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Summer 2005: federal agents and police record over a thousand hours of surveillance footage inside a crack house in Rockford Illinois. For six weeks the gang smoke weed, play with guns and sell crack and heroin, unaware that their every move is being filmed. The customers come and go with no clue that their secret lives would be exposed. This is an intimate portrait of the rise and fall of a crack house and of an American urban community brought down by drugs. Interviews with gang members, their families and cops reveal the inescapable tragedy – and occasional dark comedy – of a world that lies hidden within every modern city.
The first documentary about France’s post punk and cold wave scene in the late 1970s and early 1980s. During an art show at agnès b. gallery in 2008, Jean-François Sanz has gathered some exceptional material that brings to light, through archival footage and about thirty interviews to the main players, the pop culture heritage of that moment.
‘Iceberg Slim: Portrait of a Pimp’, examines the tumultuous life of legendary Chicago pimp Iceberg Slim (1918-1992) and how he reinvented himself from pimp to author of 7 groundbreaking books. These books were the birth of Street Lit and explored the world of the ghetto in gritty and poetic detail and have made him a cultural icon. Interviews with Iceberg Slim, Chris Rock, Henry Rollins, Ice-T, Snoop Dogg, and Quincy Jones.
The documentary intersperses archival footage with first-person interviews with disability rights activists who fought discrimination such as Fred Fay, I. King Jordan, Judi Chamberlin and Judith Heumann, and with legislators who helped draft and secure the passage of the ADA, including Tony Coelho and Tom Harkin. From the beginnings of the disability rights movement, when veterans with disabilities returning home from World War II began to demand an end to discrimination and for better access to employment and other social opportunities, Lives Worth Living traces the history of the movement in the United States in roughly chronological order. The film documents how, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, activists with disabilities began to adopt the some of the tactics and strategies used by civil rights activists a decade earlier, including marches, protests, and civil disobedience.
The husband-and-wife team of Charles and Ray Eames were America’s most influential and important industrial designers. Admired for their creations and fascinating as individuals, they have risen to iconic status in American culture. Eames: The Architect & The Painter draws from a treasure trove of archival material, as well as new interviews with friends, colleague, and experts to capture the personal story of Charles and Ray while placing them firmly in the context of their fascinating times.
A tabloid reporter makes a shocking cryptozoological discovery while investigating a recent rash of Bigfoot sightings in this comedy featuring beer, bikinis, and the wildest party animal you’ve ever met. Harlan James (Chase Carter) doesn’t believe in Bigfoot. He’s determined to disprove his existence when he heads into the woods, and starts to interview witnesses. Much to Harlan’s surprise, he finds that Bigfoot is no forest-dwelling menace, but a mischievous Sasquatch with a taste for beer, and a love of beautiful women. Unfortunately for the fun-loving creature, vengeful redneck Chester Scroggins (Ron Blackwell) and some villainous bounty hunters are more interested in capturing Bigfoot than sharing a brew with him. Now, with the clock ticking, Harlan enlists the aid of the local sheriff (David Novak) and a pretty television reporter (Nicole Parsneau) in getting the story of a lifetime, and protecting the beast who only wants to party.
It is the most anticipated yearly event in Sports Entertainment, an annual pop culture touch point. For more than 25 years, WrestleMania has hosted the biggest matches, the biggest stars, and the biggest celebrities. Now for the first time ever, the story of WrestleMania is told from its early beginnings through the week-long spectacular it has become, routinely drawing fans from all 50 states and around the world. This documentary feature includes new and insightful interviews from the superstars and creative forces behind the event.
Sean Reynolds, a highly acclaimed investigative journalist (who strongly believed in paranormal phenomena), destroyed his career when the most watched episode of his reality show, based on paranormal phenomena, turned out to be a hoax. Sean saw a news report on a “Bigfoot Hunter” (Carl Drybeck) who claimed to possess the body of a dead Sasquatch. He believes Drybeck is a phony and decides to create a new show that reveals people’s paranormal claims as hoaxes. Sean assembles his old film crew and heads to Northern California’s “Lost Coast” to meet with and interview Drybeck. Obsessed, Sean is staking his comeback, his life and the lives of his documentary film crew on proving Drybeck’s claim to be a hoax.
