How would you feel about carrying your home in your pocket or having clothes to live in? For most of us, “house” means stability, structure, and permanence. In an age of increasing population and technological gains, today’s mobile society has resulted in a demand, or perhaps a dream, for portable dwellings and dwellings in new settings and situations.
Microtopia explores how architects, artists and ordinary problem-solvers are pushing the limits to find answers to their dreams of portability, flexibility – and of creating independence from “the grid”. Modern nomads, homeless people, people in stress, people in need of privacy or seclusion. We hear about the personal reasons behind the dwellings, and to see how they actually work. On the sidewalk, on rooftops, in industrial landscapes and in nature we will see and feel how these abodes meet the dreams set up by their creators. Microtopia deals with a contemporary urgent ideas that are addressed, and solved, in a very surprising way.
You May Also Like
When filmmaker and investigative journalist Frances Causey, a daughter of the South, set out to explore the continuing racial divisions in the US, what she discovered was that the politics of slavery didn’t end with the Civil War. In an astonishingly candid look at the United States’ original sin, The Long Shadow traces slavery’s history from America’s founding up through its insidious ties to racism today.
The true story of John Romulus Brinkley, a small-town Kansas doctor who discovers in 1917 that he can cure impotence by transplanting goat testicles into men. And that’s just the tipping point in this stranger-than-fiction tale. With the balls of a P.T. Barnum, the gonads of goats, and the wishful dreams of flaccid men, Brinkley amassed a fortune, was almost elected Governor of Kansas, invented junk mail and the infomercial, and built the world’s most powerful radio station. By the time all of the twists and turns of Brinkley’s story are revealed, Nuts! certainly earns its title.
Don McGlynn’s uncompromising and soulful documentary look at the tumultuous life of musician and rebel Charles Mingus is fascinating stuff. Mingus said of himself “I am half black man, half yellow man, but I claim to be a Negro. I am Charles Mingus, the famed jazz musician–but not famed enough to make a living in America.” His statement summed up the conflict that plagued this musical genius his entire life: volatility, pain, prescience, and raw rage roiled inside a complex man, composer, bass player, and trombonist who transcended labels and refused to be pigeonholed into a single musical style–and who did not achieve real fame until late in his career.
A look at the Miami-Dade County Corrections and Rehabilitation Boot Camp Program, which allows young inmates undergo a strict six-week course in order to learn from their past mistakes and make a better future for themselves.
An in depth look at the world of Parrot Heads, the loyal fan base of Jimmy Buffett.
The super-rich determines virtually every aspect of the lives of the other 90% of Americans. This film examines the hidden struggles of American families, the calculated political maneuvers of the elite, and the long overdue uprising of American workers. With affection for the middle-class and the outrageous attempt to color them as lazy, the film explores the question: How do we make sure workers are paid what they are worth, instead of believing they are only worth what they are paid?
Everyone thinks that Bob Kane created Batman, but that’s not the whole truth. One author makes it his crusade to make it known that Bill Finger, a struggling writer, actually helped invent the iconic superhero, from concept to costume to the very character we all know and love. Bruce Wayne may be Batman’s secret identity, but his creator was always a true mystery.
In 1988, filmmaker Kevin Tomlinson filmed & interviewed a group of back-to-the- land “hippies”–living off-grid, insulated from mainstream culture. In 2006 he tracked down his subjects again to find out what had become of their families’ utopian plans and dreams.
From 2011 to 2013, hundreds of regulations were passed restricting access to abortion in America. Reproductive rights advocates refer to these as “TRAP” laws, or Targeted Regulations of Abortion Providers. TRAP laws have swept across the country, especially the South, where most clinics are in a desperate battle for survival. In the trenches of this war on women’s rights are the doctors, clinic owners, and resolute staff who refuse to give up. Trapped interweaves the personal stories of a fearless physician who crisscrosses the country assuring that medical services are available, the stalwart women and men who run the clinics, the lawyers leading the charge to eradicate these laws, and ultimately to the women they are all determined to help
Richard Atkins, the singer and songwriter of the early 70’s California Pop Duo, ‘Richard Twice’ was on his way to stardom and a huge career in the music business when he mysteriously walked away from it all.
An Oscar nominated documentary about a middle-class American family who is torn apart when the father Arnold and son Jesse are accused of sexually abusing numerous children. Director Jarecki interviews people from different sides of this tragic story and raises the question of whether they were rightfully tried when they claim they were innocent and there was never any evidence against them.
An in-depth look at four individuals who have pulled the trigger and the profound impact it’s had on their lives.