For 50 years radio dominated the airwaves and the American consciousness as the first “mass medium.” In Empire of the Air: The Men Who Made Radio, Ken Burns examines the lives of three extraordinary men who shared the primary responsibility for this invention and its early success, and whose genius, friendship, rivalry and enmity interacted in tragic ways. This is the story of Lee de Forest, a clergyman’s flamboyant son, who invented the audion tube; Edwin Howard Armstrong, a brilliant, withdrawn inventor who pioneered FM technology; and David Sarnoff, a hard-driving Russian immigrant who created the most powerful communications company on earth.
You May Also Like
Mumford and Sons are a band that have never stayed still. An innate desire to travel, to meet people and to do the unexpected has become a calling card of sorts as fans the world over join their community and fall in love with their consistently evolving music. The documentary follows the band and their latest set of collaborators as they travel across uncharted territory, playing the major cities of South Africa with an eclectic mix of musician friends. They explore the craft of song writing and the people, events and influences that dictate that. The film showcases the band at their most open and collaborative as they relish the excitement of playing to crowds in new cities who’ve never seen them before. Along the way they set a fresh challenge for themselves; taking their collaborative culture one step further as they attempt to write and record a mini album in just two days, with the other musicians on tour. The filming of this process not only lifts the lid on the art of song….
An exclusive interview with the performer, businesswoman, philanthropist and global icon.
Canadian Lt. General Romeo Dallaire was the military commander of the UN mission in Rwanda and this movie is personal and, all too true, story of his time there during the genocide of 1994. It is not quite as moving as the earlier Hotel Rwanda and is less geared to drama and emotional manipulation, but it is still grim and upsetting.
Stephen Dorff and director Casey Tebo take us on a journey into the vast and confusing world of legal cannabis and hemp in the United States where things are not exactly what they seem. A plant, a medicine, a drug? Illegal for decades for many confusing reasons, the most glaring being systematic racism, we’re still stuck in that rut today in many states. It’s almost as if everyone has a different take, which is why even in these forward thinking times, Cannabis and Hemp still remain – BARELY LEGAL.
A look at the life and work of the Austrian composer who pioneered the musical scoring of films – hundreds of them – from King Kong, to Gone with the Wind, to Casablanca and beyond.
Winner of the Grand Jury Documentary prize at the Sundance Film Festival, Syrian filmmaker Feras Fayyad’s breathtaking work — a searing example of boots-on-the-ground reportage — follows the efforts of the internationally recognized White Helmets, an organization consisting of ordinary citizens who are the first to rush towards military strikes and attacks in the hope of saving lives. Incorporating moments of both heart-pounding suspense and improbable beauty, the documentary draws us into the lives of three of its founders — Khaled, Subhi, and Mahmoud — as they grapple with the chaos around them and struggle with an ever-present dilemma: do they flee or stay and fight for their country?
The landmark documentary about the tragically ill-fated Rolling Stones free concert at Altamont Speedway on December 6, 1969. Only four months earlier, Woodstock defined the Love Generation; now it lay in ruins on a desolate racetrack six miles outside of San Francisco.
A young filmmaker Ihor finds a hidden and unpublished photo archive of his grandfather Leonid Burlaka, a famous Soviet cinematographer. Discovering a man that he never knew well enough through the damaged pictures, he gets closer to his dementing grandpa, facing the tension between memory and forgetting.
In the eyes of a foreigner practically any street of Mexico City’s Centro Histórico holds potential for a film. Life on the street deserves more than just the natural condition of observer anyone could have, it demands an extra attention. In a 100-meter radius, the sociological exuberance of the events going on is simply impossible to ignore. The street is a mise en scène in itself.
Delves into the shooting death of Mark Duggan, a young black British man, by London Metropolitan Police in 2011.
The story of how music saved Sully Erna and how that salvation manifested into the formation of the rock band, Godsmack.