SOMETHING FROM NOTHING: THE ART OF RAP is a feature length performance documentary about the runaway juggernaut that is Rap music. At the wheel of this unstoppable beast is the film’s director and interviewer Ice-T. Taking us on a deeply personal journey Ice-T uncovers how this music of the street has grown to dominate the world. Along the way Ice-T meets a whole spectrum of Hip-Hop talent, from founders, to new faces, to the global superstars like Eminem, Dr Dre, Snoop Dogg and Kanye West. He exposes the roots and history of Rap and then, through meeting many of its most famous protagonists, studies the living mechanism of the music to reveal ‘The Art Of Rap’. This extraordinary film features unique performances from the entire cast, without resorting to archive material, to build a fresh and surprising take on the phenomenon that is Rap.
Wish You Were Here, released in September 1975, was the follow up album to the globally successful The Dark Side Of The Moon and is cited by many fans, as well as band members Richard Wright and David Gilmour, as their favorite Pink Floyd album. On release it went straight to Number One in both the UK and the US and topped the charts in many other countries around the world. This program tells the story of the making of this landmark release through new interviews with Roger Waters, David Gilmour and Nick Mason and archive interviews with the late Richard Wright. Also featured are sleeve designer Storm Thorgerson, guest vocalist Roy Harper, front cover burning man Ronnie Rondell and others involved in the creation of the album. In addition, original recording engineer Brian Humphries revisits the master tapes at Abbey Road Studios to illustrate aspects of the songs construction.
The inside story of the 1998 HIV outbreak that tore through the San Fernando Valley adult film industry told by the people who experienced it. Using archival footage and exclusive, original interviews with such recognizable adult performers as Ron Jeremy, Ginger Lynn, Marc Wallice and Tricia Devereaux among other, the film goes behind the scenes of the porn industry as it confronted a deadly disease which was a threat to it’s very existence.
Documentary that delves deep into the life and storied exploits of the iconic Death Row Records co-founder Suge Knight, as well as the volatile and highly influential era in gangsta rap he presided over. Through a series of interviewers face to face with director Antoine Fuqua, Knight reveals exactly how it all happened and why it all fell apart. Knight is currently in jail pending trial on murder, attempted-murder and hit-and-run charges.
Examine the rise and fall of Hollywood media mogul Harvey Weinstein following the scandal in 2017. Learn from exclusive interviews with those who knew him in the industry, and a discussion of the start of the #MeToo movement.
From acclaimed documentary film director Dana Brown (Dust to Glory, On Any Sunday – The Next Chapter, Highwater and Step Into Liquid) comes Dust 2 Glory, the much-anticipated motorsports action documentary. This special one-night event will be the most in-depth and dramatic exploration of the world’s toughest point-to-point desert race ever created, the SCORE Baja 1000, and will feature exclusive interviews with Brown and legendary drivers.
Lisa Immordino Vreeland directs this documentary about Academy Award-winning costume designer Cecil Beaton. A respected photographer, artist, and set designer, Beaton was best known for designing on award-winning films such as ‘Gigi’ (1958) and ‘My Fair Lady’ (1964). The film features archive footage and interviews with a number of models, artists, and filmmakers who worked closely with Beaton during his illustrious career.
Curmudgeon. Contrarian. Misanthrope. Naysayer. For all the people interviewed in this film, someone has used one of the above words to describe them. What have they done to deserve such labels? Everywhere these men and women go, something is being celebrated; they don’t get what all the celebration is about and they’re compelled to question it.
Featuring brand new interviews with producer Douglas Wick, screenwriter Wesley Strick, and special effects artist Rick Baker, THE BEAST INSIDE: CREATING »WOLF« examines the making of Mike Nichols’ WOLF (1994) in all its stages from original idea to final appearance.
Built upon a 14 hour interview, McKellen: Playing the Part is a unique journey through the key landmarks of McKellen’s life, from early childhood into a demanding career that placed him in the public eye for the best part of his lifetime. Using an abundance of photography from McKellen’s private albums and cinematically reconstructed scenes, a raw talent shines through in the intensity, variety and devotion to that moment in the light.
