*** Notice: For the protection of property rights, this catalog is available for online browsing only. Please drop us a line if you would like to receive a copiable version of this catalog. Thank You!

Social Issues

ALBERT EINSTEIN: STILL A REVOLUTIONARY

Director: Julia Newman

Albert Einstein was a world renowned celebrity, greeted like a rock star whenever he appeared in public. He was an outspoken social and political activist, an anti-war firebrand who was on the right side of controversial issues like women's rights, racism and nuclear arms control. He warned the world early on that Hitler was intent on war and the destruction of the Jewish people and was strategic and effective in helping to rescue Jews from the Nazis before World War II.

He referred to his fellow Jews as "my Jewish brethren" and wrote "The pursuit of knowledge for its own sake, an almost fanatical love of justice, and the desire for personal independence - these are the features of the Jewish tradition which make me thank my lucky stars that I belong to it."

In the 65 years since his death his fiery image has been neutered into that of a charmingly unworldly genius, preoccupied with the rarefied world of physics. Filmmaker Julia Newman, whose earlier film, "Into the Fire," explored how American women joined "the good fight" against the Fascists in the Spanish Civil War, here goes beyond the legend to tell the inspiring and true story of the 20th Century's most famous savant. Using a wealth of rarely seen archival footage, letters to and from Einstein, and new and illuminating interviews, Albert Einstein: Still a Revolutionary shows us a man who, while celebrated for revealing some of the fundamental laws governing our universe, was a true humanitarian; a man who believed in always doing the right thing.

DVD / 2020 / 80 minutes

[Go top]

>>> Add Cart <<<

GLOW: A WILD RIDE TO HEAVEN

Director: Gabriel Baur

"Someone who glows so brightly is not going to grow old," Fellini once prophesied about Irene Staub, aka Lady Shiva, one of the greatest of all Swiss divas. Thanks to her aura and talent, many doors opened for Irene during Zurich's exuberant years between 1968 and the late 1980s. Discovered by a pioneer of Swiss fashion design, she made the break from streetwalking to being part of the fashionable art scene. Finding work as a model, she also pursued her dream of becoming a singer, starting out in a legendary Zurich underground band. But Lady Shiva lived life in the fast lane; torn between the stress and strain of success, a yearning for freedom, and self-destructive urges, she died far too young under circumstances that have never been fully explained.

Using never-before-seen archival footage and interviews with prominent contemporaries, director Gabriel Baur brings us back to a vibrant age of boundless possibilities, in which the sky seemed the only limit for people like Lady Shiva...an age that to this day still kindles a yearning in us.

DVD (German with English Subtitles) / 2020 / 100 minutes

[Go top]

>>> Add Cart <<<

BEATRIX FARRAND'S AMERICAN LANDSCAPES

Directed by Stephen Ives

Lynden B. Miller explores the life and work of America's first female landscape architect, Beatrix Farrand.

BEATRIX FARRAND'S AMERICAN LANDSCAPES follows award-winning public garden designer Lynden B. Miller as she sets off to explore the remarkable life and career of America's first female landscape architect, Beatrix Farrand. Farrand was responsible for some of the most celebrated gardens in the United States and helped create a distinctive American voice in landscape architecture.

Although she created gardens for the rich and powerful, including John D. Rockefeller, Jr., J.P. Morgan, and President Woodrow Wilson, she also was an early advocate for the value of public gardens and believed strongly in the power of the natural world to make people's lives better.

Through the documentary, Miller journeys to iconic Farrand gardens, engaging designers, scholars and horticulturists in a spirited dialogue about the meaning and importance of this ground-breaking early 20th-century woman. Lynden Miller's experience as New York City's most prominent public garden designer is woven into a wide-ranging biography of Farrand's life and times.

DVD / 2019 / (Grades 7-12, College, Adults) / 62 minutes

[Go top]

>>> Add Cart <<<

BEST OF BOTH WORLDS, THE: COHOUSING'S PROMISE

Directed by John de Graaf Cohousing offers both privacy and community-the best of both worlds!

Originally a Danish creation, cohousing struggled to gain popularity in its country of origin for years. That is, until a film was made that explained its merits and how people found it enhanced their lives. Now a new film by award-winning filmmaker John de Graaf promises to have the same effect on U.S. audiences.

THE BEST OF BOTH WORLDS explores the concept of cohousing as expressed through first-hand observations of residents of four cohousing communities-including the first one in the United States-and observations by architect Charles Durrett, who brought the concept to the US from Denmark.

DVD / 2019 / (Grades 7-12, College, Adults) / 27 minutes

[Go top]

>>> Add Cart <<<

BORDER SOUTH

Directed by Raul O. Paz Pastrana

Reveals the resilience, ingenuity and humor of Central American immigrants while exposing a global migration system that renders human beings invisible in life as well as death.

To stem the immigration tide, Mexico and the US collaborate to crack down on migrants, forcing them into ever more dangerous territory.

Every year hundreds of thousands of migrants make their way along the trail running from southern Mexico to the US border. Gustavo's gunshot wounds from Mexican police, which received a lot of press attention, might just earn him a ticket out of Nicaragua. Meanwhile anthropologist Jason De Leon painstakingly collects objects left behind by migrants on the trail, which have their own stories to tell. These remains, from Hondurans crossing through southern Mexico, reveal a vivid portrait of the thousands of immigrants who disappear along the trail.

