Two heroin-addicted couples lead hard and stressful lives on the streets of New York.
Social & External
Under the Trump administration, USA is a deeply divided country. One side feeds populism and religious rectitude in a monochromatic landscape, painted white, lamenting for a past that never will return. The other side fuels diversity and multiculturalism, a biased vision of a progressive future, quite unlikely. Both sides are constantly confronted, without listening to each other. Only a few reasonable people gather to change this potentially dangerous situation.
Megacities is a documentary about the slums of five different metropolitan cities.
Lindstrom’s powerful documentary takes an unflinching look at the daunting difficulties in overcoming addictions and the dynamic within Portland’s Central City Concern’s recovery mentor program. With a 70% success rate, the program’s strength lies in its ability to promote a strong sense of community and connectedness with peers and mentors, all former addicts committed to helping others as they help themselves. “The film is raw and real, filled with undeniable moments of pain and elation and human personality. It’s impossible to imagine a more honest look at this all-too-common world.”—Shawn Levy, The Oregonian.
A grandmother, mother, and daughter quarantine together in a Tribeca apartment as they laugh about life over wine.
In a contemporary reimagining of the American West, three young women - a snake hunter, a New York artist, and a rodeo queen - challenge the idea of who is permitted to be a cowgirl.
Johnny Thunders was the legendary hard-living rock'n'roll guitarist who inspired glam-metal, punk and the music scene in general. 'Looking For Johnny' is a 90-minute film that documents Thunders' career from his beginnings to his tragic death in 1991. The film examines Johnny Thunders' career from the early 70's as a founding member of the influential New York Dolls; the birth of the punk scene with The Heartbreakers in New York City and London; Gang War and The Oddballs. It also explores Johnny's unique musical style, his personal battle with drugs and theories on his death in a New Orleans hotel in 1991 at age 38. The film includes forty songs with historic film of Johnny, including unseen New York Dolls and Heartbreakers footage and photos. Cult filmmakers Bob Gruen, Don Letts, Patrick Grandperret, Rachael Amadeo and others contribute classic archive footage.
A documentary on the once promising American rock bands The Brian Jonestown Massacre and The Dandy Warhols. The friendship between respective founders, Anton Newcombe and Courtney Taylor, escalated into bitter rivalry as the Dandy Warhols garnered major international success while the Brian Jonestown Massacre imploded in a haze of drugs.
Once again, David Graham Scott examines how some addicts use the plant medicine iboga to detox rapidly—and how, sometimes, the conditions in which they detox put them at risk.
Zuzia, a very sensitive teenager with an artistic talent, is struggling with a drug addiction. Her brother, the film director, decides to take a closer look at the family to understand what might have caused this difficult situation.
The Mona Lisa Curse is a Grierson award-winning polemic documentary by art critic Robert Hughes that examines how the world's most famous painting came to influence the art world. With his trademark style, Hughes explores how museums, the production of art and the way we experience it have radically changed in the last 50 years, telling the story of the rise of contemporary art and looking back over a life spent talking and writing about the art he loves, and loathes. In these postmodern days it has been said that there is no more passé a vocation than that of the professional art critic. Perceived as the gate keeper for opinions regarding art and culture, the art critic has supposedly been rendered obsolete by an ever expanding pluralism in the art world, where all practices and disciplines are purported to be equal and valid. Robert Hughes, however, is one art critic who has delivered a message that must not be ignored.
A documentary about a 78-year-old Indian woman in New York who is the world's most passionate theatergoer. Nicki Cochrane has been seeing a play every day for more than 25 years, acquiring free tickets using a variety of ingenious means.
There’s no one taste or flavor to define a neighborhood, especially one like the Lower East Side. Follow us on a culinary journey of food traditions born out of tenement life. Using historic and archival recipes, oral histories, scholarly interviews, and special guests Padma Lakshmi and Michael W. Twitty, we create a full-course meal of the American experience through the lens of food.
The film is set on the streets of Groningen and highlights the intimate and invisible parts of Joram, his work and his studio: the street. Both the residents and visitors of the street are captured by Joram's raw, confrontational and intimate portraits. In the film, Joram and the many people he portrays talk about Joram, his work and life.
Swiping. Dating. Ghosting. Have you wondered what was really going on in your date's head? "Sex, Love, Misery" reveals candid thoughts and encounters between diverse singles looking to mingle or marry, from initial texts to hook ups and beyond.
Time Is Illmatic is a feature length documentary film that delves deep into the making of Nas' 1994 debut album, Illmatic, and the social conditions that influenced its creation.
Filmmakers Alan and Susan Raymond spent three months in 1976 riding along with patrol officers in the 44th Precinct of the South Bronx, which had the highest crime rate in New York City at that time.
Funk legend Sly Stone disappeared from the limelight for more than 20 years. Musicians and the media tried to find the recluse but failed. In 2005 Willem Alkema started searching for Sly. Sly didn't want to be found or filmed, but Willem didn't give up and finally followed Sly in his first steps on stage in decades.
