The incredible saga of the Chinese immigrant Sung family, owners of Abacus Federal Savings of Chinatown, New York. Accused of mortgage fraud by Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance, Jr., Abacus becomes the only U.S. bank to face criminal charges in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. The indictment and subsequent trial forces the Sung family to defend themselves – and their bank’s legacy in the Chinatown community – over the course of a five-year legal battle.
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This behind-the-scenes documentary features interviews with the creators and cast of the cult comedy “The IT Crowd”, plus chats with celebrity fans.
The 1960s was an extraordinary time for the United States. Unburdened by post-war reparations, Americans were preoccupied with other developments like NASA, the game-changing space programme that put Neil Armstrong on the moon. Yet it was astronauts like Eugene Cernan who paved the uneven, perilous path to lunar exploration. A test pilot who lived to court danger, he was recruited along with 14 other men in a secretive process that saw them become the closest of friends and adversaries. In this intensely competitive environment, Cernan was one of only three men who was sent twice to the moon, with his second trip also being NASA’s final lunar mission. As he looks back at what he loved and lost during the eight years in Houston, an incomparably eventful life emerges into view. Director Mark Craig crafts a quietly epic biography that combines the rare insight of the surviving former astronauts with archival footage and otherworldly moonscapes.
The business of the birds and the bees gets more complicated when it comes to the endangered species of the world. Female giant pandas are only fertile once a year, for 48 hours. Male Clouded Leopards often try to kill their mates. But when nature fails, science steps in. Join us as we follow Dr. JoGayle Howard, matchmaker, surgeon and reproductive sleuth on her mission to stave off extinction one litter at a time.
Billboards and commercial messages dominate the public space like never before. Can we reverse this visual pollution? This Space Available looks at diverse activists from the worlds of advertising, street art, and politics. Influenced by the writing of Marc Gobé ( Emotional Branding ), his daughter Gwenaëlle directs with tremendous verve in her depiction of New Yorkers and others around the world who want to reclaim the integrity of their cities against an onslaught of visual pollution. From 240 hours of film, 160 interviews, and visits to 11 countries on five continents, This Space Available charts a fascinating variety of struggles against unchecked advertising and suggests that more than aesthetics is at stake. If Jacques Attali once called noise pollution an act of violence, is visual pollution also such an act?
In 1999 Aaron Baker broke his neck in a motocross accident, leaving him completely paralyzed from the neck down. Despite doctor’s grim prognosis over the next 16 years Aaron decided not to listen to those who said ‘he had a million-to-one odds of ever feeding himself again’ and instead, through painstaking effort, endeavored to regain as much mobility as possible. This journey through the unknown took him from the depths of depression to the joys of cross country road tripping via tandem bicycle with his mother and friends, and finally, culminated in his opening a socially conscious low cost gym focused on increasing mobility for the disabled. Now in Coming To My Senses we watch as Aaron takes one final journey which symbolizes his recovery: to cross a 20 mile tract of Death Valley unsupported on foot. But will he make it?
The film chronicles Nina Simone’s journey from child piano prodigy to iconic musician and passionate activist, told in her own words.
A documentary interspersed with acted scenes, this portrait of John DeLorean covers the brilliant but tragically flawed automaker’s rise to stardom and shocking down fall.
Belfast, it’s a city that is changing, changing because the people are leaving? But one came back, a 10,000 year old woman who claims that she is the city itself.
Comedy Central Special Released 18th of August 2013. Life On The Stage finds Greg back in his hometown of Tarrytown, NY to give a cutting standup set of twisted life advice. Nothing is off-limits in his advice for getting older, and stories of his life on and off stage.
Right outside of Moscow – home to the highest number of billionaires pr. capita – you’ll find the largest junkyard in the world: The Svalka. It’s a hard place run by the Russian mafia. And it’s where Yula lives with her mother, her friends and many other people. Life is tough in the Svalka, but it’s also a place where beauty and humanity can arise from the most unlikely conditions. It is from this place that Yula dreams of escaping and changing her life, even if it seems impossible. Oscar-nominated director Hanna Polak followed Yula for 14 years, bringing us along on Yula’s journey to achieve this dream.
A cruise ship and 3,000 men – it is a universe without heteros and women that usually remains a mystery to the outside world. Once a year the DREAM BOAT sets sail for a cruise exclusively for gay men where most passengers are united by the wish to live life authentically as themselves in a protected place:
Iranian musician Shahin Najafi flees his homeland and heads to Cologne, Germany after harsh criticism by several clerics over the release of his song speaking out against human rights abuses resulted in a fatwa being issued.