Traveling back to the places where he grew up, Dustin Lance Black explores his childhood roots, gay identity and close relationship with his mother, who overcame childhood polio, abusive marriages and Mormon dogma, while becoming Black’s emotional rock and, ultimately, the inspiration for his activism. With a wealth of personal photographs and candid memories from Black’s family, colleagues, and friends, this documentary embraces the personal to tell a universally hopeful tale of resilience and reconciliation through the power of love and shared stories.
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This documentary offers an honest look at our fraught, complex relationship to video games from the perspectives of gamers and their concerned parents.
A filmmaker who grew up alongside Chucky the killer doll seeks out the other families surrounding the Child’s Play films as they recount their experiences working on the ongoing franchise and what it means to be a part of the, “Chucky” family.
A team of filmmakers take a tour of South America with mural artist and animator Blu, looking to see how his art and mind will be influenced through total immersion in foreign cultures. The team traveled through Mexico, Guatemala, Nicaragua Costa Rica and Argentina, and named the film after those countries. In the director’s words, “What came out was an unscripted film about improvisation, inspiration (and perspiration), innovation, self-exploration and all the other good things in life that end with -ion.”
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 60 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.
An in depth look at the world of Parrot Heads, the loyal fan base of Jimmy Buffett.
One of the most enigmatic artists of the 20th century, writer, composer and wanderer Paul Bowles (1910-1999) is profiled by a filmmaker who has been obsessed with his genius since age nineteen. Set against the dramatic landscape of North Africa, the mystery of Bowles (famed author of The Sheltering Sky) begins to unravel in Jennifer Baichwal’s poetic and moving Let It Come Down: The Life of Paul Bowles. Rare, candid interviews with the reclusive Bowles–at home in Tangier, as well as in New York during an extraordinary final reunion with Allen Ginsberg and William Burroughs–are intercut with conflicting views of his supporters and detractors. At the time in his mid-eighties, Bowles speaks with unprecedented candor about his work, his controversial private life and his relationships with Gertrude Stein, Tennessee Williams, Truman Capote, the Beats, and his wife and fellow author Jane Bowles.
In 1971, four college students got together to form a rock band. Since then, that certain band called Queen have released 26 albums and sold over 300 million records worldwide. The popularity of Freddie Mercury, Brian May, Roger Taylor and John Deacon is stronger than ever 40 years on. But it was no bed of roses. No pleasure cruise. Queen had their share of kicks in the face, but they came through and this is how they did it, set against the backdrop of brilliant music and stunning live performances from every corner of the globe. In this film, for the first time, it is the band that tells their story. Featuring brand new interviews with the band and unseen archive footage (including their recently unearthed, first ever TV performance), it is a compelling story told with intelligence, wit, plenty of humor and painful honesty.
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….
During the darkest hours of the night, while the rest of the world is sleeping, outdoor photographer Paul Zizka ventures out into the wilderness in search of the world’s starriest skies. His journey to photograph the celestial wonders takes him from his home amongst the peaks of the Canadian Rockies to the wild, desert dunes of Namibia and remote ice caps of Greenland. Ever the adventurer, he must balance his work and passion for photography with his equal devotion as a family man. In the Starlight is an intimate portrayal of Paul’s quest to capture the night skies, and what his time spent under the stars has taught him about life, love, adventure, and our place in the universe.
Businesswoman Karren Brady investigates unequal pay and the gender pay gap, speaking to women whose careers have been affected by attitudes towards women in the workplace.
Before MTV and the age of television, there were Soundies. First appearing in 1941, these three minute black-and-white films featured artists of the Big Band, Jazz and Swing era, like Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Louis Jordan, Louis Armstrong, Gene Krupa, The Mills Brothers, Les Paul, Cab Calloway, and Fats Waller. The Soundies helped launch the careers of Doris Day, Nat King Cole, Liberace, and Dorothy Dandridge, among others. Viewed for a dime through a special machine called a Panoram, a movie jukebox, these forerunners to the music video could be seen in nightclubs, roadhouses, restaurants and other public venues across the U.S. These classic films remain as glorious time capsules of music, social history, popular culture, and tell the story of a crossroads in our country, when the uncertainties of war, race relations, and emerging technologies combined to write one of the most influential chapters in our nation¹s history.