Nile Rodgers has sold over 100 million records. As the co-founder, songwriter, producer and guitarist of Chic he helped define the sound of the ’70s, as disco took the world by storm. Nile and musical partner Bernard Edwards captured the essence of New York’s iconic Studio 54 creating hit after hit for bands like Chic & Sister Sledge. But the music that had made Chic would also break them, thanks to the ‘Disco Sucks’ backlash. What could have been the end for Nile Rodgers would actually be a new beginning as a producer of some of the biggest hits of the 80s for the likes of Diana Ross, David Bowie, Madonna and Duran Duran. In this profile documentary, the ever-charismatic Rodgers contributes an engaging and often frank interview to tell the tale of how, born to Beatnik, heroin-addict parents in New York, he picked up a guitar as a teenager and embarked on a journey to learn his craft as a musician, before becoming one of disco’s most successful artists.
While challenging common beliefs on the history of civilization, the film takes the audience back to 12 thousand years ago, to Gobeklitepe, an ancient site recently found in SanliUrfa, Turkiye. With its brilliant graphics and interviews with experts, the film shows how old taboos come tumbling down as we keep scratching the surface.
The Death of ‘Superman Lives’: What Happened? feature film documents the process of development of the ill fated “Superman Lives” movie, that was to be directed by Tim Burton and star Nicolas Cage as the man of steel himself, Superman. The project went through years of development before the plug was pulled, and this documentary interviews the major players: Kevin Smith, Tim Burton, Jon Peters, Dan Gilroy, Colleen Atwood, Lorenzo di Bonaventura and many many more.
Schooled: The Price of College Sports is a comprehensive look at the business, history and culture of big-time college football and basketball in America. It is an adaptation of “The Cartel” by Pulitzer Prize Winning civil rights scholar Taylor Branch, and his October 2011 article in The Atlantic, “The Shame of College Sports.” Schooled presents a hard-hitting examination of the NCAA’s treatment of its athletes and amateurism in collegiate athletics; weaving interviews, archival and verité footage to tell a story of how college sports became a billion dollar industry built on the backs of athletes who are deprived of numerous rights.
The History of WWE celebrates 50 years of sports entertainment by chronicling the evolution of WWE from small, regional promotion into a worldwide phenomenon. With new interviews from several key personalities past and present, get the inside story behind each era of WWE as well as all your favourite moments and Superstars.
On the 30th anniversary of his Florida execution, CONVERSATIONS WITH A KILLER: THE TED BUNDY TAPES brings the infamously twisted mind of serial killer Ted Bundy into the light for the very first time and invades our psyche in a fresh yet terrifying way through exclusive, never-before-heard interviews from the “Jack the Ripper of the United States,” himself.
Under the direction of founder and world-renowned DJ Peanut Butter Wolf, Stones Throw Records has consistently released critically acclaimed, left-of-center albums since its founding in 1996. Drawing on live concert footage, never-before-seen archival material, inner-circle home video and photographs and in-depth interviews with the folks who put Stones Throw on the map, this documentary will delve deeper into the label’s enigmatic artists, history, culture and global following.
Documentarians Justine Shapiro and B.Z. Goldberg traveled to Israel to interview Palestinian and Israeli kids ages 11 to 13, assembling their views on living in a society afflicted with violence, separatism and religious and political extremism. This 2002 Oscar nominee for Best Feature Documentary culminates in an astonishing day in which two Israeli children meet Palestinian youngsters at a refugee camp.
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.
A psychological thriller that takes you through the mind of convicted killer, Michael Raine, and his experiences on death row. Was he guilty of killing his girlfriend or was he a victim of a conspiracy to frame him for a crime he didn’t commit? As the story unfolds Jessica Foster, an assistant to the Governor of Tennessee begins to interview Raine while on death row, claiming that she’s writing a book about the inmates. Through various circumstances, Raine puts two and two together and builds a case that he believes can prove his innocence…or does he? Ms. Foster is the only one on the ‘outside” who can give Raine a voice, but is she working for those who framed him? As time draws near to the date of his execution, in his most desperate hour Raine finds the missing pieces to the puzzle to prove his innocence, but is it too late…? Was this story told from Raine’s point of view or from the book writers or from yours, the viewer – you decide.
This documentary feature pulls back the curtain on the world of ‘working class’ rappers. The film spotlights independent artists struggling to find a balance between making a living and pursuing their art alongside the never-ending saga of age and relevance. Weaved together through a series of 30 plus interviews that are devoid of the ego so common in the business of music, especially hip-hop, the film traverses the country (USA) to explore the myths and misconceptions of life as a full-time rapper.