DVD / 2019 / (Grades 10-12, College, Adults) / 83 minutes

[Go top]

>>> Add Cart <<<

CONFUCIAN DREAM

Director: Mijie Li

Filmmaker Mijie Li's first feature (she co-produced Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert's American Factory), Confucian Dream is an observational documentary about a Chinese woman's embrace of the ancient philosophy of Confucianism and how it affects her family.

Chaoyan, a young wife and mother, believes the ancient teachings of Confucianism will restore balance, respect and morality to her home. She involves her four-year-old son in the rigorous routine of chanting daily mantras. Little Chen may not yet understand the recitations' meanings, but mom is confident she's planting a seed for the future.

Chaoyan's husband finds the daily practice excessive, and indeed many Chinese people today criticize it as feudalistic, conservative, and counter-revolutionary. While Confucianism's primary purpose is to instill peace and harmony, the opposite occurs between Chaoyan and her husband as their beliefs clash and their arguments escalate, bringing forth a gripping portrait of marital and parental crisis.

DVD (Mandarin with English Subtitles) / 2019 / 82 minutes

[Go top]

>>> Add Cart <<<

CONSCIENCE POINT

By Treva Wurmfeld

CONSCIENCE POINT unearths a deep clash of values between the Shinnecock Indian Nation and their elite Hamptons neighbors, who have made sacred land their playground.

Beneath the mystique of The Hamptons, among the wealthiest zip codes in the U.S., lies the history of the area's original inhabitants. The Shinnecock Indian Nation were edged off their land over the course of hundreds of years, relocated to an impoverished reservation, and condemned to watch their sacred burial grounds plowed to make way for mega-mansions and marquee attractions like the exclusive Shinnecock Hills Golf Club--five-time host of the U.S. Open.

CONSCIENCE POINT tracks this fractured history alongside the path of one woman determined to make a stand: Shinnecock activist Rebecca "Becky" Hill-Genia who, together with other tribal members and allies, has waged a relentless, years-long battle to protect the land and her tribe's cultural heritage from the ravages of development and displacement. Now both the Shinnecock Nation and town residents face a new challenge; the onslaught of elite newcomers who threaten the very place they intend to cherish.

DVD (Color, Closed Captioned) / 2019 / 115 minutes

[Go top]

>>> Add Cart <<<

CORDILLERA OF DREAMS, THE

By Patricio Guzman

Winner of the Best Documentary award at the Cannes Film festival, master filmmaker Patricio Guzman's The Cordillera of Dreams completes his trilogy (with Nostalgia for the Light and The Pearl Button) investigating the relationship between historical memory, political trauma, and geography in his native country of Chile. It centers on the imposing landscape of the Andes that run the length of the country's Eastern border. At once protective and isolating, magisterial and indifferent, the Cordillera serves as an enigmatic focal point around which Guzman contemplates the enduring legacy of the 1973 military coup d'etat.

Along the way, Guzman interviews artists, writers, and documentarians, drawing out their conflicted feelings towards the Cordillera and its relationship to Chilean national identity and history. Among the interviewees are Vincente Gajardo and Francisco Gazitua, sculptors who draw from the raw materials of the Cordillera to produce their artwork. Jorge Baradoit, a writer of history and fiction, discusses the continuation of Pinochet's project in the social and economic structure of contemporary Chile. Musician Javiera Parra remembers the violence she witnessed as a child. The film's prominent moral voice is Pablo Salas, a filmmaker and archivist who has worked since the 1980s to document acts of political resistance and state violence.

Looking at both the past and future, Guzman's work rescues Chile from the threat of historical amnesia. He considers how the neoliberal economic policies introduced under the Pinochet regime have continued to stratify Chilean society along increasingly rigid class lines. The Cordillera may form an omnipresent backdrop to the Chilean landscape, but, like so many parts of the country, much of it is privately owned and inaccessible to the vast majority of the population. Unflinching in its presentation of contemporary Chile, The Cordillera of Dreams moves beyond despair and looks towards the possibilities of political change by linking the ideological struggles of the past with the inequalities of the present.

DVD (Spanish, Color, With English Subtitles) / 2019 / 85 minutes

[Go top]

>>> Add Cart <<<

ELDER VOICES: STORIES FOR THESE TIMES

Directed by David Goodman

Japanese Americans, European Jews and peace activists who came of age during the Depression and WWII address the political storm clouds gathering today.

ELDER VOICES is a meditation about the destructiveness of hatred and the power of love, as told by Japanese-Americans, European Jews and conscientious objectors (COs) who came of age during the perilous times of the Great Depression and WWII. For each of these individuals the challenges they confronted proved even more daunting either because of what they believed or simply who they were. Residing together in a retirement community, they continue to live the values and principles of tolerance and mutual respect that were forged in their youth-when they were confronted with anti-Semitism, internment camps, and bigotry.

What historical lessons can young people learn from their elders? How can those lessons be applied today as we continue to strive to build a better, more just, and peaceful world? What counsel do these seniors have for young people today who shortly will be facing very difficult challenges of their own? Those watching will become immersed in a diverse and culturally enriching experience.

