"Murderers, Fugitives, Thieves... Shakespeare would have loved these guys"
Twenty male inmates in a Kentucky prison form an unlikely Shakespearean acting troupe.
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“Fresh Start: A Marcus Harvin Story” presents an intimate portrayal of Marcus Harvin’s journey as he transcends his past to make a profound impact on the lives of those around him. The documentary offers a rare glimpse into Marcus’s daily life, capturing his heartfelt mission to share not only food but also compassion through his innovative non-profit organization, Fresh Start. Through candid interviews with key figures in Marcus’s life, including Stephanie Harvin, Babatunde Akinjobi, and Bradley Woodworth, the film illuminates Marcus’s unwavering determination and the vital support system that has helped him achieve his dreams. Viewers are invited to follow Marcus for a day, witnessing his dream project in action—an extraordinary restaurant concept where the only payment required is one’s presence.
The youngsters housed in the "Almafuerte" Maximum Security Juvenile Institute have their first approach to audiovisual recording. A film and documentary video workshop serves as an excuse for them to make a short film inside the prison. The camera is a rabid toy that generates fascination in them and rescues a sheltered, innocent smile that seemed forgotten under the shadows. While inside libertarian cries bounce against the walls, outside sounds fanfares of an iron fist.
Joanne Williams' documentary captures an experiment of sorts. In 1966, amid the Civil Rights era, students from Milwaukee's Rufus King High School and students from Kaukauna High School participated in an exchange program that culminated in a production of Martin Duberman's play IN WHITE AMERICA. Now, over fifty years later, the original participants come together with a new generation, reprising this play with reflection and new energy amid our own racial reckoning.
The Big One is an investigative documentary from director Michael Moore who goes around the country asking why big American corporations produce their product abroad where labor is cheaper while so many Americans are unemployed, losing their jobs, and would happily be hired by such companies as Nike.
Five transgender women share their prison experiences. Interviews with attorneys, doctors, and other experts are also included.
Kevin Spacey, Sam Mendes and the Bridge Project Company go on the road in NOW: in the Wings on a World Stage. In over 200 performances, and across 3 continents, Kevin and the troupe reveal some of the most intimate moments behind the scenes of their staging of Shakespeare's classic tragedy, "Richard III." Their story and experiences weave around, and reflect on, excerpts from the play from their various locations, from Epidaurus to Doha, and provides a great opportunity for those who have never experienced Spacey on stage to witness his immerse and captivating interpretation of Richard III. NOW chronicles the first collaboration between Spacey and Mendes since both won Academy Awards® for their work on American Beauty.
In prisons ruled by toxic masculinity, dancing is an absolute taboo. But at Lancaster’s A-Yard, near Los Angeles, a group of young men, willing to take a chance to be mocked in the yard, start a dance class led by French choreographer Dimitri Chamblas. This class quickly becomes an intoxicating escape from their grim reality so they decide to create a dance show. In this exceptional context, the inmates engage with overwhelming sincerity, evoking their childhood, ganglife, the crimes, the prison, and their desire for transformation. Beyond damaged lives and a prison system on the edge of the abyss, DANCING IN A-YARD explores redemption and the capacity of human beings to reinvent themselves, when given a chance. And more importantly, how art and introspection can help see the light.
A mockumentary examination of Shakespeare's greatest tragedy using "breaking news" style interviews and commentary.
Journey into "Hamlet"-the play and the man-through the experiences of some of the major actors and directors who have brought Shakespeare's great tragedy to life. Christopher Plummer, David Tennant, John Nettles, John Simm, Sir Trevor Nunn, Franco Zeffirelli, Philip Saville, and others explore the enduring appeal of the Prince of Denmark more than 400 years after his stage debut.
A look inside one of the most brutal campaigns of state repression in modern history - told by those who endured it and those who enforced it.
Set entirely inside Folsom Prison, The Work follows three men during four days of intensive group therapy with convicts, revealing an intimate and powerful portrait of authentic human transformation that transcends what we think of as rehabilitation.
Former conservative Justice Secretary Ann Widdecombe visits a Norwegian prison that has been described as the most luxurious of its kind.
71 years in the making, this feature documentary experience reveals the extraordinary life journey of Hollywood's most unlikely hero, Danny Trejo.
Out of State is the unlikely story of native Hawaiians men discovering their native culture as prisoners in the desert of Arizona, 3,000 miles, and across the ocean, from their island home.
In 2018, the Nicaraguan police brutally repressed anti-government protests organised by high school students. K., a 17-year-old girl who was arrested, recounts the horrors of her time in jail.
A provocative and ironic pamphleteering documentary about the making of Christoph Schlingensief’s Nazi-'Hamlet’ (2001). Both a media event and a form of political action Schlingensief let ex-neo-Nazis play themselves. His provocation in so-called Nazi-free Switzerland was not appreciated and when he added fuel to the flames by calling for the local political party SVP to be banned, his media offensive made front-page news far beyond Switzerland.