In 1910, the Pennsylvania Railroad successfully accomplished the enormous engineering feat of building tunnels under New York City's Hudson and East Rivers, connecting the railroad to New York and New England, knitting together the entire eastern half of the United States. The tunnels terminated in what was one of the greatest architectural achievements of its time, Pennsylvania Station. Penn Station covered nearly eight acres, extended two city blocks, and housed one of the largest public spaces in the world. But just 53 years after the station’s opening, the monumental building that was supposed to last forever, to herald and represent the American Empire, was slated to be destroyed.
The best known, "Weegee's New York" (1948), presents a surprisingly lyrical view of the city without a hint of crime or murder. Already this film gives evidence, here very restrained, of Weegee's interest in technical tricks: blur, speeded up or slowed-down film, a lens that makes the city's streets curve as if cars are driving over a rainbow. - The New York Times
An intimate portrait of a community fighting to save lives and keep hope alive in a neighborhood ravaged by the overdose crisis.
An in-depth investigation into the private world of the American writer J. D. Salinger (1919-2010), who lived most of his life behind the impenetrable wall of a self-imposed seclusion: how his dramatic experiences during World War II influenced his life and work, his relationships with very young women, his obsessive writing methods, his many literary secrets.
The life and tragic death of Whitney Houston.
Using previously unheard audiotapes recorded shortly after John Belushi’s death, director R.J. Cutler’s documentary feature examines the too-short life of the once-in-a-generation talent who captured the hearts and funny bones of devoted audiences.
A documentary on the life of Amy Winehouse, the immensely talented yet doomed songstress. We see her from her teen years, where she already showed her singing abilities, to her finding success and then her downward spiral into alcoholism and drugs.
This documentary follows three women — a fire chief, a judge, and a street missionary — as they battle West Virginia's devastating opioid epidemic.
Hailed as one of the most innovative and intimate documentaries of all time, experience Kurt Cobain like never before in the only ever fully authorized portrait of the famed music icon. Academy Award nominated filmmaker Brett Morgen expertly blends Cobain's personal archive of art, music, never seen before movies, animation and revelatory interviews from his family and closest friends.
Where does voguing come from, and what, exactly, is throwing shade? This landmark documentary provides a vibrant snapshot of the 1980s through the eyes of New York City's African American and Latinx Harlem drag-ball scene. Made over seven years, PARIS IS BURNING offers an intimate portrait of rival fashion "houses," from fierce contests for trophies to house mothers offering sustenance in a world rampant with homophobia, transphobia, racism, AIDS, and poverty. Featuring legendary voguers, drag queens, and trans women — including Willi Ninja, Pepper LaBeija, Dorian Corey, and Venus Xtravaganza.
Those who knew iconic funnyman John Candy best share his story, in their own words, through never-before-seen archival footage, imagery, and interviews.
In candid conversations with actor Jonah Hill, leading psychiatrist Phil Stutz explores his early life experiences and unique, visual model of therapy.
As a visually radical memoir, CAMERAPERSON draws on the remarkable footage that filmmaker Kirsten Johnson has shot and reframes it in ways that illuminate moments and situations that have personally affected her. What emerges is an elegant meditation on the relationship between truth and the camera frame, as Johnson transforms scenes that have been presented on Festival screens as one kind of truth into another kind of story—one about personal journey, craft, and direct human connection.
A doomed love triangle between intrepid French scientists Katia and Maurice Krafft, and their beloved volcanoes.
The life and career of one of comedy's most inimitable modern voices, Mr. Gilbert Gottfried.
As boxing's popularity wanes, three fighters at different stages of their career make sacrifices to pursue their dreams of becoming champions.
In a hypercompetitive world, drugs like Adderall offer students, athletes, coders and others a way to do more -- faster and better. But at what cost?
In the Mexican state of Michoacán, Dr. Jose Mireles, a small-town physician known as "El Doctor," shepherds a citizen uprising against the Knights Templar, the violent drug cartel that has wreaked havoc on the region for years. Meanwhile, in Arizona's Altar Valley—a narrow, 52-mile-long desert corridor known as Cocaine Alley—Tim "Nailer" Foley, an American veteran, heads a small paramilitary group called Arizona Border Recon, whose goal is to halt Mexico’s drug wars from seeping across our border.
An intimately raw and magical journey through the life, mind, and heart of iconic artist Frida Kahlo. Told through her own words for the very first time — drawn from her diary, revealing letters, essays, and print interviews — and brought vividly to life by lyrical animation inspired by her unforgettable artwork.
2002 HBO Stand-up Special starring Robin Williams. Recorded and broadcast live from New Your City's Broadway Theater at the culmination of his historic 2002 sold-out tour, this special finds the Oscar-winning actor/writer/comedian returning after 16 years to his stand-up roots to deliver what the Washington Post calls "...in its madcap way, a seminal cultural event."
Offbeat documentarian Chris Smith provides a behind-the-scenes look at how Jim Carrey adopted the persona of idiosyncratic comedian Andy Kaufman on the set of Man on the Moon.
An in-depth look at the prison system in the United States and how it reveals the nation's history of racial inequality.