DVD / 2019 / (Grades 7-9, 10-12, College, Adult) / 49 minutes

[Go top]

>>> Add Cart <<<

FIRST ANGRY MAN, THE

Directors: Jason Cohn, Camille Servan-Schreiber

If you ever wondered how the great public ambitions of postwar America collapsed into a permanent tax revolt (cue the Tea Party) and the election of a so-called populist president, look no further than Howard Jarvis, whose 1978 ballot initiative, Proposition 13, changed everything in California and beyond. "The First Angry Man," a documentary by award-winning filmmakers Jason Cohn and Camille Servan-Schreiber ("Eames: The Architect and the Painter"), unpacks the dramatic campaign, its quirky characters and its enduring consequences.

Featuring lively archival footage and interviews with first-hand witnesses to the events, including governor Gray Davis, Nobel economist Joseph Stiglitz and anti-tax firebrand Grover Norquist, "The First Angry Man" draws a bracket around the last four decades of American political life, inviting viewers to see our era as an anomaly in American history, at odds with some of our nation's deepest underpinnings.

DVD / 2019 / 57 minutes

[Go top]

>>> Add Cart <<<

FOR THEY KNOW NOT WHAT THEY DO

Director: Daniel Karslake

FOR THEY KNOW NOT WHAT THEY DO, a new documentary that explores the intersection of religion, sexual orientation and gender identity in current-day America.

The arrival of marriage equality was seen by many as the pinnacle achievement of the march toward full equality for LGBTQ people. But for many on the Right, it was the last straw, and their public backlash has been swift, severe and successful. In collaboration with religious conservatives, politicians are invoking both the Bible and the U.S. Constitution in their campaigns for the 'religious freedom' to legally discriminate. By telling the stories of four families struggling with these issues, the film offers healing and understanding to those caught in the crosshairs of scripture, sexuality, and identity.

DVD / 2019 / 91 minutes

[Go top]

>>> Add Cart <<<

MARIUS PETIPA: THE FRENCH MASTER OF RUSSIAN BALLET

By Denis Sneguirev

Marius Petipa was an unlikely artistic revolutionary. A middling dancer, he bounced around European cultural centres until he finally washed up in St. Petersburg in 1847 at age 29 - hired, sight unseen, by the Imperial Ballet as a principal dancer. A skilled socialite, he curried favor with the right people and within a decade staged his first ballet: the massive epic The Pharaoh's Daughter.

Petipa became successful, but it would be decades before he emerged as the groundbreaking choreographer whose style transformed ballet and spread from Russia to the rest of the world. Indeed, his contributions dominated the form for generations. It is no coincidence that for his final performance, Rudolf Nureyev chose a Petipa ballet.

MARIUS PETIPA: THE FRENCH MASTER OF RUSSIAN BALLET traces Petipa's career from his early, crowd-pleasing choreography to the works that would become his masterpieces: Sleeping Beauty and Swan Lake. Their stunning choreography and Tchaikovsky's music elevated ballet for the first time to one of the world's great art forms.

More than a biography, the film explores the social and political contexts of Petipa's work and his ongoing influence on ballet today.

Director Denis Sneguirev takes us to Paris, New York, Berlin, Milan, and Moscow, where we meet some of ballet's top choreographers, dancers, and conductors - including Nacho Duato, Alexei Ratmansky, and Nicoletta Mani. Some wrestle with ways to adapt Petipa's work for contemporary tastes, while others face the challenge of re-learning basic techniques in order to revive works as close to the original style as possible.

The film features stunning performance and rehearsal footage, along with intriguing period artwork and colorized photography. Once celebrated, Petipa's name has been largely forgotten outside of ballet. MARIUS PETIPA makes a significant contribution in re-introducing us to the life and work of this central figure.

DVD (French, Russian, English, Italian With English Subtitles, Color, Closed Captioned) / 2019 / 52 minutes

[Go top]

>>> Add Cart <<<

NORMAL GIRL, A

Directed by Aubree Bernier-Clarke
By Shawna Lipton, Pidgeon Pagonis

A NORMAL GIRL brings the widely unknown struggles of intersex people to light through the story of intersex activist Pidgeon Pagonis.

Activist Pidgeon Pagonis was born intersex, not conforming to standard definitions of male or female, and experienced genital mutilation as a child. Now Pidgeon is fighting the medical establishment, seeking to end medically unnecessary surgeries and human rights abuses on intersex people in the United States and around the world.

An estimated 1.5% of the population is born with intersex traits. While most of these babies are healthy, their bodies are treated as a medical emergency. It is common practice for doctors to perform genital surgeries on intersex infants--often with disastrous results including total loss of genital sensation, lifetime synthetic hormone dependence, and being assigned a gender with which they do not identify.

Through the story of Pidgeon's remarkable journey and fight for bodily self-determination, A NORMAL GIRL brings the widely unknown struggles of intersex people to light.

DVD (Color, Closed Captioned) / 2019 / 14 minutes

[Go top]

>>> Add Cart <<<

SEADRIFT

Director: Tim Tsai

In 1979, a Vietnamese refugee shoots and kills a white crab fisherman at the public town docks in Seadrift, TX. What began as a dispute over fishing territory erupts into violence and ignites a maelstrom of boat burnings, KKK intimidation, and other hostilities against Vietnamese refugees along the Gulf Coast. Set during the early days of Vietnamese refugee arrival in the U.S., "Seadrift" examines the shooting and its dramatic aftermath, and reveals the unexpected consequences that continue to reverberate today.