As Zipper’s Clown Palace (a strip bar) closes, Neil wanders in and decides to hold the dancers, bartender, and remaining customers hostage. He torments them with little tasks he wants performed, playing on their weaknesses and relying on his gun for intimidation. Eventually the hostages begin formulating plans to thwart his control. Meanwhile, two policemen are observing the outside of the strip joint, realizing that something’s wrong and trying to decide if it’s worth ruining their buzz to intervene.
Al Pacino’s deeply-felt rumination on Shakespeare’s significance and relevance to the modern world through interviews and an in-depth analysis of “Richard III.”
Divine intervention lets reincarnated brothers realize their identities and seek revenge upon their killer.
Beautiful Noriko Miki works at a cosmetic company. One day, Noriko is murdered. People begin to suspect her co-worker Miki Shirono might have killed her. Television begins to cover her story. A TV show interviews Miki Shirono’s colleagues, family, people from her hometown. Rumors turn into fear. Is she a wicked a woman?
In this film made over ten years, filmmaker Barbara Sonneborn goes on a pilgrimage to the Vietnamese countryside where her husband was killed. She and translator (and fellow war widow) Xuan Ngoc Nguyen explore the meaning of war and loss on a human level. The film weaves interviews with Vietnamese and American widows into a vivid testament to the legacy of war.
In 1957, insurance investigator George Lazarus is tasked with interviewing twelve employees of the Deadly Sin Cigarette Company when his firm receives a suspicious insurance claim. He learns that all twelve had been let go after contracting mysterious illnesses, but before he can report back, Lazarus goes missing without a trace. After his disappearance, his fiancée Bethany and his friend Chip set out to find him – but what they uncover may actually signal the end of the entire human race.
A small group of Wikileaks journalists make their way through Central Asia interviewing newspaper editors. Their real goal: to find local media outlets to publish secret US diplomatic cables. This intelligent, guerrilla-style doc follows their fascinating journey from Afghanistan to Manhattan, through the boundaries of free speech and the minds of those who shape our understanding of the world.
The discovery of the mutilated body of a mentally challenged young mother begins a journey into madness that is so unbelievable the mastermind behind the crime ultimately got away with murder. Revealing for the first time how and why it happened filmmaker J. David Miles ventures into the insane mind of a small town crime family’s matriarch and uncovers a conspiracy that continues to elude law enforcement to this very day. By going straight to the murderers themselves for interviews it is a true crime investigation like you have never seen, unveiling an alternate motive to what was presented in the courtroom that is as bizarre as it is heartbreaking. Written by Anonymous
Broadway legend Elaine Stritch remains in the spotlight at eighty-seven years old. Join the uncompromising Tony and Emmy Award-winner both on and off stage in this revealing documentary. With interviews from Tina Fey, Nathan Lane, Hal Prince and others, Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me blends rare archival footage and intimate cinema vérité to reach beyond Stritch’s brassy exterior, revealing a multi-dimensional portrait of a complex woman and an inspiring artist.
Not only did Mary Tyler Moore “turn the world on with her smile,” as her show’s theme song declared, she also influenced a generation of women to become more independent and to pursue successful and fulfilling careers. Moore’s own 50-plus-year career has spanned award-winning films and Broadway shows, as well as two beloved television series that broke ground and continue to entertain viewers. This one-hour special includes highlights from a recent interview with Mary Tyler Moore, tributes from her co-stars and clips from iconic moments throughout her career. The program looks at her breakthrough role on The Dick Van Dyke Show, her iconic turn as TV’s first independent career woman on The Mary Tyler Moore Show and her Academy Award-nominated work on Ordinary People.
In her final year at school, Anthropology student Lorraine decides to film her final project – the subject of exorcism within the Catholic Church. Recording interviews with priests from the local diocese, she stumbles upon Fr. Byrne, an older priest who is currently helping a young mother whose daughter is apparently possessed by a demonic force. The curiosity of Lorraine, along with her camera operator, Cathal, leads them down a dark path of discovering the terrifying truth, and things go from strange to worse as all involved become entangled into a frightful journey to save a little girl’s life.