Michael Tilson Thomas explores the lives of his grandparents, Boris and Bessie Thomashefsky, through a musical performance that features five performers and the New World Symphony orchestra.
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Unknown Role
Follow punk-cabaret icon Amanda Palmer as she hits the stage at Red Rocks Amphitheater. Since her record-breaking $1.2 million crowd-funded Kickstarter campaign, Palmer (formerly of the Dresden Dolls) has carved out a path of fearlessness and independence outside the norms of the music industry.
Earth is visited by a race of aliens, who issue an ultimatum: either peace or complete destruction.
Breathing is about the thin space between life and death. 34-year-old Neil Platt plans his own funeral, muses about the meaning of life and the impossibility of terminating a mobile phone contract. With 5 months left to live, and paralyzed from the neck down by Motor Neurone Disease, he ponders how to communicate about his life in a letter for his baby son. How can he anticipate what he might want to know about his father in a future he can only imagine?
Supermensch documents the astounding career of Hollywood insider, the loveable Shep Gordon, who fell into music management by chance after moving to LA straight out of college, and befriending Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison and Jimi Hendrix. Shep managed rock stars such as Pink Floyd, Luther Vandross, Teddy Pendergrass and Alice Cooper, and later went on to manage chefs such as Emeril Lagasse, ushering in the era of celebrity chefs on television.
In Lepoglava, one of the most notorious penitentiaries in Europe, many regimes have trained their strictness by imposing the brutal methods of the so-called prison rehabilitation. Lepoglava is still the central Croatian penitentiary, in which several prisoners have decided to take up Shakespeare. This is the story about those of them who would today, were Shakespeare alive, be the heroes of his plays.
For three teenage girls growing up in Kahnawake — and indeed, all teenagers on the reserve — life can be quite confusing. If they want to move away to pursue new experiences — perhaps in nearby Montreal — they risk losing credibility, or worse yet, their rights as Mohawk women. Of course, if they stay, their opportunities in the tiny community are limited. With insight, humour and heart, director Tracey Deer (who left Kahnawake to attend school and pursue filmmaking) returns to her community to follow these Mohawk girls and tell their stories. Her deeply emotional documentary reveals the complex hope, heartache and promise of growing up Indigenous in the 21st century.
A look at how one woman obsessively collects material things and how her family pulls together to help her out.
Fists of Pride follows Little Tiger and his fellow fighters as their Thai coaches prepare them for the annual Water Festival competition. In a boxing camp on the Thai-Burmese border the children of mostly illegal migrant workers fleeing Burma live and train for prize fights. In a region where combat sports have always been a matter of honor and money, the film reveals their daily struggles. Bets are open and as the hope of prize money rizes, the young boxers contemplate what it could mean for them and their families
Filmed in the Indian Himalayas and in Canada, A Song for Tibet tells the dramatic story of the efforts by Tibetans in exile, including the Dalai Lama, to save their homeland and preserve their heritage against overwhelming odds. Since the invasion of their territory by China in the late 1950s, Tibetans have been struggling for cultural and political survival.
“Finding Hillywood” is an inspirational film about the making of the Rwandan film industry and the power of film to change and heal individuals and communities. It tells the story of how a nation, still healing from the 1994 genocide, creates a film industry as both an outlet for the pain and a way to bring entertainment and a new industry to the population. Hillywood, which is named for Rwanda’s hilly terrain, is a traveling film festival that screens films made by, about, and for Rwandans. The festival goes from town to town, setting up public, outdoor screenings, on inflatable screens, to showcase Rwandan films.
Madame Ondine performs a serpentine dance surrounded by big cats.
A documentary that examines whether a charity organized by Pat Robertson to aid Rwandan genocide refugees was a front for diamond mining.
In 1972, John Wojtowicz attempted to rob a Brooklyn bank to pay for his lover’s sex-change operation. The story was the basis for the film Dog Day Afternoon. The Dog captures John, who shares his story for the first time in his own unique, offensive, hilarious and heartbreaking way. We gain a historic perspective on New York's gay liberation movement, in which Wojtowicz played an active role. In later footage, he remains a subversive force, backed by the unconditional love of his mother Terry, whose wit and charm infuse the film. How and why the bank robbery took place is recounted in gripping detail by Wojtowicz and various eyewitnesses.
When his rented lot is snatched up by an opportunistic real estate mogul, Eddie Miranda and his Coney Island ride the Zipper become casualties of a power struggle between the developer and the City of New York over the future of the world-famous destination.
Pack your bags for a trip to a Catskills summer camp where the stars of tomorrow go to prepare for their shot at the big time as filmmaker Alexandra Shiva allows viewers a fly-on-the-wall perspective of Stagedoor Manor, the training ground for such notable Hollywood heavyweights as Robert Downey Jr., Jennifer Jason Leigh, and Natalie Portman.
The fourth film in Alanis Obomsawin's landmark series on the Oka crisis uses a single, shameful incident as a lens through which to examine the region's long history of prejudice and injustice against the Mohawk population.
In the period 1891-1927, Henriette Roland Holst goes through a dramatic development. As an aspiring poet from an affluent bourgeois milieu she throws herself, full with idealism and conviction, into the labour movement. Within the various socialistic parties however, a fierce battle on direction takes place, wherein Henriette has trouble finding her place. After returning disillusioned from a trip to the Soviet Union, she does not feel at home in any leftist party. Later she will recollect on this period in her biography "Het vuur brandde voort" (translation: "The fire rages on"). The film reconstructs this period with the use of old film material combined with texts by Henriette Roland Holst herself: fragments from letters, poems, speeches and books, sparingly supplemented with personal commentary by the filmmaker.
French documentarist Sonia Kronlund follows actor and director Salim Shaheen, an Afghan movie star who produced more than 110 low-budget movies in a country devastated by war.
Five acclaimed photographers travel the world to provide detailed insight into the difficult conditions faced by refugees who dream of a better life.
Columbus' 4th voyage has been a total failure: he has not found the westward passage, he has no gold to show, he has lost men and ships and his efforts to build a colony have fallen through. The monarchs of Spain are not going to restore the rights and privileges which were taken away from Columbus after the first voyage. And Columbus will be shamed. Many of his sailors who have survived, can't face the journey home. They will choose to remain on Hispaniola or neighbouring Puerto Rico.