Distress Signals

Hollande, DSK, etc ...

A young man living with his parents in Wisconsin comes face to face with a terrifying monster while searching for the elusive cryptic known as the Hodag.

A series of musical performances showcasing the diverse facets of fado, a musical genre from Lisbon.

A look at the unusual process used in the making of the film Shortbus (2006) featuring interviews, behind the scenes footage and clips from the feature film. Director John Cameron Mitchell starts with the concept of using real sex in a film with a positive message. The cast of unknowns is selected from homemade audition tapes and then a callback audition workshop. More acting workshops are used to develop the characters and script. The project overcomes a number of obstacles and the rest of the film's development is followed up until its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival.

America may be ready for a blind woman who has a career or is raising a family, but is it ready for a blind woman who doesn't conform to the norms of proper behavior?

A exploration of the fanaticism that surrounds the Apple brand, featuring interviews with Mac evangelists and members of the Mac community.

A chronicle which provides a rare window into the international perception of the Iraq War, courtesy of Al Jazeera, the Arab world's most popular news outlet. Roundly criticized by Cabinet members and Pentagon officials for reporting with a pro-Iraqi bias, and strongly condemned for frequently airing civilian causalities as well as footage of American POWs, the station has revealed (and continues to show the world) everything about the Iraq War that the Bush administration did not want it to see.

This film is about the vast, invisible world of government secrecy. By focusing on classified secrets, the government's ability to put information out of sight if it would harm national security, Secrecy explores the tensions between our safety as a nation, and our ability to function as a democracy.

Set in New York City, the epicenter of a phenomenon cropping up in communities across the United States, "Nursery University" reveals the oddly competitive process of nursery school admissions. The film tells the story of five families attempting to place their toddlers in preschool classrooms that have limited space and high price tags.

A documentary that takes an in depth look at a government sanctioned art school in Cuba and its students. Interviews of various artists attending the school allow viewers a glimpse into their personal and professional lives.

A fictionalized biography on John Dall who was in two great movies - Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope (1948) and Joseph H. Lewis’ Gun Crazy (1950).

When college rock darlings the Pixies broke up in 1992, their fans were shocked and dismayed. When they reunited in 2004, those same fans and legions of new listeners were ecstatic and filled with high hopes. loudQUIETloud follows the rehearsals and live shows of the band as they struggle through the reunion tour "Sell Out"

A documentary on Jacques Vergès, the controversial lawyer and former Free French Forces guerrilla, exploring how Vergès assisted, from the 1960s onwards, anti-imperialist terrorist cells operating in Africa, Europe, and the Middle East. Participants interviewed include Algerian nationalists Yacef Saadi, Zohra Drif, Djamila Bouhired and Abderrahmane Benhamida, Khmer Rouge members Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan, once far-left activists Hans-Joachim Klein and Magdalena Kopp, terrorist Carlos the Jackal, lawyer Isabelle Coutant-Peyre, neo-Nazi Ahmed Huber, Palestinian politician Bassam Abu Sharif, Lebanese politician Karim Pakradouni, political cartoonist Siné, former spy Claude Moniquet, novelist and ghostwriter Lionel Duroy, and investigative journalist Oliver Schröm.

A documentary incorporating footage of Montgomery Clift’s most memorable films; interviews with family and friends, and rare archival material stretching back to his childhood. What develops is the story of an intense young boy who yearned for stardom, achieved notable success in such classic films as From Here to Eternity and I Confess, only to be ruined by alcohol addiction and his inability to face his own fears and homosexual desires. Montgomery Clift, as this film portrays him, may not have been a happy man but he never compromised his acting talents for Hollywood.

MANUFACTURED LANDSCAPES is the striking new documentary on the world and work of renowned artist Edward Burtynsky. Internationally acclaimed for his large-scale photographs of “manufactured landscapes”—quarries, recycling yards, factories, mines and dams—Burtynsky creates stunningly beautiful art from civilization’s materials and debris.

Exploited, abused and sometimes abandoned most gamers fail to reach the top, but like all sports heroes exist. FRAG is the true story of professional video gaming outlining the evolution of the 1980’s arcade game competitions to the elite tournaments of today for millions of dollars around the globe.

In a country where bella figura is a national pastime, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is the maestro of media manipulation. Having risen to political primacy with the aid of his Mediaset empire, he now controls 90% of the bel paese’s television channels including the state-run RAI network. Quantity, it seems, does not equal quality. Fed on a diet of semi-naked dancing girls, inane competitions and rickety reality shows built around the most ridiculous of premises, is it any wonder that Italians are becoming a nation of fame-hungry wannabes?

An action-adventure documentary chronicling the most notorious and dangerous race in the world--the Tecate SCORE Baja 1000. Rivaling the Indy 500 and 25 Hours of Daytona, the race across Baja's peninsula is unpredictable, grueling and raw--just like the uncharted American West of yesteryear.

Starting with their conception and design in the early 1950s, "Solidbodies", focuses on the five decade competition of sounds between the two guitars that have been heard on more popular recordings than any other instruments during the rock era. The documentary features players, historians, instrument dealers and collectors expressing their views on the competitive influences

B4MD tells the story of American music at this precarious moment. Filmakers Andrew Shapter and Joel Rasmussen traveled the country, hoping to understand why mainstream music seems so packaged and repetitive, and whether corporations really had the power to silence musical innovation. The answers they found on this journey are what makes B4MD both riveting and exciting.