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This historical and critical look at slasher films, which includes dozens of clips, begins with "Halloween," "Friday the 13th," and "Prom Night." The films' directors, writers, producers, and special effects creators comment on the films' making and success. During the Reagan years, the films get gorier, budgets get smaller, and their appeal wanes. Then, "Nightmare on Elm Street" revives the genre. Jump to the late 90s, when "Scream" brings humor and TV stars into the mix. Although some criticize the genre as misogynistic (Siskel and Ebert), most of the talking heads celebrate the films: as long as there are teenagers, there will be slasher films, says one.
Most people don't think about singing when they think about revolutions. But song was the weapon of choice when, between 1986 and 1991, Estonians sought to free themselves from decades of Soviet occupation. During those years, hundreds of thousands gathered in public to sing forbidden patriotic songs and to rally for independence. "The young people, without any political party, and without any politicians, just came together ... not only tens of thousands but hundreds of thousands ... to gather and to sing and to give this nation a new spirit," remarks Mart Laar, a Singing Revolution leader featured in the film and the first post-Soviet Prime Minister of Estonia. "This was the idea of the Singing Revolution." James Tusty and Maureen Castle Tusty's "The Singing Revolution" tells the moving story of how the Estonian people peacefully regained their freedom--and helped topple an empire along the way.
The complex life of Thomas Jefferson, who wrote that "all men are created equal" yet owned slaves, is recounted by master filmmaker Ken Burns in this probing documentary. Covering Jefferson's diplomatic work in France, his two presidential terms, his retirement at Monticello and more.
A rather incoherent post-breakup Sex Pistols "documentary", told from the point of view of Pistols manager Malcolm McLaren, whose (arguable) position is that the Sex Pistols in particular and punk rock in general were an elaborate scam perpetrated by him in order to make "a million pounds."
In 1959, Berry Gordy Jr. gathered the best musicians from Detroit's thriving jazz and blues scene to begin cutting songs for his new record company. Over a fourteen year period they were the heartbeat on every hit from Motown's Detroit era. By the end of their phenomenal run, this unheralded group of musicians had played on more number ones hits than the Beach Boys, the Rolling Stones, Elvis and the Beatles combined - which makes them the greatest hit machine in the history of popular music. They called themselves the Funk Brothers. Forty-one years after they played their first note on a Motown record and three decades since they were all together, the Funk Brothers reunited back in Detroit to play their music and tell their unforgettable story, with the help of archival footage, still photos, narration, interviews, re-creation scenes, 20 Motown master tracks, and twelve new live performances of Motown classics with the Brothers backing up contemporary performers.
In November 2009, filmmaker Cameron Crowe began filming a behind-the-scenes look at the creation of the album The Union, a collaboration between musicians Elton John and Leon Russell, who hadn't spoken to one another in 38 years prior to beginning work on the album. In addition, the documentary offers a rare glimpse into the process John goes through to create and compose his music. Featured in the film are musicians Neil Young, Brian Wilson, Booker T. Jones, steel guitarist Robert Randolph, Don Was and a 10-piece gospel choir who all contribute to the album, which is produced by award-winning producer T-Bone Burnett. Musician Stevie Nicks and John's long-time lyricist Bernie Taupin also appear.
A documentary on the electric guitar from the point of view of three significant rock musicians: the Edge, Jimmy Page and Jack White.
In this fascinating Oscar-nominated documentary, American guitarist Ry Cooder brings together a group of legendary Cuban folk musicians (some in their 90s) to record a Grammy-winning CD in their native city of Havana. The result is a spectacular compilation of concert footage from the group's gigs in Amsterdam and New York City's famed Carnegie Hall, with director Wim Wenders capturing not only the music -- but also the musicians' life stories.