DVD (English and Vietnamese with English Subtitles) / 2019 / 69 minutes

[Go top]

>>> Add Cart <<<

SHUSENJO: COMFORT WOMEN AND JAPAN'S WAR ON HISTORY

Director: Miki Dezaki

One of the most heated issues in Japan and Asia today is over something that occurred 80 years ago: the Japanese Imperial Army's sexual enslavement of an estimated tens of thousands of Korean women and others in military brothels during World War II. Many nationalist Japanese conservatives (with the surprising support of Western media influencers) believe the women were mostly willing prostitutes, not 'sex slaves', and that the estimated number is far smaller than are claimed. But contemporary historians, activists and - most significantly - the surviving victims and their families, believe otherwise; the denial of their suffering so long ago has created an entirely new trauma.

Director Miki Dezaki, a second-generation Japanese American who learned about comfort women from his Japanese immigrant parents, questions why accounts in the Western media have often sided with the Nationalists. With a keen eye for detail and precision, he interviews historians, advocates and lawyers who discuss the evidence: historical documents related to the Japanese military's direct role in managing the brothels, and harrowing testimonies by former comfort women. 'Shusenjo' is a deep dive into this impassioned subject - bringing to light the hidden intentions of the supporters and detractors of comfort women.

DVD (English, Japanese, Korean with English Subtitles) / 2019 / 120 minutes

[Go top]

>>> Add Cart <<<

STREET FIGHTING MEN

Director: Andrew James

In a rapidly changing America where mass inequality and dwindling opportunity have devastated the black working class, three Detroit men must fight to build something lasting for themselves and future generations. Shot over three years in the neighborhoods of Detroit, Street Fighting Men is a story of hard work, faith and manhood in a community left to fend for itself. The film takes a deep, observational dive into the lives of three African American men: retired cop Jack Rabbit, who continues to patrol the mean streets as a citizen; Deris, who has made bad choices in the past but wants to further his education and serve as a role model for his baby daughter; and Luke, who labors mightily as he rehabs a dilapidated house while putting together a meager living.

Inspired by the approach of early verite pioneers, director Andrew James spent over three years filming in Detroit capturing the stories as they unfolded. With an emphasis on shot, mood, tone and character, the film is designed to be rich and experiential. Borrowing from the visual language and philosophy of neorealism, and featuring a beautiful score by Detroit-based musician, Shigeto, Street Fighting Men is an emotionally powerful journey into forgotten neighborhoods; a cinematic, character-driven documentary that speaks to the challenges of our times.

DVD / 2019 / 101 minutes

[Go top]

>>> Add Cart <<<

SUNKEN ROADS: THREE GENERATIONS AFTER D-DAY

Director: Charlotte Juergens

Sunken Roads: Three Generations After D-Day tells a story of inter-generational friendship, offering a new perspective on D-Day by presenting the memories of 90-year-old men through the eyes of a 20-year-old woman.

The film follows Charlotte, a young woman who joins eight D-Day veterans on a road trip to retrace their steps from World War II. The veterans come to see Charlotte as a granddaughter, trusting her with their stories and confronting the trauma that still haunts them 70 years after the war.

DVD (English, French with English Subtitles) / 2019 / 94 minutes

[Go top]

>>> Add Cart <<<

TATTOO UPRISING

Director: Alan Govenar

From antiquity to the present, Tattoo Uprising reveals the artistic and historical roots of today's tattoo explosion. This sweeping overview explores Biblical references and early Christian practices before moving on to the voyages of Captain James Cook and finally to our modern day, ever-evolving use of the tattoo in the Western world.

Alan Govenar began work on this film in 1980 while finishing his infamous short documentary Stoney Knows How. Tattoo Uprising features some of the most extraordinary people of the tattoo world including Ed Hardy, Stoney St. Clair, Cynthia Witkin, Calamity Jane, Anne de Hey! And more, as well as an unforgettable appearance by filmmaker Werner Herzog, who allows a rare glimpse at his Ed Hardy tattoo. The film was shot in part by the late legendary filmmaker Les Blank, who also appears on camera.

DVD / 2019 / 77 minutes

[Go top]

>>> Add Cart <<<

TOWERING TASK, A: THE STORY OF THE PEACE CORPS

Director: Alana DeJoseph

In 1961, President John F. Kennedy gave young Americans the opportunity to serve their country in a new way by forming the Peace Corps. Since then, more than 200,000 of them have traveled to more than 140 countries to carry out the organization's mission of international cooperation. Nearly 60 years later, Americans-young and old alike-still want to serve their country and understand their place in the world; current volunteers work at the forefront of some of the most pressing issues facing the global community.

Yet the agency has struggled to remain relevant amid sociopolitical change. More than once it had to fight for its very existence, and now-between a rise in nationalist sentiment and deep cuts to governmental-agency budgets-the Peace Corps is again confronting a crisis of identity: What role should it play around the world and in the lives of engaged citizens?

Narrated by Annette Benning, A Towering Task tells the story of the Peace Corps and takes viewers on a journey of what it means to be a global citizen.

"By thoughtfully telling the story of the Peace Corps' past and present, and then taking a look at its future, we want to equip the American public to redefine what it means for America to join the world community - not as a wager of war, but as a peacemaker and problem solver." - Director Alana DeJoseph

DVD / 2019 / 107 minutes

[Go top]

>>> Add Cart <<<

TOXIC REIGNS OF RESENTMENT, THE

Directed by Jurgen Schaflechner, Tim van den Hoff

An interview film on the emotion of resentment and how it defines culture and politics today.

