Headdress

A series of short films including Detergent, Square and ACPOAPM, made in New York.

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Set in Berlin and New York's Lower East Side, The Great Yiddish Love stars the self-exiled Marlene Dietrich and her Nazi-endorsed replacement, Zarah Leander. It is a melodrama of love, emigration, and betrayal reassembled from Hollywood, German Ufa and Yiddish films from the 1930s and 40s.

Coerência

Combining nostalgia, dazzling architecture, pop culture, economics and politics, MALLS R US examines North America's most popular and profitable suburban destination-the enclosed shopping center-and how for consumers they function as a communal, even ceremonial experience and, for retailers, sites where their idealism, passion and greed merge. The film blends archival footage tracing the history of the shopping mall in America, visits to some of the world's largest and most spectacular malls-in Canada, the U.S., the U.K., Japan, Poland, France, and Dubai-and interviews with architects, mall developers, sales managers, environmentalists, labor activists and social critics, as well as commentary from mall shoppers themselves.

The acclaimed poet is examined in this film completed just prior to his death at age 88, with his speaking engagements at Amherst and Sarah Lawrence Colleges intercut with studies of his work, as well as with scenes of his life in rural Vermont and personal reminiscences about his career. He is also seen receiving an award from President Kennedy and touring an aircraft carrier. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with UCLA Film & Television Archive in 2006.

The recession of the 1980s split the country into the haves and have-nots, from family farmers to factory workers and homeless people forced to live in decrepit welfare hotels. On the verge of losing everything, courageous Americans discover the power of community organizing to fight injustice.

A hilarious and affectionate look at the path to stardom inside the competitive world of opera. Filmmakers Allie Light and Irving Saraf relegate the divas to the background and focus on a limelight-craving group of "choristers" -- the seldom-noticed singers who stand behind the soloists portraying peasants, soldiers and slaves.

An unflinching verité portrait of the children of Stanton Elementary School in North Philadelphia, an inner-city neighborhood where 90% of the students live below the poverty line. Seen through the viewpoint of devoted principal Deanna Burney, the film shows Stanton as grossly underfunded, understaffed, and filled with children struggling to overcome their difficulties. But for these at-risk kids, however, the hope for their future survives only in the success of their education. A captivating series of vignettes concerning children growing up outside the American dream, echoing current “hot-button” issues in our country’s ongoing political discussion.

Bryan Wilmoth is the oldest of eight children who grew up in a very strict household. Eventually, all the siblings became estranged from their parents. At StoryCorps, Bryan told his brother mike about the day their father discovered that Bryan was gay.

Rachel Dolezal became infamous when she was unmasked as a white woman passing for black so thoroughly that she had become the head of her local N.A.A.C.P. chapter. This portrait cuts through the very public controversy to reveal Dolezal’s motivations.

For six decades Angela Bowen, classical dancer and teacher, black lesbian feminist activist, and professor has influenced and inspired untold numbers speaking out as strongly for the Arts, Black and Women's Rights as she has for Lesbian and Gay Rights. The film depicts Bowen's life across the decades, from the early fifties, with historic footage, photographs and interviews including her dance mentor, dance partner, former husband, partner, children, activists, scholars, and dance and university students. Bowen's candid and compelling stories allow us to understand how race, class, gender, age, and sexuality played into her decisions and choices, her mission, and strategies for survival. Passionate Pursuits is intended to challenge and inspire diverse audiences to pursue their own dreams with tenacity and courage, but not for themselves alone.

Miguel traces his way trying to survive, his reality becomes more and more labyrinthic; It is difficult for him to face himself, his behavior is complex. A repressive society and an invasion of confused ideas make this documentary a piece about human complexity in a country, Mexico, dominated by violence.

In 2007, Gillian Wearing placed an advert – in newspapers, online, in job centers, and elsewhere. It read: “Would you like to be in a film? You can play yourself or a fictional character. Call Gillian.” Of the hundreds of people who replied, seven – chosen through an extended process of auditions, interviews, and workshops – ended up appearing in Self Made. Of those seven, five in particular use the acting technique known as Method to delve into their memories, impulses, anxieties, fears, fantasies, and inner resources to create a series of individual performance vignettes, their personal ‘end scenes’, that reveal with particular intensity and clarity who they really are deep down – or who, in another version of their lives, they might easily have been.

Filmed and edited in intimate vérité style, this movie follows visionary medical practitioners who are working on the cutting edge of life and death and are dedicated to changing our thinking about both.

In 1981, Susan Meiselas published "Nicaragua, June 1978 to July 1979," 70 photographs she took documenting the Sandanista revolution. Ten years later, Meiselas returns looking for the people who appear in the photographs: where are they now, what do they remember, what do they think of their country and of the revolution? She finds a woman who buried her husband when she was 14; she talks to those who fought the Guarda Nacional - some are disillusioned, some still have the fervor of revolution; she talks to mothers about their sons; she finds a Guarda member who became a Contra. And she offers her own reflections on time and history and on the moment and meaning of a photograph.

Frustrated by watching Black patients suffer due to end-of-life healthcare inequities, two determined allies – a chaplain and a doctor – work to transform a broken medical system, one patient at a time.

This documentary produced by Rare Day and directed by award-winning filmmaker Penny Woolcock charts the attempts by two warring gangs in inner city Birmingham, the Burger Bar Boys (B21) and the Johnson Crew (B6), to bring peace to their neighbourhoods.

.Americans have had a long love affair with dogs, with many of us referring to our canine companions as best friends, significant others, soul mates, even children. But lost amidst all the pampering and pedestaling are hard and often tragic truths surrounding dog ownership, care and commerce, not to mention the daunting odds continuing to face millions of unwanted shelter dogs. Divided into three parts – “Fear,” “Loss” and “Betrayal” – this 73-minute documentary is comprised of eight case studies that probe the complicated and conflicted relationship we have with canines. Collectively, the segments reveal the sobering realities behind our relationship with dogs, showing not only how far some dog lovers will go for their pets, but how far we as nation have to go in order to treat all dogs humanely.

Inta is a brusque, crusty woman who lives alone on the edge of a picturesque marsh. One day her solitude is intruded upon by the arrival of a documentary filmmaker. In his eyes Inta is an outstanding would-be film protagonist but the wild woman would rather put a curse on the importunate intruder than let herself be filmed. But the filmmaker's persistence finally succeeds in melting the ice of Inta's heart... just in order to break it soon afterwards.