The iconic Carlyle hotel has been an international destination for a particular jet set as well as a favorite haunt of the most discernible New Yorkers.
Martin Scorsese’s electrifying concert documentary captures The Rolling Stones live at New York’s Beacon Theatre during their A Bigger Bang tour. Filmed over two nights in 2006 with an all-star team of cinematographers, the film combines dynamic performances with archival footage and rare glimpses behind the scenes, offering a vibrant portrait of the band’s enduring energy and legacy.
Documentary featuring a jaw-dropping, behind-the-scenes look at the attempted comeback of Anthony Weiner in 2013 as he mounts a campaign for New York City mayor in the wake of his sexting scandal. Featuring unfettered access to the candidate and his campaign.
A crumbling pier, its walls covered with graffiti and erotic frescoes reminiscent of pagan Pompeii, the locus of the seduction rituals of men longing for men, is the focus of this meditation on gay cruising at the height of sexual freedom before AIDS. Shot in 1982, this is the first segment of a film capturing the life, death, and rebirth of the legendary “sex piers” over the last three decades.
Don't Bring A Dog shows a part of the New York underground music scene - rooted in the early eighties - existing apart from MTV and billboard charts. Music, interviews, sounds and pictures of the city blend into a collage. Don't Bring A Dog works like a time capsule of people and music in NY at a particular moment
Adolf Hitler's Nazi megalomania knew no limits. The most daring of his plans World War II involved German fighter planes crashing into Manhattan's skyscrapers as living bombs, like the Japanese kamikazes. Hitler understood the huge symbolic power of Manhattan's skyscrapers. He believed suicide bombing would have a devastating psychological impact on the American people and the U.S. war effort.
The two very different families of "Paris Is Burning" star Venus Xtravaganza unite to honor her and reopen her unsolved murder case.
Secrets of the Empire State Building
Interviews and archival footage weave together to tell the story of the Master of Suspense, one of the most influential and studied filmmakers in the history of cinema.
Stockholm Syndrome chronicles the meteoric rise of contemporary trendsetter A$AP Rocky, capturing the exuberance of youth and urgency of hip-hop in equal parts, before taking a detour into darkness. With amazing access, the film reveals Rocky’s experience with the inequities of the Swedish judicial system and the dangers of stardom and scapegoating through a series of twists and turns, ultimately paralleling the need for prison reform in our own backyard. Directed by The Architects, the film blends archival footage with contemporary interviews, animation, and electrifying live concert footage to tell the astonishing story of how one of rap’s biggest superstars became embroiled in an international incident, leading to an unexpected political awakening.
Profiles the culture, lifestyles, and rituals within the New York City subways.
The film tells of the radical life-search by the Swiss writer Paul Nizon, born 1929 in Bern, Switzerland, who became what “he was meant to be” in Paris. Now 90-year-old, Paul Nizon grants insights into his life and work in a self-ironic, direct manner. The intimate portrait of a great literary outsider emerges, for whom the risk of life and the risk of writing merge into one and the same work of art.
Documentary where rich social history frames a spirited debate on the development of water infrastructure throughout the USA.
This TV documentary shows some of the colourful residents of and people connected with the New York Chelsea Hotel. Some highlights include Andy Warhol and William Burroughs having dinner; Quentin Crisp pontificating in a blue rinse hairdo on his balcony and Nico forgetting what she is talking about halfway through a dour rendition of "Chelsea Girls". A number of lesser-known characters also appear, linked together by a tour guide walking around the building and some sub-Shining sequences of a child cycling round the landings on a rickety tricycle.
This film is a documentary portrait of the great Bulgarian Writer and poet Valeri Petrov.
Armando Iannucci presents a personal argument in praise of the genius of Charles Dickens. Through the prism of the author's most autobiographical novel, David Copperfield, Armando looks beyond Dickens - the national institution - and instead explores the qualities of Dickens's work that still make him one of the best British writers. While Dickens is often celebrated for his powerful depictions of Victorian England and his role as a social reformer, this programme foregrounds the elements of his writing which make him worth reading, as much for what he tells us about ourselves in the twenty-first century as our ancestors in the nineteenth. Armando argues that Dickens's remarkable use of language and his extraordinary gift for creating characters make him a startlingly experimental and psychologically penetrating writer who demands not just to be adapted for television but to be read and read again.
In the early nineties, before the massive gentrification of many of New York's then slums, several young people from very disparate backgrounds left their broken homes and ventured onto the brutal streets of the city. United by their love of skateboarding, they formed a family and built a unique lifestyle that eventually inspired Kids, a groundbreaking and outrageous film directed by photographer Larry Clark and released in 1995.
In celebration of his ninetieth birthday, Sir David Attenborough shares extraordinary highlights of his life and career with broadcaster Kirsty Young, including the inspiring people he has met, the extraordinary journeys he has made and the remarkable animal encounters he has had across the globe. Joined by colleagues and friends, including Michael Palin and Chris Packham, Sir David shares some of the unforgettable moments from his unparalleled career, from capturing unique animal behaviour for the first time to the fast-paced advances in wildlife filming technology, as well as stories of the wonder and fragility of the natural world - stories that Sir David has spent his life exploring and championing.
A fragmented biography, inconclusive, partial, of the brilliant Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges, based on different testimonies: his links with Leonor de Acedevo —his mother— and María Kodama —his second wife—; his vast culture and devout dedication to literature, his and that of others; his country: the politicians and the disloyal military. Borges gradually builds his own impersonation of Borges.
A cinematic portrait of the homeless population who live permanently in the underground tunnels of New York City.