The revival of nationalism paired with xenophobia, an increasing tribalization of politics, and a public sphere oscillating between cruelty and sentimentality mark significant parts of our current political zeitgeist. Politicians, scholars and journalists alike speak of a culture of resentment that defines politics today.

How did we enter such a toxic climate? Are these developments a response to the ubiquity of neoliberal market structures eroding the basic solidarities in our society? Has the spread of social media triggered a culture of trolling and hyper moralization? And has the left given in to forms of politics where moralization and cynical mockery outdo collective visions of the future? This documentary film introduces and critically discusses concepts of resentment and their relation to our current political juncture.

Featuring interviews with Wendy Brown, Grayson Hunt, Rahel Jaeggi, Robert Pfalier, Gyan Prakash, Alexander Nehamas, Sjoerd van Tuinen, Peter Sloterdijk

DVD / 2019 / (Colleges, Adults) / 52 minutes

[Go top]

>>> Add Cart <<<

WAITING FOR THE CARNIVAL

By Marcelo Gomes

The small village of Toritama is a microcosm of relentless capitalism. Each year, more than 20-million pairs of jeans are produced in make-shift factories. The locals work non-stop hours, proud to be the masters of their own time. During Carnival - the only leisure moment of the year - they transgress the logic of accumulation of goods, sell their belongings without regret and flee to the beaches in search of ephemeral happiness. When Ash Wednesday arrives, a new work cycle begins.

DVD (Portuguese, Color, With English Subtitles) / 2019 / 86 minutes

[Go top]

>>> Add Cart <<<

WHO'S NEXT?

Directed by Nancy Cooperstein Charney

Examines the effects of hate speech and bigotry on the lives of Muslim-Americans.

WHO'S NEXT? examines how the lives of Muslim-Americans have been affected in the aftermath of the September 11th terrorist attacks. It focuses on six Muslim families-citizens and long-time legal residents-from diverse countries and widely different circumstances. In one way or another all of them have been targeted by federal agencies, hate groups, and even former friends solely on the basis of their religious beliefs.

Family separations, threats of deportation, repeated airport detentions, unexplained travel restrictions, have become part of the daily lives of thousands of Muslims who are innocent of any crimes or even suspicious behavior. If one group can be singled out because of their religious beliefs then who's next?

The film encourages us all to choose knowledge over ignorance, take action to prevent hate speech, and to welcome strangers into our lives so that the challenges of marginalized communities can be effectively addressed.

DVD / 2019 / (Grades 5 -12, College, Adult) / 88 minutes

[Go top]

>>> Add Cart <<<

COOKED: SURVIVAL BY ZIP CODE

Directed by Judith Helfand

Judith Helfand's searing investigation into the politics of "disaster," by way of the deadly 1995 Chicago heat wave.

Chicago suffered the worst heat disaster in U.S history in 1995, when 739 residents-mostly elderly and black-died over the course of one week. As COOKED links the deadly heat wave's devastation back to the underlying manmade disaster of structural racism, it delves deep into one of our nation's biggest growth industries: Disaster Preparedness.

Peabody Award-winning filmmaker Judith Helfand, uses her signature serious-yet-quirky connect-the-dots-style to forge inextricable connections between the cataclysmic natural disasters we're willing to see and prepare for and the slow-motion disasters we're not. That is, until an extreme weather event hits and they are made exponentially more deadly and visible.

But whether it was the heat wave in Chicago or Hurricanes Katrina, Sandy, Harvey, Irma and Maria, all of these disasters share something key: they reveal the ways in which class, race, and zip code predetermine who was living on the edge to start with, who gets hurt the worst, who recovers and bounces back-and who doesn't. In COOKED, Helfand challenges herself and others to truly see and respond to the invisible man-made disasters taking place in towns and cities across the country before the next "natural" disaster hits.

COOKED is an adaptation of "HEAT WAVE: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago" (2002), Eric Klinenberg's groundbreaking book.

DVD / 2018 / (Grades 10-12, College, Adults) / 82 minutes

[Go top]

>>> Add Cart <<<

CREATING A CHARACTER: THE MONI YAKIM LEGACY

Director: Rauzar Alexander

What do Jessica Chastain, Viola Davis, Patti LuPone and Alex Sharp have in common? They are but a few of the extraordinary actors who have studied under Moni Yakim at Juilliard, America's greatest performing arts school. With interviews with Laura Linney, Anthony Mackie and Kevin Kline, this compelling portrait of the master teacher-the sole remaining founder of the school's legendary Drama Division-takes us inside the drama classes where Moni and his wife Mina pour their love and passion into preparing the next generation of actors for the spotlight.

DVD / 2018 / 76 minutes

[Go top]

>>> Add Cart <<<

F11 AND BE THERE

Director: Jethro Waters

For 65 years and counting, Burk Uzzle has created some of the most iconic photographs in American history. From Martin Luther King Jr. to Woodstock to America's small towns and back roads, Uzzle's photographs have provided a breathtaking commentary on American civil rights, race, social justice, and art. Initially grounded in documentary photography when he was the youngest photographer hired by LIFE magazine at age 23, his work grew into a combination of split-second impressions reflecting the human condition during his tenure as a member of the international Magnum cooperative founded by one of his mentors, Henri Cartier-Bresson.