Paris Is Burning is a 1990 documentary (directeor Jennie Livingston) filmed in the mid-to-late 1980s, chronicling the ball culture of New York City and the poor, African American and Latino gay and transgendered community involved in it. Many consider Paris Is Burning to be an invaluable documentary of the end of the "Golden Age" of New York City drag balls and exploration of queer culture
AMERICAN MOVIE is the story of filmmaker Mark Borchardt, his mission, and his dream. Spanning over two years of intense struggle with his film, his family, financial decline, and spiritual crisis, AMERICAN MOVIE is a portrayal of ambition, obsession, excess, and one man's quest for the American Dream.
A chronicle of the production problems â including bad weather, actors' health, war near the filming locations, and more â which plagued the filming of Apocalypse Now, increasing costs and nearly destroying the life and career of Francis Ford Coppola.
Since the invention of cinema, the standard format for recording moving images has been film. Over the past two decades, a new form of digital filmmaking has emerged, creating a groundbreaking evolution in the medium. Keanu Reeves explores the development of cinema and the impact of digital filmmaking via in-depth interviews with Hollywood masters, such as James Cameron, David Fincher, David Lynch, Christopher Nolan, Martin Scorsese, George Lucas, Steven Soderbergh, and many more.
Documentary about the National Film Registry, featuring clips of films that have been included in the registry, as well as interviews with members of the National Film Registry Board.
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.
This dryly funny mockumentary about the lost work of a pioneering New Zealand film genius is probably one of the best examples of the faux-documentary genre. In fact, it was so successful that when it originally aired on New Zealand television, hundreds of viewers bought the premise hook, line, and sinker. If you didn't know any better yourself, it's entirely possible you might be duped into believing the extremely tall tale of one Colin MacKenzie, an ambitious filmmaker who made the world's first talking movie (years before The Jazz Singer), invented color film, and created a huge biblical epic that would put Cecil B. DeMille and D.W. Griffith to shame. Filmmaker Peter Jackson (Heavenly Creatures) shrewdly inserts himself into the film via his documentation of the "discovery" of McKenzie's lost epic, which for years was preserved in a garden shed.
"Touring makes you crazy," Frank Zappa says, explaining that the idea for this film came to him while the Mothers of Invention were touring. The story, interspersed with performances by the Mothers and the Royal Symphony Orchestra, is a tale of life on the road. The band members' main concerns are the search for groupies and the desire to get paid.
The Go-Go Boys tells the inside story of two Israeli-born cousins, the late Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus, who in pursuit of the âAmerican dreamâ turned the Hollywood establishment upside down. Together they produced more than 300 films and founded the most powerful independent film company in the world, Cannon Films, which was responsible for Israeli and mainstream, Hollywood-blockbuster, action/exploitation hits during the duoâs 1980s hey day, starring the likes of Chuck Norris, Jean-Claude Van Damme and Charles Bronson. Up close and personal, and with the complete cooperation of the filmâs subjects, the film examines the complex relationship between two contradictory personalities, whose combined force fueled their successes and eventual split. A film about filmmaking and two dogged, exceptional characters with modest origins taking on the big boys.
The American comedian/actor delivers a story about the alternative Hip Hop scene. A small town Ohio manâs moves to Brooklyn, New York, to throw an unprecedented block party. Filmed with inspiration from the 1973 documentary Wattstax.
Chronicles a man who is obsessively interested in only one thing,the pictures he takes that document the way people dress. The 80-year-old New York Times photographer has two columns in the paper's Style section, yet nobody knows who he is.
In this documentary, Stephen Hawking tries to explain what science can tell us about the meaning of life through physics, philosophical discussion,and Hawking's own unique scientific perception, he attempts to shed light on humanities most profound question.
Director Martin Scorsese speaks candidly and passionately about one of his formative filmmaking influences: the late Elia Kazan. Utilizing precisely chosen clips from Kazan's signature films including "On the Waterfront," "A Streetcar Named Desire," "Gentleman's Agreement," "Baby Doll," "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn," "A Face in the Crowd," "America, America," and "The Last Tycoon," and interview footage of the director himself, co-directors Scorsese and Kent Jones recount the director's tumultuous journey from the Group Theatre to the Hollywood A-list to the thicket of the blacklist. But most of all, they make a powerful case for Kazan as a profoundly personal artist working in a famously impersonal industry.