As beautiful and sleek as it is deadly, 52 Blocks merits special conservation efforts as the United States' only existing native martial culture, as it is indeed, the jazz of the martial arts world. Across the African diaspora, there are manifestations of African-derived warrior-dances, capoeira in brazil, mani in Cuba, ladja in Martinique, pinge in Haiti- yet the US offshoot has remained esoteric, because it was suppressed throughout slavery, Reconstruction and Jim Crow and then obscured in the criminal justice system. The history, interviews and training of the martial arts style that created Breakdance and boxing greats like Mike Tyson.
Explores the realities of death-row inmates inside Huntsville (Texas) Unit, a prison with the highest number of executions in 1997. Features interviews with prisoners, guards, officials, lawyers and victims' family members.
As their bodies give way to Parkinson's disease, two New York actors put their hearts into one final Off-Broadway production of Beckett's "Endgame," the play that posits, "there's nothing funnier than unhappiness."
The theme of Romeo and Juliet is the starting point from which the film spins a web of several stories. A love story between a boy and a girl whose families are Algerian: they are young, beautiful and they are trying to build a family and a social life in France. They love each other, and yet conflicts, family pressure and contradicting desires alternately tear them apart and unite them. The story of Romeo and Juliet, minus death.
Incarcerated men defy the odds to expose a cover-up in one of America’s deadliest prison systems.
Al Pacino's deeply-felt rumination on Shakespeare's significance and relevance to the modern world through interviews and an in-depth analysis of "Richard III."
A stark and graphic portrayal of the conditions that existed at the State Prison for the Criminally Insane at Bridgewater, Massachusetts, and documents the various ways the inmates are treated by the guards, social workers, and psychiatrists.
The lives of the late Bradford playwright Andrea Dunbar and Lorraine, one of her daughters, and the community of Bradford, in the 30 years since the 18-year-old Andrea penned a play about growing up in the community titled "The Arbor".
An in-depth look at the prison system in the United States and how it reveals the nation's history of racial inequality.
Unravel the case of Utah therapist Jodi Hildebrandt, whose child abuse arrest with parenting YouTuber Ruby Franke exposed a twisted tale of manipulation.
This documentary delves deeper into the creation of the Hamilton musical, revealing Lin-Manuel Miranda's process of absorbing and then adapting Hamilton's epic story into ground-breaking musical theater.
Penetrating the insular world of New York's Hasidic community, focusing on three individuals driven to break away despite threats of retaliation.
A visual montage portrait of our contemporary world dominated by globalized technology and violence.
SEDUCED AND ABANDONED combines acting legend Alec Baldwin with director James Toback as they lead us on a troublesome and often hilarious journey of raising financing for their next feature film. Moving from director to financier to star actor, the two players provide us with a unique look behind the curtain at the world's biggest and most glamourous film festival, shining a light on the bitter-sweet relationship filmmakers have with Cannes and the film business. Featuring insights from directors Martin Scorsese, 'Bernando Bertolucci' and Roman Polanski; actors Ryan Gosling and Jessica Chastain and a host of film distribution luminaries.
The life and career of one of comedy's most inimitable modern voices, Mr. Gilbert Gottfried.
When Allied forces liberated the Nazi concentration camps in 1944-45, their terrible discoveries were recorded by army and newsreel cameramen, revealing for the first time the full horror of what had happened. Making use of British, Soviet and American footage, the Ministry of Information’s Sidney Bernstein (later founder of Granada Television) aimed to create a documentary that would provide lasting, undeniable evidence of the Nazis’ unspeakable crimes. He commissioned a wealth of British talent, including editor Stewart McAllister, writer and future cabinet minister Richard Crossman – and, as treatment advisor, his friend Alfred Hitchcock. Yet, despite initial support from the British and US Governments, the film was shelved, and only now, 70 years on, has it been restored and completed by Imperial War Museums under its original title "German Concentration Camps Factual Survey".
Documentary about the making of American Pie (1999), American Pie 2 (2001) and American Wedding (2003).
The house is rockin' and the laughs are rollin' as comedians Steve Harvey (The Steve Harvey Show), D.L. Hughley (The Hughleys), Cedric The Entertainer (The Steve Harvey Show) and Bernie Mac (Life) meet in this riotously comedy summit directed by Spike Lee.
After 23 years on Death Row a convicted murderer petitions the court asking to be executed, but as his story unfolds, it becomes clear that nothing is what it seems.
Ten of Muhammad Ali's former rivals pay tribute to the three-time world heavyweight champion.
We do not know when and how we will die. Death Row inmates do. Werner Herzog embarks on a dialogue with Death Row inmates, asks questions about life and death and looks deep into these individuals, their stories, their crimes.
A documentary on a former Miss Wyoming who is charged with abducting and imprisoning a young Mormon Missionary.
Fox Rich, indomitable matriarch and modern-day abolitionist, strives to keep her family together while fighting for the release of her incarcerated husband. An intimate, epic, and unconventional love story, filmed over two decades.
