Contemporary Photography in America

Interviews with personalities including John Mellencamp, Spike Lee, Lou Reed, Roseanne Barr, David Byrne, George Michael and more, as they reflect on the 1980s.

A documentary film honoring the King of Pop showcasing how Michael Jackson's groundbreaking musical legacy has influenced performers of the past, present and future.

Concerning Violence is based on newly discovered, powerful archival material documenting the most daring moments in the struggle for liberation in the Third World, accompanied by classic text from The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon.

Rocky IV is dually symbolic - it embodies both the victory of the American boxer over the Soviet one and the victory of neo-liberalism over a dwindling socialism. Today, Rocky is held up as a model by some and is a subject of derision for others. An emblem of the 1980s, its culture and its heroes, the film will be the subject of an entertaining analysis of popular culture.

Following the 1884–85 Berlin Conference resolution on the partition of Africa, the Portuguese army uses a talented ensign to register the effective occupation of the territory belonging to the Cuamato people, conquered in 1907, in the south of Angola. A STORY FROM AFRICA enlivens a rarely seen photographic archive through the tragic tale of Calipalula, the Cuamato nobleman essential to the unfolding of events in this Portuguese pacification campaign.

At 14, best friends Robb Reiner and Lips made a pact to rock together forever. Their band, Anvil, hailed as the "demi-gods of Canadian metal" influenced a musical generation that includes Metallica, Slayer, and Anthrax. Following a calamitous European tour, Lips and Robb, now in their fifties, set off to record their 13th album in one last attempt to fulfill their boyhood dreams.

The Bokelberg photographic collection brings to life the Paris of the Belle Époque (1871-1914), an exhibition of workshops and stores with extremely beautiful shop windows before which the owners and their employees proudly pose, hiding behind their eyes the secret history of a great era.

Ashes and Snow, a film by Gregory Colbert, uses both still and movie cameras to explore extraordinary interactions between humans and animals. The 60-minute feature is a poetic narrative rather than a documentary. It aims to lift the natural and artificial barriers between humans and other species, dissolving the distance that exists between them.

A strippers' convention and a major contest. The movie focuses on a few strippers, each with her own strong motive to win.

In the summer of 1963, François Mitterrand was going through a deep existential crisis. His political career was at a standstill and, after 19 years of marriage, the couple had grown apart. It was at this point that François Mitterrand met the woman who was to give new meaning to his life. Anne Pingeot, aged 19, was to become the companion of a lifetime, a woman who would be with him throughout his rise to power and who would remain by his side until his last breath. For the first time, Anne Pingeot has agreed to allow the fragments of this passionate love story — hundreds of letters and a diary — to be shown on television, before being donated to the National Library.

A roller-coaster ride through the history of American exploitation films, ranging from Roger Corman's sci-fi and horror monster movies, 1960s beach movies, H.G. Lewis' gore-fests, William Castle's schlocky theatrical gimmicks, to 1970s blaxploitation, pre-"Deep Throat" sex tease films, Russ Meyer's bosom-heavy masterpieces, etc, etc. Over 25 interviews of the greatest purveyors of weird films of all kind from 1940 to 1975. Illustrated with dozens of films clips, trailers, extra footage, etc. This documentary as a shorter companion piece focusing on exploitation king David F. Friedman.

A unique behind-the-scenes access to NASA’s ambitious mission to launch the James Webb Space Telescope, following a team of engineers and scientists as they take the next giant leap in our quest to understand the universe.

The film explores the role of photography, since its rudimentary beginnings in the 1840s, in shaping the identity, aspirations, and social emergence of African Americans from slavery to the present. The dramatic arch is developed as a visual narrative that flows through the past 160 years to reveal black photography as an instrument for social change, an African American point-of-view on American history, and a particularized aesthetic vision.

Errol Morris examines the incidents of abuse and torture of suspected terrorists at the hands of U.S. forces at the Abu Ghraib prison.

The story of how Sicilian Mafia boss Tommaso Buscetta (1928-2000), the Godfather of Two Worlds, revealed, starting in 1984, the deepest secrets of the organization, thus helping to convict the hundreds of mafiosi who were tried in the trial held in Palermo between 1986 and 1987.

Moment of Impact: Stories of the Pulitzer Prize Photographs, hosted by Sam Waterston, tells the compelling stories behind some of the world's most memorable photographs. Returning to the scene of the action, each photographer describes, in a gripping first-hand account, how they took their prize-winning photographs. The moments they captured forged history and changed lives - including the photographers own. The stories of these unforgettable photographs' own. The stories of these unforgettable photographs - many of them shown here for the first time - are as compelling and long lasting as the images themselves.

More than 60,000 of Ernest Cole’s 35mm film negatives were inexplicably discovered in a bank vault in Stockholm, Sweden. Most considered these forever lost, especially the thousands of pictures he shot in the U.S. Told through Cole’s own writings, the stories of those closest to him, and the lens of his uncompromising work, the film is a reintroduction of a pivotal Black artist to a new generation and will unravel the mystery of his missing negatives.

In 1970s New York, photographer Martha Cooper captured some of the first images of graffiti at a time when the city had declared war on it. Decades later, Cooper has become an influential godmother to a global movement of street artists.

Legendary photographer and director Anton Corbijn is responsible for many of the most indelible and important images of the past two and a half decades. His recently released book U2 & I is a photographic retrospective of his 25 year collaboration with U2. Later this year, Anton will direct his first feature film, Control, based on the life of the late Joy Division lead singer Ian Curtis.

The life and career of American rapper Vanilla Ice, showcasing his start as a breakdancer in South Dallas to his mainstream international success and the hardships that followed through archive personal, TV, news and concert footage.