As clichés go, in 1999 the World as we knew it was about to change - and we'd been expecting it. Since childhood we'd been promised that the 21st century would bring us dramatic new technologies like flying cars and Utopian cities. Instead it bought us the smart-phone, social media, and virtual societies. And as it turns out these technologies began to transform society almost as dramatically as the moon colonies we'd been expecting. Now over a decade into the revolution, 'DSKNECTD' explores how digital communication technology is profoundly changing the way we interact and experience each other - for the good and for the bad.
Hilarious, sad, absurd, eerie and beautiful, "FAST, CHEAP & OUT OF CONTROL" is a film like no other. Starting as a darkly funny contemplation of the Sisyphus-like nature of human striving, it ultimately becomes a profoundly moving meditation on the very nature of existence.
Join curators Joe and Nick on a guided tour through their ever-growing collection of odd, hilarious, and profoundly stupid videos. This edition of the Found Footage Festival features an entertaining lineup of instructional and educational videos, public access footage, and home movies found at thrift stores and rescued from dumpsters across the country. Recorded live at The Heights Theater in Minnesota, Found Footage Festival: Volume 2 is an unabashed celebration of the footage that time forgot.
A profoundly personal voyage into the complexity, fragility and wonder of the human brain, after Lotje Sodderland miraculously survives a hemorrhagic stroke and finds herself starting again in an alien world, bereft of language and logic. This feature documentary takes us on a genre-twisting tale that is by turns excruciating and exquisite - from the devastating consequences of a first-time neurological experiment, through to the extraordinary revelations of her altered sensory perception.
From the team behind Man on Wire comes the story of Nim, the chimpanzee who in the 1970s became the focus of a landmark experiment which aimed to show that an ape could learn to communicate with language if raised and nurtured like a human child. Following Nim's extraordinary journey through human society, and the enduring impact he makes on the people he meets along the way, the film is an unflinching and unsentimental biography of an animal we tried to make human. What we learn about his true nature - and indeed our own - is comic, revealing and profoundly unsettling.
Looks like an alien, sings like a diva - Klaus Nomi was one of the 1980s' most profoundly bizarre characters to emerge through rock music: a counter tenor who sang pop music like opera and brought opera to club audiences and made them like it. The Nomi Song is a film about fame, death, friendship, betrayal, opera, and the greatest New Wave rock star that never was!
Among the legends of Hollywood, George Pal takes his place as a true visionary, an innovator and a showman who profoundly shaped the art of motion pictures. A peer of Walt Disney, Pal pioneered stop motion animation and went on to virtually invent the modern science fiction and fantasy film genres. Pal's extraordinary genius molded a dazzling array of films, which earned an incredible total of eight Academy Awards and left a cinematic legacy that served as formative inspiration for the movies of George Lucas, Steven Spielberg and Gene Roddenberry.
âYou bet on someone in the beginning of the process and then you wait and see what life does with them.â This is how Czech director Helena Trestikova explains her long-term documentaries. Following on from the European Film Academy Award winning RENE (2008), Trestikova brings us KATKA â 14 years in the life of a drug addict. KATKA is an extraordinarily raw and uncensored character portrait of a troubled young woman living on the edge of human existence, desperately searching for love and salvation. Will she find it in the rehab? Will she find it in the arms of the man she loves? Or in the first cry of her long-desired baby? Tagging along with her through the back streets and squalors of Prague, Trestikova gets deep under the skin of a person most of us would cross the road to avoid, and shows us Katkaâs profoundly human face. You might be angry with Katka, or your heart may go out to her. One thing is certain â you will never forget her.
The sensational follow-up to "London in the Raw," "Primitive London" sets out to reflect society's decay through a sideshow spectacle of 1960s London depravityâand manages to outdo its predecessor. Here, we confront mods, rockers and beatniks at the Ace Café, cut some rug with obscure beat band The Zephyrs, smirk at flabby men in the sauna and goggle at sordid wife-swapping parties as we discover a pre-permissive Britain still trying to move on from the post-war depression of the 1950s.