An electrifying fusion of music, image, and dialogue, "F11 and Be There" captures the life and artistry of Uzzle, including his current portrait work with the African American community in Eastern North Carolina.

DVD / 2018 / 84 minutes

[Go top]

>>> Add Cart <<<

FARMSTEADERS

Directed by Shaena Mallett

Follows Nick and Celeste Nolan and their young family on a journey to resurrect Nick's grandfather's dairy farm as agriculture moves toward large-scale farming.

FARMSTEADERS is a love story, a farm story, and a story of contemporary rural America. Nick Nolan, his wife Celeste, and their young family are on a journey to resurrect his grandfather's dairy farm - fighting to keep this homeland from "drying up and blowing away," something that has happened to about 4.7 million farms in the U.S. as the pressures of corporate-driven food have left deep scars in the region.

Director Shaena Mallet points an honest and tender lens at the beauty and hardship of everyday life on a family farm, as the Nolans work to balance their fears and hopes with so much at stake.

Nick and Celeste's meditations on life, legacy, and resistance bring complexity and depth to the national conversation and characterization of the rural white American. For the Nolans, only three things remain certain: family is everything, nothing ever stays the same, and the land holds it all together.

DVD / 2018 / (Grades 7-12, College Adults) / 52 minutes

[Go top]

>>> Add Cart <<<

FEMALE PLEASURE

By Barbara Miller

#FEMALE PLEASURE accompanies five extraordinary women around the globe fighting to reclaim female sexuality.

The film introduces us to author Deborah Feldman from Brooklyn's Hasidic community, sex educator Vitika Yadav in India, manga artist Rokudenashiko in Japan, Somali activist Leyla Hussein, and former nun Doris Wagner in Europe, courageous women who are all struggling to end the harmful cultural practices like genital mutilation and the shaming of the female orgasm that lie at the root of rape culture and patriarchy. Not only highlighting the issues that have contributed to the sexual marginalization of women, the film also calls these atrocities, embedded within cultural and religious norms, by their actual names: rape, assault, child trafficking, abuse. We witness these female activists who were taught to be silent confronting the very entities that have oppressed them.

Both an urgent call to action and an empowering plea for self-determined joyful female sexuality, #FEMALE PLEASURE is ultimately an inspiring tool to help women, no matter their cultural or religious background, to reclaim their bodies and celebrate their sexuality without shame or suffering.

DVD (English, Japanese, German, Color, Closed Captioned) / 2018 / 101 minutes

[Go top]

>>> Add Cart <<<

GRAVES WITHOUT A NAME

Director: Rithy Panh

After The Missing Picture (Un Certain Regard winner, Cannes and Oscar nominee for the Best Foreign Language Film in 2014), Rithy Panh continues his personal and spiritual exploration of Cambodia's Khmer Rouge era. His earlier films, S21: The Khmer Rouge Killing Machine and Duch: Master of the Forges of Hell, analyzed the mechanisms of the crime. Graves Without a Name searches for a path to peace.

When a thirteen-year-old child, who lost the greater part of his family under the Khmer Rouge, embarks on a search for their graves, whether clay or on spiritual ground, what does he find there? And above all, what is he looking for? Spectral trees? Villages defaced beyond recognition? Witnesses who are reluctant to speak? The ethereal touch of a brother or sister's body as the night approaches? Graves Without a Name is a cinematic movie by a master filmmaker that reaches well beyond the story of a country to that which is universal.

DVD (French & Khmer with English subtitles) / 2018 / 115 minutes

[Go top]

>>> Add Cart <<<

IN FULL BLOOM: TRANSCENDING GENDER

Director: Michael Brewer

"In Full Bloom: Transcending Gender" follows the courageous journey of thirteen transgender and two gay actors as they transform their lives through the use of monologue, dialogue and performance art while preparing for the world premiere of the original stage play, Lovely Bouquet of Flowers: An Exploration of Non-Traditional Gender Voices, written by Jazzmun Nichcala Crayton and David Hays Gaddas.

Behind-the-scenes, rehearsal and performance footage are interwoven with candid personal interviews with the cast, who talk about how they deal with family, inner conflicts, discrimination, coming out, surgery, hormones and the complexities of sexual identity and orientation. By sharing their own journeys, the actors transcend gender and challenge us to move past stereotypes and see what we all have in common as human beings.

DVD / 2018 / 90 minutes

[Go top]

>>> Add Cart <<<

PROPAGANDA: THE MANUFACTURE OF CONSENT

By Jimmy Leipold

"Propaganda will never die out. Intelligent men must realize that propaganda is the modern instrument by which they can... help to bring order out of chaos." - Edward Bernays

In 1916, Woodrow Wilson ran on a platform strongly opposing US entry into WWI. But just a few months after taking office, the United States declared war on Germany. Soon after, the American people, so firmly opposed to the war just a year earlier, were enthusiastic supporters.

What happened?

The short answer: propaganda.

PROPAGANDA: THE MANUFACTURE OF CONSENT is a revealing documentary about how public relations grew out of wartime propaganda-and a portrait of one of the key architects of the field, Edward Bernays.

The nephew of Sigmund Freud, Bernays refined the techniques used so successfully during the war to sell products to consumers, and ultimately to sell capitalism itself to workers. Public relations was also critical in building support for the New Deal, and in the pushback against it from the National Association of Manufacturers, which created materials including films aimed at children on the glories of manufacturing.

