The Alpha and the Mega
What is a megachurch?
Within the world of religion there exists a church so large it houses thousands of people, so popular that it brings in millions of dollars every year, so influential that it can sway a presidential election, and so misunderstood that less than 15% of America knows the truth about the megachurch. Over 1,250 megachurches are spread across the United States and with their growing numbers comes growing opposition to their size, their methods, and their ideology.
'The Alpha and the Mega' explores the megachurch phenomenon with a look at the different types of megachurches, their origins, and of course their opposition.
Find out the real truth about America's largest churches.
Executive Producer: Morgan Mead
Director: Morgan Mead
Runtime: 60 min
American Faust: From Condi to Neo Condi
A hard-hitting portrait of one of the chief players in the Bush Administration.
Producer: Diana DeCillo
Associate Producer: Evan Friedman, Liz Lovern
Co-Producer: Matthew Woolf
Director, Producer, Executive Producer: Sebastian Doggart
Runtime: 1 hr 30 min
An Article of Hope
'An Article of Hope' is a story of survival, hope, triumph, and faith. It is an inspiring documentary film that details the life mission of Col. Ilan Ramon, the first and only Astronaut from Israel, who blasted off into space aboard the Shuttle Columbia. For his fateful journey, Col. Ramon carried with him a cherished artifact, a miniature Torah scroll, that had survived the horrors of the Holocaust. From the 'depths of Hell to the heights of space,' his simple gesture would serve to honor the hope of a nation and to fulfill a promise made to generations past and future.
Directed by: Dan Cohen
Runtime: 54 min
Arabian Silk: Horses of Endurance
Co-Director; Script Supervisor: Alex Bacchus
Producer: Christine Lazzarini
Director: Tony Lazzarini
Runtime: 49 min
A Blooming Business
The roses we enjoy may come with more thorns than we realize. Delving deep into the heart of the global flower industry, A BLOOMING BUSINESS shows us the difficult reality behind the pretty flowers. In Kenya, giant flower factories use massive amounts of pesticides and chemicals to keep their flowers alive and then pollute the local water supply, harming the very same people they employ. A revealing investigation into the horrific working conditions and sexual abuse that the workers must endure in order to keep their job. A BLOOMING BUSINESS explores the human and environmental repercussions of the floral industry.
A rose may no longer smell as sweet.
Director: Ton van Zantvoort
Runtime: 52 min
Autism Made in the USA
Autism. What is it and why is it on the rise? In this feature length documentary, award winning producer and director Gary Null is on a quest to reveal the true causes and promising solutions for the recent dramatic increase in autism in our children. Is Autism caused by mercury, aluminum, viruses, or other toxins contained in the 40-odd intravenous vaccines that every American child must receive? What environmental or genetic factors could be contributing to the epidemic increase in childhood autism? In this pioneering educational film, Dr. Null will be interviewing the world’s leading experts on autism. A full spectrum of medical and scientific views will be presented, both orthodox and non-traditional, to get at the real reasons behind this childhood scourge. Novel effective therapies will be explored, showing that both the problem and solution of autism could be linked to weakened childhood immune systems, the inability of some children to rid their bodies of heavy metals and injected viruses, and unusual reactions to environmental toxins, foods, and proteins. Some of these natural solutions are being challenged by the pharmaceutical industry as unproven. Could it be that the drug companies stand too much to lose from a more critical scrutiny of our national policy of compulsory vaccinations for infants and children? In, Autism: Made in the USA, Gary Null, will peel away the misconceptions, and show how concerned parents and health care providers can finally take some solace in finding effective treatments for this debilitating childhood disease.
Runtime: 101 min
Back to the Garden: Flower Power comes full circle.
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. The film captures a time-lapse view of these back-to-the-landers told with moving personal stories of dedicated tribal families—lots of freedom but little cash, unflinching grass-roots activism and hippie kids who today ask whether free love was really free.
Producer: Judy Meryl Kaplan
Director:Kevin Tomlinson
Editor:Tim Cash
Runtime: 70 min
Ballhawks
Ballhawks is the story of the group of men who have been chasing baseballs and dreams just outside the ivy-covered walls of Wrigley Field, for the last one-hundred years.
Executive Producer: Joel Murray
Associate Producer: Josh Hamilton
Director, Producer: Michael Diedrich
Production Assistant: Terry Hahin
Runtime:1 hr 14 min
Beyond Borders
Beyond Borders moves past the headlines and takes an in-depth look at the hot-button issues of legal and illegal immigration. Beyond Borders explores the psychological forces driving the immigration controversy from both sides of the debate. Anti-immigration activists demand we stop this "illegal alien invasion,” while some pro-immigration forces speak of a Reconquista, a reclaiming of the American Southwest by Mexico. In search of a middle ground, Beyond Borders travels across the U.S. and beyond to give voices to those on the front-line of this issue, including candid interviews with Border Patrol agents, radio celebrities, demographers, the Minute Men, potential migrants, and a host of experts including Noam Chomsky (Distorted Morality) and Gustavo Arellano (Ask A Mexican). Beyond Borders is an entertaining and enlightening film that asks: Is migration a basic human right?