Set against the backdrop of a high school football season, Dan Lindsay and T.J. Martinâs documentary UNDEFEATED is an intimate chronicle of three underprivileged student-athletes from inner-city Memphis and the volunteer coach trying to help them beat the odds on and off the field. For players and coaches alike, the season will be not only about winning games â it will be about how they grapple with the unforeseeable events that are part of football and part of life.
Early Mondo film featuring primitive rituals, animals being butchered, unusual birth defects, and a legit trepanation scene.
Memphis Heat: The True Story of Memphis Wrasslin' is the definitive documentary about the history of Memphis wrestling from the 1950's with legendary battles between Sputnik Monroe and Billy Wicks, the 1960's with strutting Jackie Fargo, & the glory days of the '70s with Jerry "the King" Lawler, Tojo Yamamoto, "Superstar" Bill Dundee, & Jimmy Hart.
Documentary about the 25th and last bombing mission of a B17, the "Memphis Belle". The "Memphis Belle" took part in a great bombing raid on sub-pens in Wilhelmshafen, Germany. If she makes it back from this one, she'll be retired from combat and sent home. That is, if she makes it!
Fly with the brave men of The Great Flying Fortress on this genuine combat mission! The true story of the real plane and the real crew - actually filmed as it was happening!
An examination of a failure of justice in Arkansas. The documentary tells the hitherto unknown story behind an extraordinary and desperate fight to bring the truth to light. Told and made by those who lived it, the filmmakers' unprecedented access to the inner workings of the defense, allows the film to show the investigation, research and appeals process in a way that has never been seen before; revealing shocking and disturbing new information about a case that still haunts the American South.
Guy Maddin, who has been nicknamed the Canadian David Lynch, is undoubtedly one of the last remaining Magi of cinema. Despite living in the middle of the digital age, this heretical director hailing from the snowy plains of Canada has spent 25 years transposing the uncommon and the uncanny onto screens over-saturated with naturalistic imagery. A lover of primitive cinema, he has cunningly summoned the light-and-shadow techniques and experimentations of the Golden Age of film to resuscitate a unique cinematographic language which plays with the spectatorâs unconscious by means of visual trickery as disturbing as it is absurd. In an attitude as playful at that Maddinâs films this documentary follows the mediumistic experiments of this master of illusion, filmed during the ââspiritââ shootings he presented in Europe.
Documentary film making at its best as it narrates very exotic and esoteric rituals of the primitive peoples of Africa.
This 1970 concert documentary captures Elvis Presley midway through a fateful transition, seeking to reclaim his musical primacy after a decade of self-imposed exile from concert stages. Sidelined by his big-screen career, eclipsed by rock's mid-'60s transformations, the King had begun his return two years earlier with the relatively lean attack of his fabled network television appearance, '68 Comeback Special. Now the Memphis legend was poised to reposition his performing profile by pursuing the top rungs of headliner status in Las Vegas, a career choice that seems even more ephemeral in hindsight than it already did at the time. Elvis: That's the Way It Is follows the show's genesis from rehearsal to stage, with the performance footage that provides its inevitable climax shot over six nights. The rehearsal footage, expanded for this special edition, offers further proof that Presley's band was simply superb...
I'm from Hollywood is about the adventures of late performance artist Andy Kaufman in the world of professional wrestling. This film includes interviews with Taxi co-stars Marilu Henner and Tony Danza and interviews with comedian Robin Williams, wrestler Jerry Lawler, wrestling commentator Lance Russell, and Kaufman's best friend, Bob Zmuda. Other people seen in the film include TV host David Letterman and Jimmy Hart of Continental Wrestling Association. The film's title refers to a phrase spoken by Kaufman to the Memphis wrestling audience.
A further investigation into the arrest of three teenagers convicted of killing three young boys in Arkansas who spent nearly 20 years in prison before being released after new DNA evidence indicated they may be innocent.
