Strand, Jane Evans, Maria Fleet and Margaret Moth went to the frontlines of wars, revolutions and disasters to bring us the truth. As colorful as accomplished, these brave photojournalists made their mark by capturing some of the most iconic images from Tiananmen Square, to conflicts in Sarajevo, Iraq, Somalia and the Arab Spring uprising. But the world doesn’t know it was these women behind the camera. In the midst of unfolding chaos, the pictures they took for CNN both shocked and informed the world. This feature documentary by director Heather O’Neill tells their remarkable story.

To mark the 30th anniversary of L'Étrange Festival, Gaumont is opening up its archives to offer the best of its most secret, bizarre and crazy images, digitized for the first time. A unique program featuring black magic, surrealistic happenings, world records, the evolution of feminism, wild bets, vanished places, forgotten inventions and other delights.

A short film of the first weeks of strict national lockdown, filmed in Barcelona on a classic home video camera Hi8. Narrates the story of three women who share a flat and who create a microworld not only to survive the global pandemic but also to survive themselves.

The Morning Sun Shines is a fiction-documentary film by Kenji Mizoguchi and Seiichi Ina. The film is a combination of a drama about a reporter, and documentary footage about newspaper production. Only 25 minutes of footage has survived.

La Noticia

17 of the largest ships emit more sulfur than all the cars on the planet. How is this possible?

Us and Them

In this one-minute Docu-fiction follows the news about a looming Low Pressure Area (LPA) in The Philippines.

“In this legendary sculpture/performance Acconci lay beneath a ramp built in the Sonnabend Gallery. Over the course of three weeks, he masturbated eight hours a day while murmuring things like, "You're pushing your cunt down on my mouth" or "You're ramming your cock down into my ass." Not only does the architectural intervention presage much of his subsequent work, but all of Acconci's fixations converge in this, the spiritual sphincter of his art. In Seedbed Acconci is the producer and the receiver of the work's pleasure. He is simultaneously public and private, making marks yet leaving little behind, and demonstrating ultra-awareness of his viewer while being in a semi-trance state.” – Jerry Saltz (via: http://www.ubu.com/film/acconci_seedbed.html)

The Mystery of Al Capone's Vaults is a two-hour live American television special that was broadcast in syndication on April 21, 1986, and hosted by Geraldo Rivera. It centered on the live opening of a secret vault in the Lexington Hotel in Chicago once owned by noted crime lord Al Capone.

The warping lens used to photograph 10th Avenue seems to puzzle the filmmakers.