For Jimmy Smith, Jr., life is a daily fight just to keep hope alive. Feeding his dreams in Detroit's vibrant music scene, Jimmy wages an extraordinary personal struggle to find his own voice - and earn a place in a world where rhymes rule, legends are born and every moment… is another chance.
The American comedian/actor delivers a story about the alternative Hip Hop scene. A small town Ohio mans moves to Brooklyn, New York, to throw an unprecedented block party.
Public Enemy, rap's most incendiary group, brings their hard-charging, political rhymes and their powerful stage show to the world famous House of Blues. Songs: Public Enemy #1, 911 Is a Joke, He Got Game, Give It Up, Don't Believe the Hype, Rebel Without a Pause, By the Time I Get to Arizona, Fight the Power, Bring the Noise, and more!
Natal
Urban is a short documentary on the importance of dance in shaping the identity of five young adolescent girls. In the Susp3ctz dance crew, they learn the basics of hip hop, house, krump, in order to learn to freestyle and reveal their own identity.
DJ Screw: Untold Story tells the story of Robert Davis before the phenomenon and before the fame from the people who were there. This DVD also contains never-before seen footage of the one man who gave Houston its sound indentity, at work and at play as well as interviews with the original members of the S.U.C., Davis' family members and others whose careers are influenced by his music.
Traces the life and mental illness of New York artist and photographer Ruth Litoff, and her sister's struggle to come to terms with her tragic suicide.
The battle for accessibility in New York City Transit told by those fighting it. Less than a quarter of stations in the city's sprawling subway system are accessible to people with disabilities and those that need elevators. This film takes you on the frontlines of the disability rights movement featuring the perspectives of activists, local and state legislators, transit advocates and MTA officials.
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.
This production was originally staged for the Pepsico Summerfare Festival, The International Performing Arts Festival of the State University of New York at Purchase. Leaving the lyrics in their original Italian, acclaimed American director Peter Sellars transports Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's "Don Giovanni" to a modern-day metropolis, nestling the opera's beloved characters among the brownstones of New York City's Harlem. Sellars's contemporary retelling of a classic musical tale is one of three performances in a Mozart series that also includes "Le Nozze di Figaro" and "'Così Fan Tutte."
A film about three teenagers - Klara, Mina and Tanutscha - from the Berlin district of Kreuzberg. The trio have known each other since Kindergarten and have plenty in common. The three 15-year-olds are the best of friends; they are spending the summer at Prinzenbad, a large open-air swimming pool at the heart of the district where they live. They're feeling pretty grown up, and are convinced they've now left their childhood behind.
A documentary film that highlights two street derived dance styles, Clowning and Krumping, that came out of the low income neighborhoods of L.A.. Director David LaChapelle interviews each dance crew about how their unique dances evolved. A new and positive activity away from the drugs, guns, and gangs that ruled their neighborhood. A raw film about a growing sub-culture movements in America.
This is Poe and Král's first effort, shot on small-gauge stock, before their more well-known endeavor The Blank Generation (1976) came to be. A "DIY" portrait of the New York music scene, the film is a patchwork of footage of numerous rock acts performing live, at venues like Madison Square Garden, Radio City Music Hall, the dive bars of Greenwich Village and, of course, CBGB.
It's hard to define her. And that's precisely the way Lady Gaga wants it. Yes, Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta had a plan to remake herself into an outrageous icon. It began with Italian Catholic New York City roots then expanded to glam pop, electronic rock, burlesque and even jazz alongside nonagenarian crooner, Tony Bennett. Piano lessons began at age four and taught Stefani to create music by ear. There were lead roles in high school standard Broadway show productions then open mic nights at downtown clubs and 1 1/2 years of formal training at N.Y.U.'s Tisch School of the Arts. Even a rape at age nineteen slowed but did not stop the mission that would yield over 200 million combined album and song sales. No wonder that Gaga's fans call her "Monster Mother." An outrageous fashion sense has wrought costumes made of plastic bubbles and raw meat. While elaborate videos and spectacular stage sets are the norm,
CARO Vapor II is an exercise in imagination and a redefinition of what Brazilian popular music can be nowadays. From Rio’s samba jazz transported to the streets of Conjunto São Pedro in Fortaleza to Baião meeting the productions of the Neptunes, the artist understands old musical proposals as dreams of possible futures, pillars in the construction of a country whose work remains unfinished. Digging through these ruins and working their echoes in the present, he dares to envision another future. The exercises of imagining the past that haunt us have been exhumed and rebuilt. While this unfolds sonically, Don L’s pen reinforces: the Global South is what matters. Don scrutinizes the aspirations of what it means to be Latin American nowadays, in a world where virtually all experiences are heavily filtered by the internet and those in power. Territorial construction is also mental, provoking the listener by repeating, in new terms, the question: how much of your dreams was advertising?
An investigation into the once high-flying digital news outlet that filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2023 after boasting a valuation of $5.7 billion in 2017.
Through interviews and guerilla footage of graffiti writers in action on five continents, the documentary tells the story of graffiti from its origins in prehistoric cave paintings thru its notorious explosion in New York City during the 70’s and 80’s, then follows the flames as they paint the globe.
Concert film combining the footage from 50 camcorders given to audience members of a sold-out Beastie Boys show at Madison Square Garden on October 9, 2004. The audience members were instructed to keep the cameras rolling at all times.
Shot over the course of 18 months in New York City's Lower East Side, METHADONIA sheds light on the inherent flaws of legal methadone treatments for heroin addiction by profiling eight addicts, in various stages of recovery and relapse, who attend the New York Center for Addiction Treatment Services (NYCATS).