Award-winning musician Björk and legendary broadcaster and naturalist Sir David Attenborough have admired each other's work for years but this is the first time they have discussed their mutual love of music and the natural world on screen. In this remarkable documentary, Björk explores our unique relationship with music and discovers how technology might transform the way we engage with it in the future.
A horrific triple child murder leads to an indictment and trial of three nonconformist boys based on questionable evidence.
First Descent is a 2005 documentary film about snowboarding and its beginning in the 1980s. The snowboarders featured in this movie (Shawn Farmer, Nick Perata, Terje Haakonsen, Hannah Teter and Shaun White with guest appearances from Travis Rice) represent three generations of snowboarders and the progress this young sport has made over the past two decades. Most of the movie was shot in Alaska.
Thanks to a recent remarkable discovery in the BBC's Film Vaults, the best of David Attenborough's early Zoo Quest adventures can now be seen as never before - in colour - and with it the remarkable story of how this pioneering television series was made. First broadcast in December 1954, Zoo Quest was one of the most popular television series of its time and launched the career of the young David Attenborough as a wildlife presenter. Zoo Quest completely changed how viewers saw the world - revealing wildlife and tribal communities that had never been filmed or even seen before.
Elena, a young Brazilian woman, travels to New York with the same dream as her mother, to become a movie actress. She leaves behind her childhood spent in hiding during the years of the military dictatorship. She also leaves Petra, her seven year old sister. Two decades later, Petra also becomes an actress and goes to New York in search of Elena. She only has a few clues about her: home movies, newspaper clippings, a diary and letters. At any moment Petra hopes to find Elena walking in the streets in a silk blouse. Gradually, the features of the two sisters are confused; we no longer know one from the other. When Petra finally finds Elena in an unexpected place, she has to learn to let her go.
The story of Robert Flanagan, a man who was born with cystic fibrosis and told he wouldn't live past 20, who through a unique odyssey of masochism, art and love found a way to live decades past his expiration date.
Line Of Sight is a rare view into underground bicycle messenger racing which has become a global phenomenon. For over a decade Lucas Brunelle has been riding with the fastest, most skilled urban cyclists around the world while capturing all the action with his customized helmet cameras to bring you along for the ride. This is bike riding like you've never seen before, in gripping first-person perspective through the most hectic city streets, on expressways in Mexico City, over the frozen Charles River, under the Mediterranean Sea, across the Great Wall of China and deep into the jungles of Guatemala. Directed and Edited by Benny Zenga, Line of Sight is 60 minutes of the best Lucas Brunelle footage from a decade of Alleycat races around the world. "Lucas Brunelle goes for it. If you want to see what it's like to play a live game of 'frogger', on a bike, with only one life, check out Line Of Sight." -Mat Hoffman, Professional BMX Rider
For hundreds of years, Africa has existed in a state of despair. Famine, civil wars and rampant disease have left the continent without hope, but for the efforts of Western do-gooders. At first, they arrived with food, bibles and the magic of penicillin; more recently they have hosted rock concerts and sent plane loads of grain. And in the last decade of the 20th century they arrived and took babies home with them. First there was Angelina, then Madonna, and now...Pauly Shore! The film builds its comedy foundation on the international interest in Celebrity Adoptions, and the debate that surrounds these transactions on both sides of the Atlantic. Sometimes politically incorrect and never scared to tread on manicured toes.
Ozzy Osbourne's four decade track record as a culturally relevant artist is unprecedented, but his personal struggles have been shrouded in secrecy, until now. Featuring never before seen footage uncovered from the archives and interviews with Paul McCartney, Tommy Lee and others, God Bless Ozzy Osbourne is the first documentary to take viewers inside the complex mind of rock's great icon. Emerging from a working class family in war torn England, Osbourne and his neighborhood friends formed Black Sabbath and invented heavy metal. Plagued by self doubt, Osbourne the solo superstar went on a binge that lasted 40 years. God Bless Ozzy Osbourne will relive the highs of his triumphs as well as his journey to sobriety, which Ozzy regards as his greatest accomplishment.