Bacon and eggs as part of a hearty breakfast? The work of Bernays on behalf of a bacon company. Cigarettes as a sign of women's liberation? Bernays, again. Casting the democratically elected government of Guatemala as a Communist threat to justify US invasion on behalf of the United Fruit Company? Once more, Bernays.

There was nothing shadowy about Bernays. He wrote a book detailing his techniques and discusses them in an archival interview with Bill Moyers from 1983. Still, it is jarring to see his pride in hijacking the women's suffrage movement in order to sell more cigarettes-one of many illuminating moments in this film.

Featuring Noam Chomsky, Chris Hedges, Public Relations Museum co-founder Shelley Spector, historian Stuart Ewen, sociologist David Miller, and Bernays' daughter Anne, PROPAGANDA offers an insightful look into the development of public relations techniques, and how they continue to affect us today.

DVD (Color, Closed Captioned) / 2018 / 53 minutes

[Go top]

>>> Add Cart <<<

SEARCH, THE (LA BUSQUEDA)

By Daniel Lagares & Mariano Agudo

"After 30 years, I am returning as a witness, to help identify the people who are buried there. Hopefully this way, they will stop tormenting me in my dreams." - Dolores Guzman

The clothes and belongings of the dead are laid out on tables, carefully folded and arranged: Sneakers whose leather is partly eaten away; pairs of earrings in little evidence bags; hoodies, undergarments, jackets, and shirts, their prints still vivid. An elderly woman walks between the rows, wiping away tears. She stops in front of a belt whose buckle is a large letter C. "That's my cousin Sebastian. Here's his belt," the woman says. "His mother is still alive and keeps a photo of him."

The items come from a mass grave, the belongings of victims killed in a 1984 massacre. The bodies have been carefully exhumed and their bones collected. Now, all that remains is to identify them, so they can be returned to their families and properly buried.

In THE SEARCH, we follow three people as they deal with the legacy and personal damage of the civil war that ravaged Peru for 20 years. In 1980, the Shining Path movement launched an armed struggle aimed at overthrowing the Peruvian government and instituting a Communist regime. By the time the civil war ended, in 2000, nearly 70,000 Peruvians had been killed. Government and guerrilla forces were both guilty of horrendous human rights abuses.

Dolores Guzman is the survivor of a military massacre of civilians in her remote Andean village. She returns to the village for the first time in 32 years, to help identify the bodies of her relatives. Lurgio Gavilan is a former child soldier pressed into battle for both sides. As a pre-teen he set off to find his brother, who was with the Shining Path. After joining the rebels (and remaining after his brother was killed), he was captured by the military and forced into a counterinsurgency unit at age 14. And Jose Carlos Aguero, is a writer and the son of Shining Path militants killed extra-judicially by a government death squad. Through his work, he tries to reconcile his revolutionary upbringing with his parents' ideals, the injustice of their deaths, and the violence they perpetrated.

Powerful, emotional, and beautifully filmed, THE SEARCH captures the ongoing trauma of war-even decades later-for participants, bystanders, and children. The Shining Path uprising polarized Peru, but THE SEARCH does not seek to lay blame. It is a film about truth, reconciliation, and some attempt at closure.

DVD (Spanish, Quechua With English Subtitles, Color) / 2018 / 75 minutes

[Go top]

>>> Add Cart <<<

TRE MAISON DASAN

Directed by Denali Tiller

An intimate portrait of three boys growing up, each with a parent in prison.

TRE MAISON DASAN is an intimate portrait of three boys growing up, each with a parent in prison. Directly told through the child's perspective, the film is an exploration of relationships and separation, masculinity, and coming of age in America when a parent is behind bars.

Tre, Maison and Dasan are three very different boys. Tre is a spirited 13-year-old who hides his emotions behind a mask of tough talk and hard edges. Maison is a bright eyed 11 year old with an encyclopedic mind and deep love for those around him. Dasan is a sensitive 6 year old with an incredible capacity for empathy and curiosity.

Their parents are not incarcerated for the low-level offenses that have become infamous in conversations around mass incarceration, but their histories and relationships beg many questions about justice and the lasting and rippling effects of a system at large.

DVD / 2018 / (Grades 8-12, College, Adults) / 94 minutes

[Go top]

>>> Add Cart <<<

'63 BOYCOTT

Directed by Gordon Quinn

Connects the massive 1963 Chicago Public Schools boycott to contemporary issues around race, education, school closings, and youth activism.

On October 22, 1963, more than 250,000 students boycotted the Chicago Public Schools to protest racial segregation. Many marched through the city calling for the resignation of School Superintendent Benjamin Willis, who placed trailers, dubbed "Willis Wagons," on playgrounds and parking lots of overcrowded black schools rather than let them enroll in nearby white schools.

Blending unseen 16mm footage of the march shot by Kartemquin founder Gordon Quinn with the participants' reflections today, '63 BOYCOTT connects the forgotten story of one of the largest northern civil rights demonstrations to contemporary issues around race, education, school closings, and youth activism.

DVD / 2017 / (Grades 7-12, College, Adults) / 31 minutes

[Go top]

>>> Add Cart <<<

LIKE ANY OTHER KID

Directed by Victoria Mills

Follows the intimate relationships between incarcerated youth and staff who use love and structure to guide and teach youth offenders how to take responsibility for themselves.

