Amy Tan has established herself as one of America’s most respected literary voices. Born to Chinese immigrant parents, it would be decades before the author of The Joy Luck Club would fully understand the inherited trauma rooted in the legacies of women who survived the Chinese tradition of concubinage.
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My Comic Shop Country is a feature-length documentary film exploring the business, fandom, and community of comic book stores across the United States. In 2015, New York’s Alternate Realities closed after 23 years in operation, setting filmmaker-and former AR employee-Anthony Desiato on a quest to explore the comics retail industry from coast to coast. Comic book characters are box office gold, but why isn’t the same necessarily true for comic stores? See how the 20 shops featured in the film are turning the tide, one customer at a time, seven days a week. Plus: Learn the fate (and future?) of Alternate Realities.
Documentary examining the 2014 shooting of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald by Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke and the cover-up that ensued.
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This classic short film depicts the Klondike gold rush at its peak, when would-be prospectors struggled through harsh conditions to reach the fabled gold fields over 3000 km north of civilization. Using a collection of still photographs, the film juxtaposes the Dawson City at the height of the gold rush with its bustling taverns and dance halls with the more tranquil Dawson City of the present.
Follows elite climber Alex Honnold and a world-class climbing team led by National Geographic Explorer and climber Mark Synnott on a grueling mission deep in the Amazon jungle as they attempt a first-ascent climb up a 1000 foot sheer cliff.
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An intimate and moving meditation on the late musician and artist Kurt Cobain, based on more than 25 hours of previously unheard audiotaped interviews conducted with Cobain by noted music journalist Michael Azerrad for his book “Come As You Are: The Story of Nirvana.” In the film, Kurt Cobain recounts his own life – from his childhood and adolescence to his days of musical discovery and later dealings with explosive fame – and offers often piercing insights into his life, music, and times. The conversations heard in the film have never before been made public and they reveal a highly personal portrait of an artist much discussed but not particularly well understood. Written by AJ Schnack
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Ending the Silence explores patriarchal and hierarchal structures in the church that foster the devaluing and demonizing of sex, women, and the LGBTQ community.
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