Teenagers did not exist before the 20th century. Not until the early 1950s did the term gain widespread recognition, but with Teenage, Matt Wolf offers compelling evidence that âteenagersâ had a tumultuous effect on the previous half-decade.
WHITEY: United States of America v. James J. Bulger captures the sensational trial of infamous gangster James 'Whitey' Bulger, using the legal proceedings as a springboard to explore allegations of corruption within the highest levels of law enforcement. Embedded for months with Federal Prosecutors, retired FBI and State Police, victims, lawyers, gangsters and journalists, Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Joe Berlinger examines Bulger's relationship with the FBI and Department of Justice that allowed him to reign over a criminal empire in Boston for decades. Pulling back the curtain on long-held Bulger mythology, the film challenges conventional wisdom by detailing shocking, new allegations. With unprecedented access, Berlinger's latest crime documentary offers a universal tale of human frailty, opportunism, deception, and the often elusive nature of truth and justice.
A look at the extraordinary world of Penthouse founder, visionary and provocateur Bob Guccione.
A retrospective documentary about the groundbreaking horror series, Friday the 13th, featuring interviews with cast and crew from the twelve films spanning 3 decades.
The 2016 Reebok CrossFit Games were a grueling five-day, 15-event test to find the fittest man and woman on Earth. "Fittest on Earth: A Decade of Fitness" follows the dramatic story of the top athletes who qualified and competed and offers an inside look at what it takes to be among the world's elite athletes, both in training and on the competition floor. The CrossFit Games challenge competitors to perform intense physical tasks, but the hardest part is sometimes mental. Athletes often learn the details of the events only minutes before they begin, and everyone handles the pressure differently. Which of these fierce competitors will rise to the top and earn the title of Fittest on Earth?
Director Sophie Fiennes reunites with philosophical provocateur Slavoj Žižek for this follow-up to their hit The Pervert's Guide to Cinema, in which Žižek applies his inimitable and penetrating insights to films both famous and obscure as he interprets their overt and concealed meanings. (TIFF)
For several decades, gifted and incredibly prolific forger Mark Landis compulsively created impeccable copies of works by a variety of major artists, donating them to institutions across the country and landing pieces on many of their walls. Art and Craft brings us into the cluttered and insular life of an unforgettable character just as he finds his foil in an equally obsessive art registrar.
The ever-evolving Sion Sono, who burst onto the Japanese film scene with "I Am Sion Sono!!" in 1984, has made a name for himself in world cinema as a numerous award-winner, festival favorite and provocateur. Directed by Arata Oshima, son of rebel filmmaker Nagisa Oshima, who had praised Sono's early work before his passing, this documentary gives insight into the man, the poet, the painter, the scriptwriter, the husband and the boy who will eventually grow up to be the Sion Sono. Lineage, history and the past meeting the present are themes in this film in which Oshima connects the dots in Sono's creative life by taking the camera to the site of his upbringing and following the production of his most recent film "The Whispering Star," also screening at this year's JAPAN CUTS. -JAPAN CUTS: Festival of New Japanese Film
Go behind the scenes with pop provocateur Lady Gaga as she releases a bold new album and prepares for her Super Bowl halftime show.
The story of the battle to free Debbie Peagler, an incarcerated survivor of brutal domestic violence. Over 26 years in prison cannot crush the spirit of this determined African-American woman, despite the injustices she has experienced, first at the hands of a duplicitous boyfriend who beat her and forced her into prostitution, and later by prosecutors who cornered her into a life behind bars for her connection to the murder of her abuser. Her story takes an unexpected turn two decades later when a pair of rookie land-use attorneys cut their teeth on her case -- and attract global attention to the troubled intersection of domestic violence and criminal justice.
In 2011, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jose Antonio Vargas outed himself as an undocumented immigrant in the New York Times Magazine. 'Documented' chronicles his journey to America from the Philippines as a child; his journey through America as an immigration reform activist/provocateur; and his journey inward as he re-connects with his mother, whom he hasn't seen in 20 years.
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