LIKE ANY OTHER KID provides a rare glimpse into the inner-workings of one of the most promising developments in juvenile justice reform: the use of non-punitive, therapeutic programs to change behavior and help youth re-enter their communities.

Following the intimate relationships between incarcerated youth and staff in three unique facilities across the country over the course of three years, the film shows how these programs work. Based on the Missouri approach, where love and structure - instead of punishment - are used, these programs guide and teach youth how to take responsibility for themselves.

Through scenes of conflict, vulnerability, reflection, commitment, and joy, the youth transform before our eyes. LIKE ANY OTHER KID shows us the great potential of these youth if we let them be just that: like any other kid.

DVD / 2017 / (Grades 7-12, College, Adults) / 89 minutes

[Go top]

>>> Add Cart <<<

MARQUIS OF WAVRIN, THE: FROM THE MANOR TO THE JUNGLE

By Grace Winter & Luc Plantier

The man squats by the fire, holding an object slightly larger than his palm. He feels it carefully, pressing and shaping it, then turns it upside down and fills it with hot sand. The man is a member of the Shuar people, and he is practicing the art of tzantza, or head-shrinking-a ritual designed to ensnare the soul of a defeated enemy.

Behind the camera, filming the scene, is Robert de Wavrin, a Belgian marquis who spent decades traveling among indigenous people in South America. From Paraguay, to Venezuela, Ecuador, and Brazil, Wavrin visited areas few, if any, Europeans had ever seen, earning the trust of local indigenous groups, making friends, and filming customs, rituals, and everyday life. The four films he produced (along with shorter works) shaped the nascent art of visual anthropology and are marked by Wavrin's insistence on seeing indigenous people as fellow human beings-not others, savages, inferior beings, or exotics trotted out for our entertainment.

Wavrin didn't set out to become an explorer and ethnographer. At first, he was just fleeing the country to avoid a prison term for shooting two boys stealing hazelnuts from trees on his estate (they survived). In 1913, he boarded a ship headed to South America. It was a fateful decision. Over the next 25 years, Wavrin would return to the continent repeatedly, driven by a thirst to learn about its native people and to record them with his film camera.

While THE MARQUIS OF WAVRIN: FROM THE MANOR TO THE JUNGLE tells the story of the Marquis' life and journeys, it is also a story about the detective work that goes into finding and restoring old photos and footage. Co-director Grace Winter is a researcher at the Royal Film Archive of Belgium, which houses all de Wavrin's footage-including material shot for a now-lost film. Winter painstakingly matches descriptions of the film with the Marquis' rushes, reconstructing sequences from the film for a contemporary audience. She also finds rare scenes cut from de Wavrin's final film by censors who found them too shocking.

De Wavrin was not a man completely freed from the strictures of his time. It's hard not to cringe when he says some native people see him as a god, for instance. But, unlike others making films in remote regions of South America, de Wavrin was not motivated by profit or trying to make propaganda. His genuine interest in those he films comes through in sequence after sequence: girls smiling for the camera and showing off their jewelry; children playing with small bows and arrows; people cooking, preparing coca leaves-and yes, shrinking heads.

And while posters publicizing his films do trade in the racist tropes of the day, his work itself is remarkable. THE MARQUIS OF WAVRIN: FROM THE MANOR TO THE JUNGLE is a multi-faceted film: a mystery involving lost film footage, a fascinating biography, and a collection of privileged images of the daily lives of indigenous people in remote areas rarely visited by outsiders.

DVD (French, With English Subtitles, Color, Black and White) / 2017 / 85 minutes

[Go top]

>>> Add Cart <<<

WITH ANDRE GIDE

Nobel-prize-winning author, social justice crusader, anti-colonialist, adventure traveler, musician, and one-time Communist: Andre Gide was a larger-than-life character who dominated French letters from the turn of the 20th century to his death in 1951.

Directed by Marc Allegret, with whom Gide traveled extensively in French Equatorial Africa, the recently restored WITH ANDRe GIDE was made in the year leading up to the writer's death. Allegret begins by tracing Gide's childhood and youth -the trauma of his father's early death, the effects of his moralistic mother on his psyche, and the simultaneous development of his harsh, puritanical outlook with his growing infatuation with his cousin (and later wife), Madeleine Rondeaux.

Gide's puritanism eventually fell away, particularly during his African voyages. Using footage from his film TRAVELS IN THE CONGO, Allegret shows Gide's humanistic side: his appreciation for the Africans he meets, and his determination to fight against their exploitation by colonial powers.

What truly makes WITH ANDRe GIDE stand out though, is the intimacy of Gide's unguarded conversations-many in his home-with friends including some of the literary greats of the day. He discusses the nature of juries, the interpretation of piano solos (with a slightly baffled young pianist), and the early days of the magazine La nouvelle revue francaise. And Allegret captures some delightful moments of Gide with his grandchildren.

A highly personal portrait, WITH ANDRe GIDE presents a little-seen side of this literary and intellectual giant-a man driven by constant curiosity, and devotion to detail. As the film's narration says, "The faculty of attention characterized Gide in every moment of his life. An attention that was applied to all things human."

DVD (French, With English Subtitles, Black and White) / 1951 / 92 minutes

[Go top]

>>> Add Cart <<<

***Price on web-site may not be current and is subject to modification by quotation***

Email :
inquiry@learningemall.com

Websites :
http://www.learningemall.com [ English ]
http://www.learningemall.com.hk [ Chinese ]

Follow us: