One of Us

A Life Apart: Hasidism in America, is the first in-depth documentary about a distinctive, traditional Eastern European religious community. In an historic migration after World War II, Hasidism found it's most vital center in America. Both challenging and embracing American values, Hasidim seek those things which many Americans find most precious: family, community, and a close relationship to God. Integrating critical and analytical scholarship with a portrait of the daily life, beliefs, and history of contemporary Hasidic Jews in New York City, the film focuses on the conflicts, burdens, and rewards of the Hasidic way of life.

"City of Joel" is documentary - with unprecedented access - to a 1.1 square mile shtetl in the suburbs that is home to 22,000 members of an one of the most insular and orthodox Hasidic sects. We follow the battles they are waging to survive. Just 50 miles north of New York City, the Satmar sect has built Kiryas Joel as a religious haven where they can be fruitful, multiply and follow the 613 rules of the Talmud. But with some of the highest rates of marriage, birth and religious observance in the country, they have been almost too successful. Developers have come up with a plan to double the size of the village to keep up with this growth, but their neighbors fight back because they believe it will harm the environment and tilt the balance of political power.

Stamford Hill in North London is home to a community of 30,000 Hasidic Jews. Aiming to preserve a way of life they had in eighteenth century Poland and living strictly according to over 600 Biblical commandments brings them into conflict with modern life. They have embraced one aspect fully though, the Volvo Estate car.

Rabbi Israel ben Eliezer (1698-1760), known as the Ba'al Shem Tov ("Master of the Good Name"), is one of the most beloved and celebrated, yet elusive, figures in Jewish history. Today, Jews worldwide – and even non-Jews – revere him as the founder of the Hasidic movement, a 18th-century offshoot of Judaism that promotes a mystical interpretation of the Bible, and as a model of piety and spirituality. The documentary A FIRE IN THE FOREST explores the life and legacy of the Ba'al Shem Tov through interviews with religious leaders and scholars, and on-location footage. The title derives from a tale about rabbis finding a hidden fire in the forest where they could appeal to God for help and have their prayers answered.

Conservative Rabbi Marc Soloway invites us on his personal journey to modern day Ukraine to visit the graves of the Hasidic Masters as he tries to establish a connection with the famous names that have so long occupied a place in his imagination.

Set in the Hasidic enclave of Borough Park, Brooklyn, "93Queen" follows a group of tenacious Hasidic women who are smashing the patriarchy in their community by creating the first all-female volunteer ambulance corps in New York City. With unprecedented-and insider-access, "93Queen" offers up a unique portrayal of a group of religious women who are taking matters into their own hands to change their own community from within.

Mendy is a young Brookyln Hasid who leaves the strict rules of his insular and repressive community to join his childhood friend, Yankel, who is living securlary in Manhattan. Mendy's struggle to integrate his faith and traditions with the modern world are influenced by his growing friendship with Bianca, Yankel's free spirited Brazilian roommate.

After impulsively shaving off his beard and sidelocks, a young Hasidic man experiences a nightmarish transformation that leads him right back to where he started. Over the course of one painful night, Eli Eisenstein will come to realize that it’s much easier to shave your beard than to shed who you are.

Shmuel, a Hasidic cantor in Upstate New York and distraught at the untimely death of his wife, struggles to find religious solace, while secretly obsessing over how her body will decay. As a clandestine partnership develops with Albert, a local community college biology professor, the two embark on a darkly comic and increasingly literal undertaking into the underworld.

Detroit Mob Confidential explores the history of Detroit's La Cosa Nostra Family, which, in many ways, is the most successful crime family in the United States. Detroit's family has had only 2 Dons, the current boss has served for 30 years and is the longest serving mob Don in America. The documentary consists of interviews with multiple FBI agents and Federal prosecutors as well as several mafia associates from the 1950's and 1960's. Topics such as the Detroit "Combination's" (as the Family is known) infiltration of Las Vegas casinos and their centrality to the disapearance of Jimmy Hoffa are discussed.

An extensive overview of organized crime operations in and infiltration of the Las Vegas casino and gaming industry, covering the years 1931-1987.

Profiling Dale Earnhardt, one of five inaugural inductees. The seven-time Cup Series champ known as "The Intimidator" won 76 races before his tragic death in the 2001 Daytona 500. Earnhardt's No. 3 was retired from the circuit.

The story of how the Western world was first introduced to the musical history of Ethiopia, through the `Ethiopiques' CDs and the mastermind behind them, French music journalist, Francis Falceto.

It's one of the darkest murder mysteries in British history: did Richard III really kill his nephews in order to make himself king? Is he the greatest villain in English history, or the victim of centuries of grotesquely unfair Tudor propaganda? On the eve of Richard's reburial at Leicester Cathedral, this drama documentary assembles a stellar cast of experts, including David Starkey and Philippa Gregory, to examine all the available evidence. As it plays out the possibilities and tests the competing theories, it endeavors to get to the bottom, once and for all, of what really happened to the princes in the Tower. Is this a tale of naked ambition, cold pragmatism and bloody murder?

The thrilling true story of a NZ-born heroine who became the Gestapo's most wanted woman in WWII. This showcase documentary-drama follows Nancy Wake's remarkable life.

Poet Emily Dickinson, pigeonholed as the strange recluse since her death, takes you on a journey through the seasons of her life amid 1800s New England.

Muscles, screaming crowds and non-stop attention. Is it ego or alter-ego that defines the 'Pleasure Boys’ strip group? Exploring the motives and sacrifices of four male strippers, this documentary challenges masculinity as a construct in the modern world.

As she nears the age of 30, Rina still tries to find, with some difficulty, a path to becoming a film director. This year her father Richard, who she misses dearly, sends his favorite animal and Chinese zodiac sign, the tiger, to silently listen and follow his daughter through her unsteady sound of life. Through the medium of film, we distantly imagine what the world was like in the 1950s, when he himself was 30.

Under constant regimes of discipline and incorporation, rituals, faiths, bodies, and the position of man and god all trend towards uprootedness, where we lose our links to the land and to others. Time is dissected into ever more infinitesimal parts. Those who could not keep up now appear within the gaze of a stopped frame. Regardless of man or god, all destruction and rebirth meet at this point in search of a safe corner.

Documents each member of The Velvet Underground having their cards read at a big apartment party. The tarot reader is continually interrupted in her readings by the chaos created by the characters around her.