Writer, Editor, Director: Brian Ging
Burning in the Sun
A young man starts a local business in Mali building and selling solar panels to rural customers, 99% of whom live without power.
Director, Producer: Cambria Matlow
Co-Producer: Claire Weingarten
Director, Producer: Morgan Robinson
Cinematographer/DPr: Cambria Matlow
Runtime: 1hr 21 min
Cooking Up Dreams
Can an entire nation be represented by its cuisine? This documentary journeys to the kitchens of Peru’s coast, highlands and jungle, as well as Peruvian expat communities in Paris, London, Amsterdam and New York for answers. From the most humble family kitchens to the poshest restaurants, from stories of pioneering Peruvian chefs abroad to those who preserve ancient recipes at home, we find that Peru’s cuisine is a deliciously integrating for its people, who have historically been marked by ethnic and economic differences. Renowned chefs such as Gastón Acurio, Ferran Adrià, Juan Mari Arzak and Bernardo Roca Rey share their views on Peru’s cuisine alongside those unsung chefs, who also dream of Peru’s cuisine as a motor of development.
Producer/Director: Ernesto Cabellos
Producer:Susana Araujo
Editors:Antolin Prieto, Lessandro Socrates
Sound Design:Jose Balado
Original Music:Martin Choy-Yin
Runtime: 75 min
Crab Feast or Famine
For 400 years, generations of watermen have fished and crabbed the Chesapeake Bay. Recently, scientists have concluded that the crab population has dropped by 70% in the last 10 years. Virginia and Maryland have imposed stricter regulations on crabbing to reduce the harvest by 34%. The crab season will end a month early and winter dredging will be cut completely making the watermen unable to crab for five months out of the year. This is causing an economic hardship for watermen and their families, particularly on Tangier Island, VA. This politically charged story is told from the point of view of a Virgina waterman as he puts in a day and seeks to educate the public about what is being done in the Bay's clean-up efforts.
Producer, Director: Kat Moon
Runtime:23 min
Dancing from the Heart: Journey of a Pueblo Dance Family
Andrew Garcia of San Juan Pueblo and his charismatic family of dancers give a rare inside view of the historically mysterious and magnetic Pueblo culture and show how it is handed down from generation to generation. Dances in varied locales alternate with preparations, feast days, learning and prayers.
Collaborating Director: Andrew Garcia, Bruce Lewis, Christopher Jeans, Girish Bhargava
Director, Producer, Executive Producer: Maryilyn Hunt
Runtime: 44 min
The DeVilles
The Devilles is about a strong and not quite uncomplicated love. The Devilles is about the American burlesque stripper Teri Lee Geary (aka Kitten DeVille) and her punk rock singer husband Shawn Geary. Teri and Shawn live in a self imposed time bubble of 1950’s and 1980’s romance. It applies to their looks, their home and their lifestyle. Teri looks like Marilyn Monroe and Shawn looks like Joe Strummer from The Clash. Aesthetics are a huge part of their identity. The story is a journey into The Devilles’ universe, where two people don’t want to grow up and define themselves by their symbiotic love. Their Lives are so fused; there are only a few boundaries left. The main characters Tery and Shawn are controlled by a love addiction which is not without consequences and which can be very self0destructive. In their twosomeness jealousy and attempts to control each other often arise. The film meets them at a time in their 25 years long relationship, where the lifestyle and the love all of a sudden have a back edge. How do they break up with this life? The film is trying to show the different nuances as in their love; the vehemence, the ugliness, the beauty and the tenderness.
A Film by: Nicole N. Itoranyi
Runtime: 56 min
Dirty Bloody Hippies
Dirty Bloody Hippies is a fascinating, funny and poignant hippy trip back to 1970's New Zealand. This one hour documentary takes viewers to the epicenters of New Zealand hippy culture, the Coromandel Peninsula and Golden Bay, to see what came of this colorful and exciting time.
Director: Dan Salmon
Producer: William Grieve
Runtime: 50 min
Dive
Dive! follows Jeremy Seifert and friends as they dumpster dive in the back alleys and gated garbage recptacles of Los Angeles' supermarkets. In the process they salvage thousands of dollars worth of good food and uncover a disturbing truth about waste in America. The goal quickly becomes to find out why so much edible food is thrown away instead of being delivered to those who need it. The result is equal parts entertainment, guerilla journalism and call to action.
A Film By: Jeremy Seifert
Runtime: 23 min
Death and Taxes
Meet 28 people from around the U.S. who talk about why and how they resist paying taxes for war and where that choice takes them. This 30-minute film includes music by Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings and Antibalas. It features scens from street protests and sit-in demanding that hard-earned tax dollars be used for peace and not for killing. Is anything worth a tangle with the IRS?
Produced by: Natinal War Tax Resistance Coordinatin Committee
Runtime: 30 min
Drowning River
When rising folk singer and starlet, Katie Lee, left Hollywood in 1954 and arrived in the untamed canyon lands of Arizona and Utah, the direction of her life changed forever. "Drowning River" captures the spirit of Katie Lee, a fighter for the cause of saving her beloved Glen Canyon from being drowned and forgotten under the rising waters of Lake Powell Reservoir. From folk song to protest song, Katie Lee, along with friends Edward Abbey, Tad Nichols, and Chuck Bowden photographed and wrote a plethora of appeals to spare one of the most beautiful canyons on the planet.
Producer: ML Lincoln
Director: ML Lincol
Director of Photography: Mychael Dylan Brenk
Editor: Susan Green
Runtime: 20 min
The Edge of Dreaming
Scottish filmmaker Amy Hardie has built a career making science documentaries that reflect her rational temperament. When she dreamed one night that her horse was dying, only to wake the next morning and find the horse dead, she dismissed the incident as a coincidence. Then she dreamed she would die at age 48 — only one year away. When Hardie does get ill, just as the dream predicted, she visits neuroscience experts and eventually a shaman. The Edge of Dreaming is an evocative, intimate chronicle of that year and a fascinating investigation into the human subconscious.
Director: Amy Hardie
Runtime: 84 min
El Corazon de Santa Fe
In the context of Santa Fe's 400th anniversary, the film explores the city's fascinating treasures of art, history, faith, lore, and legend. From the ancient pre-history of native peoples to the famed courtesan Dona Tules in the 1800s, Santa Fe has been home to icons and characters of every kind and description. Through interviews with famous historians and out-spoken critics, using archival materials and historic reenactments, the film explores the drama that has unfolded on the Royal City's stage since time immemorial. From the depths of the Cathedral Basilica's catacombs to secret sects in remote mountain villages, never-before-seen footage takes the viewer across space and through time to reveal Santa Fe as repository of a sacred collective memory; portraying the essence of a culture that is centuries in the making and enduring in its legacy.
Associate Producer: Jaima Chevalier
Associate Producer: Kevin Spivey
Director, Producer: Tony Martinez
Writer: Tony Martinez
Animator:Joey and Josh Curry
Runtime: 80 min
Erasing David
DAVID BOND lives in one of the most intrusive surveillance states in the world. He decides to find out how much private companies and the government know about him by putting himself under surveillance and attempting to disappear – a decision that changes his life forever. Leaving his pregnant wife and young child behind, he is tracked across the database state on a chilling journey that forces him to contemplate the meaning of privacy – and the loss of it.
Once the bastion of freedom and civil liberties, the UK is now one of the most advanced surveillance societies in the world – ranked third after Russia and China. The average UK adult is now registered on over 700 databases and is caught daily on one of the 4 million CCTV cameras located on nearly every street corner in the country. Increasingly monitored, citizens are being turned into suspects. But if you’ve got nothing to hide, surely there’s nothing to fear?
When David receives a letter informing him that his daughter Ivy is among 25 million residents whose details have been lost by the government’s Child Benefit Office, he begins a journey that will see him hounded across Europe.
David soon discovers some alarming truths about what the government and private companies already know about ordinary citizens. He meets people who have been caught in the crossfire of the database state and have had their lives shattered.
As his concern grows, he makes a life-changing decision. He will leave his pregnant wife and child behind and put himself under surveillance for thirty days. The UK’s top Private Investigators are hired to discover everything they can about him and his family – and track David down as he attempts to vanish. Is it still possible to live a private, anonymous life in the UK? Or do the state and private companies already know too much about ordinary people?
Forced to contemplate the meaning of privacy – and the loss of it, David’s disturbing journey leaves him with no doubt that although he has nothing to hide, he certainly has something to fear…
Editors: Steve Barclay, Wojclech Duczmal
Director: David Bond
Producer: Ashley Jones
Co-Director/Producer: Melinda McDougall
Runtime: 80 min
Erectionman
How one little pill changed the course of sexual evolution.
The Erectionman (aka. De Viagraman) tracks the history of a little pill that popped on to the market ten years ago, and turned the world upside down. These tiny blue diamonds are also known as Viagra. Nosy and armed with a healthy dose of humor, the director discovers a tale about virility, anxiety and the state of our modern-day man.
Director: Michael Schaap
Runtime: 50 min
FAMILY AFFAIR
At 10 years old, Chico Colvard accidentally shot his older sister in the leg. This seemingly random act detonated a chain reaction that exposed unspeakable realities and shattered his family. Thirty years later, Colvard ruptures veils of secrecy and silence again. As he bravely visits his relatives, what unfolds is a personal film that’s as uncompromising, raw, and cathartic as any in the history of the medium. Driving the story forward is Colvard’s sensitive probing of a complex dynamic: the way his three sisters survived severe childhood abuse by their father and, as adults, manage to muster loyalty to him. These unforgettable, invincible women paint a picture of their harrowing girlhoods as they resiliently struggle with present-day fallout. The distance time gives them from their trauma yields piercing insights about the legacy of abuse, the nature of forgiveness, and eternal longing for family and love. These truths may be too searing to bear, but they reverberate powerfully within each of us.
Director/Producer: Chico David Colvard
Editor:Rachel J. Clark
Producer: Liz Garbus
Composer: Miriam Cutler
Executive Producers: Dan Cogan, Abigail Disney
Runtime: 80 min
Foul Water/Fiery Serpent
Foul Water Fiery Serpent is a documentary feature film following dedicated health workers engaged in a final battle to eradicate Guinea worm disease in Africa. For thousands of years the parasite has caused disabling misery, infecting people who drink water contaminated with the worm's larvae. In 1986, there were 3.5 million cases in 20 countries in Africa and Asia. But after a 23 year eradication campaign, the total number of cases dropped to 3,142 at the end of 2009. For nearly three years the film tracks teams of men and women as they fight to wipe out the last Guinea worms. Following the victory against smallpox, Guinea worm will be the next disease in the history of mankind to be eradicated.
Director: Gary Strieker
Executive Producer: Hannah Park, John Moores
Co-Producer: Walter Biscardi
Runtime: 85 min
The Good Fight: James Farmer Remembers the Civil Rights Movement
When he rolled into the Jim Crow South on a Greyhound bus - a black man sitting in the whites-only front seat - James Farmer was scared. “Courage is not being unafraid, but doing what needs to be done in spite of fear,” said the organizer of the Freedom Rides and pioneer of the earliest sit-ins. A relentless leader, a dynamic speaker, and a forceful organizer, Farmer was one of the first civil rights activists to use nonviolent direct action to fight for dignity and justice. Yet at what cost? His own family suffered from his frequent absences, prison stays, and threats made on his life. And, he was continually disappointed in his lack of recognition, especially after witnessing the momentous legacy of Martin Luther King, a man ten years his junior. 'The Good Fight' chronicles Farmer’s life from his earliest days as a “Great Debater” at Wiley College to his legacy teaching a new generation of students about the movement that shaped a country.
Produced, Directed, and Edited by: Jessica Schoenbaechler
Runtime: 66 min
GREENLIT
Movie people are legendarily liberal and left leaning, particularly when it comes to the environment. Greenlit puts their commitment to the test as filmmaker Miranda Bailey (executive producer of The Squid and the Whale) follows the production of The River Why, starring Zach Gilford (Friday Night Lights) as it attempts to keep an environmentally friendly set thanks to the supervision of a “green” consultant. What starts off with great enthusiasm quickly devolves in this insightful and hilarious film.
Director/Producer:Miranda Bailey
Producer: Lauren Selman
Executive Producers:Matthew Leutwyler, Amanda Marshall
Associate Producer:Dean Mozian
Produce, Director of Photography:Marc Lesser
Composer:Craig Richey
Runtime: 50 min
Hope Without Future?
Hope Without Future? introduces Raju and Mamina, a young Nepalese couple who, like many children in Nepal, spent their youth without parents and living at great risk. Now both in their early twenties, they have each made it through many personal hardships - poverty, abuse and drug addiction - to find one another and love. They have worked hard to build a life together and start a family and believe that they can have a future.
Yet their hopes for a better life are reliant on Nepal finding political stability. After 13 years of insurgency, at a cost of over ten thousand lives, the Maoist party finally came to the negotiating table. After two failed attempts, an election was set to take place in April 2008 under the threat of violent clashes and bombings. It was hoped the election would create a constituent assembly to write the country’s first constitution, elect a Prime-minister and, most importantly, remove the monarch and in doing so turn the country into a republic. It would be a country governed by the people for the first time.
The film closely follows the election process and the key candidates as voting takes place, discovering what is needed to turn a country away from severe poverty to development. For Raju and Mamina, like the majority of Nepal, the outcome of the elections would be the best hope for an end to the continued years of struggle and insecurity and a new course to a more prosperous future.
Directed and Written: Duncan Jepson
Producers: Charmaine Li and Duncan Jepson
Editor: Simon Tan
Co-Producer: Page Ostrow
Cinematographer: Cohen Leung
Runtime: 85 min
Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child
Centered on a rare interview that director and friend Tamra Davis shot with Basquiat over twenty years ago, this definitive documentary chronicles the meteoric rise and fall of the young artist. In the crime-ridden NYC of the 1970s, he covers the city with the graffiti tag SAMO. In 1981 he puts paint on canvas for the first time, and by 1983 he is an artist with “rock star status.” He achieves critical and commercial success, though he is constantly confronted by racism from his peers. In 1985 he and Andy Warhol become close friends and painting collaborators, but they part ways and Warhol dies suddenly in 1987. Basquiat’s heroin addiction worsens, and he dies of an overdose in 1988 at the age of 27. The artist was 25 years old at the height of his career, and today his canvases sell for more than a million dollars. With compassion and psychological insight, Tamra Davis details the mysteries that surround this charismatic young man, an artist of enormous talent whose fortunes mirrored the rollercoaster quality of the downtown scene he seemed to embody.
Featuring interviews with Julian Schnabel, Larry Gagosian, Bruno Bischofberger, Tony Shafrazi, Fab 5 Freddy, Jeffrey Deitch, Glenn O'Brien, Maripol, Kai Eric, Nicholas Taylor, Fred Hoffmann, Michael Holman, Diego Cortez, Annina Nosei, Suzanne Mallouk, Rene Ricard, Kenny Scharf, among many others.
Producers: David Koh, Lilly Bright, Stanley Buchthal, Alexis Manya Spraic
A Film by: Tamra Davis
Editor: Alexis Manya Spraic
Runtime: 88 min
Klunkerz
In the late 1960’sw and early 1970’s a handful of hippie cyclists literally re-invented the wheel. These early pioneers scavenged frames from dumpsters and junkyards and lifted parts from road bikes and motorcycles to build a better way down the mountain. Little did they realize, their obsessive tinkering would ultimately lead to the birth of a multi-billion dollar industry and an Olympic sport. These modified bikes, the precursor to the modern day mountain bike, became affectionately known as klunkerz.
Runtime: 83 min
The Last Word
The inevitable story of failure every American has anticipated but hoped would never have to be told. This documentary takes the “Innocent Man on Texas Death Row” tale to a dark corner feared by all - proving that an innocent man has been executed by the State.
A clash between good and evil strikes up on the High Plains of Texas when Johnny Frank Garrett, a 17 year old retarded boy is arrested, convicted and ultimately executed for the Halloween night rape, mutilation and murder of Sister Tadea Benz. The 76 year old nun was attacked while she slept in her room at the St. Francis Convent in Amarillo, Texas. Garrett claimed his innocence from the time of his arrest until his dying breath. Sixteen years after Garrett’s execution new evidence rose up from the cold case grave of the Amarillo Police Department proving they executed the wrong man!
During interviews with key players the case of Johnny Frank Garrett unfolds as a recipe for executing the innocent. A death penalty obsessed District Attorney and his lap-dog Medical Examiner, ladder climbing cops, bloodthirsty media, enraged and fearful jurors, incompetent defense lawyers, politicized judges, witch-hunting religious zealots and an ironfisted Governor with national ambitions meld together as perfect ingredients for a plate of government sponsored murder.
In Garrett’s final statement he professed his innocence one last time but did so in a voice driven by hate and vengeance. In his chilling conclusion Garrett promised those responsible for his murder that someday he would have the last word and they would pay for what they had done. For most of Garrett’s enemies “someday” happened long ago.
Regardless of faith, for or against the death penalty, liberal or conservative The Last Word compels viewers to feel not only the collective pain our societal conscience suffers for executing the innocent but also the individual fear of not knowing what margins of error our judges, jurors and executioners will find acceptable tomorrow.
Director: Jesse Quackenbush
Narrated By:Tom Kane
Edited By:Kyle High
Music By:Peter Davison
Sound Design:Sam Aronson
Runtime: 90 min
The Leftovers
Join us on this dumpster diver adventure with long term devotes Paul and Mykel as your tour guides on their waste fuelled journey down the east coast of Australia. With no money, no food, driving only on vegetable fuel they plan to drive 2000 km in 7 days living on nothing but societies waste.
Along on the trip they bring with them Nick from Scotland who?s in for the thrill, Sofia an international student from Sweden who wants to see more of Australia and Krystal who just wants to get out of Brisbane. The three new apprentices have never been dumpster diving before and they have no idea what to expect.
For the least experienced of the team, will their first adrenalin-pumping dive into dumpster living be remembered as the dawn of a new age or the holiday from hell? Far from the basic comforts of home, faced with the uncertainty of not knowing when and where their next meal will come from, they can only hope for fun times ahead.
Directors: Michael Cavanagh and Kersten Ubelacker
Producers: WG Film
Runtime: 28 min
Loving Lampposts
What would you call a four year old who caresses all the lampposts in the park? Quirky? Unusual? Or sick? Such labels are at the center of the debate about autism. Is it a disease or a different way of being--or both? After his son's diagnosis, filmmaker Todd Drezner visits the front lines of the autism wars. We meet parents desperate for a cure, visit conferences where vendors hawk vitamins and hyperbaric chambers, hear from advocates who fight for 'neurodiversity,' and follow a group of autistic children and adults whose lives show that 'if you've met one autistic person, you've met one autistic person.'
Producer: Lauren Silver
Director: Todd Drezner
Runtime: 1hr 22 min
On the Other Side of Life
Lucky and Bongani pretend to be cool and in the know. To survive in a Cape Town township, they learned their lessons early: where to get drugs, where to get money, how to pick up girls and how to get rid of them.
Their mother does not pay much attention to her sons, but at least their grandmother is on their side. The two brothers share everything: the bed, the food and now even an accusation of murder. The first thing they get in prison is an unmistakable lesson about the rules there. No question, newcomers are always at the bottom of the hierarchy. They must learn quickly who may be attacked and who must be served. A matter of survival in jail.
Out on bail, something special awaits them – an initiation of a different kind.
The brothers move through three cultures, each of which calls for its own gestures and rituals. The deep rift between the generations becomes painfully obvious. The old people still have the sense of honour of African tradition; their successors have only a tiny chance of escaping the squalid suburbs. What will be their package in life?
Through a clever dramatic narrative structure, the film rises above a social environment study to become a far-ranging discourse about the future of an Africa ground to pieces between tradition and modernity.
Producers, Directors, Cinematographers: Stefanie Brockhaus, Andy Wolff
Comissioning EditorNatalie Lambsdorff
Faculty AdvisorHeiner Stadler
EditorsStefanie Brockhause, Andy Wolff, Ulrike Tortora
Comissioning EditorNatalie Lambsdorff
Sound EditingMarc Parisotto
Sound MixMichael Hinreiner
Runtime:88 min
One Summer at Camp Winston
At Camp Winston, uniqueness is the norm. The camp acepts children with complex neurological disorders that include autism, Tourette Syndrome, and Asperger's Syndrome. Each Camper is kind of like a salad. says camp director Denis fruchter, who has Tourette's as well as ADHD. Filmed in an intimate verite style, we follow as the summer unfolds and watch as these children, often branded as different, disturbed, derided, and ignored, are given the opportunity to grow a little, have a lot of fun, learn, and be embraced for exactly who they are.
Director: Karen Shopsowitz
Producer: David Brady
Cinematographer: Marc Landau
Runtime:46 min
Oro Verde
Different people working on the most soughtern tea-growing in the world, are intertwined to build a relaxed look on smll moments and details of the routing about gold green, as some residents called the Tea of the zone of Campo Viera and Obera in pcia. Misiones, Argentina.
Director: Estela Roberta Sanchez
Producer: Estela Roberta Sanchez
Camera: Daniel Calvo
Sound Mixer: Sebastian Pappalardo
Runtime: 14 min
Our House
On Dan Taylor’s first day out of prison, he had nowhere to go and faced a lifechanging decision: he could return to his past of drug addiction or try for something better. Through a chance encounter he met Derek, a young Christian anarchist, who invited him to move into a new and very unusual community called ‘Our House’. An alternative to the impersonal homeless shelter system, ‘Our House’ was an under-the-radar, illegal squat where the founders and the homeless lived and ate communally in an abandoned warehouse. Besides a roof and daily meals, Dan also found lasting friendships, a spiritual haven in a makeshift ‘prayer tent,’ and the hope of putting his life back together. But when the warehouse is set for demolition to make way for luxury condos, Dan and the other residents must confront the inevitable end of their community and what that will mean for their futures.
Directed, Shot, Edited:Greg King and David Teague
Produce:Greg King
Music:Jason Noble
Sound Edit and Mix:Alex Noyes
Runtime:56 min
Pelada
Away from professional stadiums, bright lights, and manicured fields, there’s another side of soccer. Tucked away on alleys, side streets, and concrete courts, people play in improvised games. Every country has a different word for it. In the United States, we call it pick-up soccer. In Trinidad, it’s “taking a sweat.” In England, it’s “having a kick-about.” In Brazil, the word is “pelada,” which literally means “naked”-the game stripped down to its core. It’s the version of the game played by anyone, anywhere.
Pelada is a documentary following Luke and Gwendolyn, two former college soccer stars who didn’t quite make it to the pros. Not ready for it to be over, they take off to over twenty countries around the world, chasing the game-the global phenomenon spanning gender, race, religion, and class. The film tells the stories of the players they meet along the way.
At San Pedro Prison in Bolivia, an inmate says, “Here we have nothing. Our life is to play.” In Nairobi, a moonshine brewer confides, “Down here, everybody thinks you’re just another drunkard, but when you get to the field, people say, ‘Oh, that person can play.” A day after a terrorist attack, Arabs and Jews occupy the same court in Jerusalem but refuse to play on the same team, saying, “There are people who act like football is above politics, but this is bullshit.” From women in hijab playing in Tehran, to eighty-year-olds who play barefoot in Brazil, Pelada is the story of people who play.
Filmmakers: Luke Boughen, Gwendolyn Oxenham, Rebekah Fergusson, Ryan White
Runtime: 91 min
Pollphail
Creative documentary painting a startling portrait of a village in limbo, through the eyes of two men who share an obsession with the strange place. Director Matthew Lloyd explores the imagiend future for the village, combining unusual use of archive with stunning photography and a haunting soundscape.
Producer: Carina Wilson
Executive Producer: Sarah Tierney, Sonja Henrici, and Noe Mendelle
Director: Matthew Lloyd
Camera: Minttumaari Mantynen
Editor: Timo Langer
Music: Neil Simpson, and Mike Gallagher
Runtime: 10 min
Prayers for Peace
Pastels on a slate chalkboard underscore life's impermanence as the artist confronts the memory of his younger brother killed in Iraq.
Director; Producer: Dustin Grella
Co-Producer: Matt Israel
Writer: Dustin Grella
Runtime: 8 min
Promised Land
Promised Land follows two black communities in South Africa that are trying to get land back they say their ancestors were removed from during apartheid. The land is currently owned by white landowners and the film follows the multi-year efforts of both groups to get and keep possession of the land. The Megkareng are an impoverished, semi-literate tribe who are up against a coalition of wealthy white farmers and developers who say the Mekgareng have no right to claim the land. The Molamus are an educated, middle – class black family armed with lawyers and financial resources. They are fighting Hannes Visser a white farmer who refuses to vacate the contested land. Visser says it is his business, his livelihood and that he has nowhere else to go. Through these stories, the epic battle over land and race is played out with very real consequences for all sides. The film raises the fundamental questions of what is a fair price to get justice for a historical wrong and who must pay. Promised Land is unique in showing both sides of the land conflict and examining the intense economic and political exigencies that land inequality has created in South Africa. The audience will see why many inside the country call the land issue ‘the ticking time bomb’ that has the potential to destroy the fragile racial compact that the new South Africa was built upon.
Director and Producer: Yoruba Richen
Runtime: 53 min
Rapping in Tehran
Young people's tough struggle against the rigid rules of a government of old men. Music and a lifestyle that are strictly forbidden but unstoppable.
Director: Hassan Khademi
Producer: Hassan Khademi
Runtime: 37 min
Remix to Rio
REMIX TO RIO is a one-hour Documentary that follows Canada's most innovative youth outreach organization, REMIX Project, to the toughest favelas in Rio De Janeiro as they test their revolutionary hip-hop outreach model on some of today's most 'unreachable' youth.
Director; Producer: Ravi Steve
Runtime: 1 hr 01 min
Roll Out, Cowboy
Chris “Sandman” Sand is a rappin’ cowboy from Dunn Center, North Dakota (population: 120 and shrinking). He drives a semi, plays the guitar and raps. He looks like Woody Guthrie but sings like Dr. Dre. Roll Out, Cowboy follows the 39-year-old country/hip-hop musician as he tours the American West during the 2008 Presidential election. Small town America isn’t as conservative as we think.
Director, Producer: Elizabeth Lawrence
Producer: Warner Boutin
Editor: Elizabeth Ross
Runtime: 75 min
The Shark Con
When Director Rusty Armstrong accompanied Shark Diver magazine Editor Eli Martinez on a shark diving trek, the importance of shark conservation was shared by everyone they met. Overfishing and finning were the reasons for global shark depletion and had to be stopped. Toward the end of the trip, Rusty met a retired shark fisherman who had different ideas about shark conservation…and The Shark Con was born.
The shark fisherman Rusty met commercially fished sharks for three decades, and kept extensive notes about his catches and shark migrations. In 1997, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) attempted to put an end to overfishing and heavily reduced the shark fishing quotas. When the new regulations began to take effect, his livelihood suffered dramatically. He mentioned to the NMFS a well-known scientist who had completed ground-breaking shark research potentially proving sharks couldn’t be overfished, but his work was dismissed as well. Eventually, like many other fishermen, the new regulations put him out of business.
After hearing the fisherman’s story, Rusty began exploring the world of shark conservation – and what he learned was startling. The shark diving tourism industry, comprised of people with a common goal of protecting sharks, was suffering from new regulations being imposed on them as well. Rusty also discovered that many non-profit organizations were raising millions of dollars each year for shark research, yet very little research was actually being done. Meanwhile, more and more regulations were being implemented.
What were the results of the studies being conducted by the NMFS? Why were these new regulations being implemented? The answers found were disturbing...
The Shark Con takes viewers on a rollercoaster ride into the big business of sharks, revealing the controversial truth about the industry, all the while trying to answer the central question…Are sharks really overfished? Or is this just an elaborate con?
Director: Rusty Armstrong
Writers: Rusty Armstrong and Steven Pavon
Runtime: 86 min
She Wore Silver Wings
This is the true story of the WASP (Women Airforce Service Pilots) told by WASP, Jean Landis. One of many brave women pilots who, for the first time in the history of the United States, were recruited to volunteer their services in WWII by ferrying fighter planes, test flying new and repaired planes, and towing targets in the air for artillery practice. Of 25,000 applicants, just over 1,000 made it through training. These women were wives and mothers, but no exceptions were made, they trained like the men yet had to meet higher standards. They were paid less, had no military benefits, no medical insurance and no burial benefits. 38 women died while serving their country in this capacity, yet the WASPs had to take up collections to send their sister’s bodies and clothes home. No flags on the coffins, no gold stars in their windows. After flying over 60 million miles for the Army and less than two years in the program the WASPs were unceremoniously disbanded. “She Wore Silver Wings” portrays how the WASPs were formed, the incredible challenges they faced and the cause of their early demise. These heroic young women of the 1940’s opened the door for today’s military female pilots. It’s a subject that is still not well known but in 2009 President Obama signed a bill to award the WASPs The Congressional Gold Medal. On March 10th, 2010 a ceremony was held in Washington D.C. honoring the WASP for their service.
Produced By: American Dream Cinema
Director and Writer: Devin Scott
Runtime: 29 min
Speakers Corner-You Have the Right to Remain Vocal
Since 1872, people have gathered at Speakers Corner in Hyde Park (London) to exercise their rights to free speech in all its forms. 'Speakers Corner: You Have The Right To Remain Vocal' is a powerful commentary on the origins and fragility of freedoms of speech, assembly and the nature of democracy in modern society.
Co-Producer: Duncan Walsh
Director, Producer, Executive Producer: Gavin White
Cinematographer/DP; Camera Operator: Ben Cole
Runtime: 59 min
Surviving Cupid's Arrows
How do loving couples survive the storms of long-term relationships? This short documentary takes a wry look at the dynamics of five committed couples and how spirituality, sensuality, and creativity contribute to enduring intimacy.
Director, Producer, Writer: Michael Zeilik
Story: Nicole Lewin
Camera Operator: Brenden Wedner, Curtis Busker, Luke Carr
Runtime: 19 min
Tell Me and I Will Forget
Shot on board with the paramedics of Pretoria and Johannesburg, “Tell Me And I Will Forget” illuminates the new social challenges in South Africa, 15 years after the end of it’s oppressive Apartheid era. Desperate human circumstance and a wave of violent crime have put immense pressure on the medical system, which is now as divided as the country’s dual economy. With the on going US medical debate, the documentary provides a timely look into the much less glamorous side of the nation that will be hosting the 2010 World Cup Football Games.
Director: Justin Salerian
Producer: Michael Marante
Runtime: 79 min
The Time Machine
A watchmaker in Grand Central deconstructs his process and muses about the nature of time.
Director; Producer, Cinematographer/DP: Mark Kendall
Runtime: 11 min
Toyland
Welcome to the high stakes world of the 22 billion dollar toy industry, where fun and fortune awaits those who know how to get inside the mind of a child. Meet the playmakers behind the biggest toys and games in history while following the ups and downs of game designer, Tim Walsh. From prototype to pitch, follow Walsh along his winding road to Toy Fair, one of the largest trade show for toys in the world. Will his toy light up the imagination of kids everywhere or never see the light of day?
Runtime: Ken Sons
Producer: Ken Sons
Editor: Tim Walsh
Creative Consultant: Tim Walsh
Director of Photography: Steve Kistler
Art Director: Sheila Sons
Runtime: 68 min
Trail Angels
'Trail Angels' is an inspiring portrait of unsung heroes who have made it their quest to help the seasonal thru hikers of the Appalachian Trail, a pilgrimage of five million footsteps. Mala, Baltimore Jack, Miss Janet, and Trail Angel Mary are working class Americans who have embraced The Golden Rule in spite of the sacrifices it often requires. For those willing to go the distance, a community based on kindness and simplicity emerges from the backwoods of America.
Daniel Peddle
Art Director: Sheila Sons
Run Time: 56 min
Twenty Five Hundred & One
Director, Producer, Writer: Patricia van Ryker
Producer: Ron Colby
Runtime: 46 min
Waiting for a Train: The Toshio Hirano Story
The humorous and heartfelt true story of Japanese immigrant, Toshio Hirano, whose life was transformed by the music of country legend Jimmie Rodgers. From Tokyo to Tennessee to San Francisco, Toshio chases a passionate dream for over 40 years and is rewarded with a life well-lived, filled with music, song and dance.
Director; Producer: Oscar Bucher
Runtime: 20 min
What if Cannabis Cured Cancer?
“What if Cannabis Cured Cancer” explains how we are all born with a form of marijuana already in our bodies, and when pot is consumed, the “endocannabinoids” inside us-along with any cannabinoids we ingest-fit together like a key in a lock, thereby promoting the death of cancer cells without harming the body’s healthy cells.
Runtime: 55 min
Which Way to the War?
Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation, was also becoming the world's 3rd largest democracy with its free elections in 1998. While most of country remained remarkably peaceful during this transitional moment, a remote area on the island of Sulawesi - Poso - fell victim to brutal communal fighting. The conflict was a product of 'religious' tensions that gave way to jihadist violence, but it was also fueled by widespread corruption and illicit ties among local military and business interests. Fueling it all were underlying struggles for control of local politics, commercial enterprise, and religious authority in this forgotten corner of the world, where religious identity was used as the agitator that exploited and spread the conflict.
Filmed over a three-year period, Which Way to the War? delves into the heart of religious conflict in Poso and Indonesia. American filmmaker Sue Useem and her team traveled to some of the most remote regions of Indonesia to understand the dynamics and anatomy of religiously motivated violence in this overwhelmingly tolerant nation. With hundreds of hours of filming and scores of interviews with politicians, officers, activists, journalists, victims, perpetrators, analysts, and citizens, this documentary reveals the true story of the wrenching Poso conflict - but also the story of Poso's redeeming rehabilitation in the conflict's aftermath - a story that has never been revealed before and one that throws new light onto religious conflicts not just in Indonesia, but our whole world.
Spotted Frog Productions
Executive Producer and Director Sue Useem
Why Get Married?
With half of all marriages ending in divorce, someone needed to ask Why Get Married? Following her own divorce, filmmaker Anne Stirling interviewed singles,marrieds, never-marrieds, gays, historians etc. over a three year period while she was traveling between Newfoundland and New Mexico. This universal question is both light-hearted and thought-provoking.
Executive Producer; Producer; Director : Anne Stirling
Collaborating Director: Ray Penton, Jr.
Writer: Anne Stirling
Runtime: 53 min
Wooden Bones--The Sunken Fleet of 1758
'Wooden Bones-The Sunken Fleet of 1758' is a 58 min. long documentary that investigates the history and archaeological study of a fleet of over 260 British warships at Lake George, New York, deliberately sunk during the French & Indian War (1755-1763). This action by the British protected their vessels over the winter of 1758-1759 from their enemy, the French. Many warships were recovered by British forces in 1759, but dozens were not and remain in Lake George. The documentary follows a group of underwater archaeologists with Bateaux Below, Inc., a not-for-profit corporation, as they study these 18th century warships and answer questions about the mystery of 'The Sunken Fleet of 1758.' The production is a collaborative project between Pepe Productions and Bateaux Below, Inc.
Executive Producer, Writer: Joseph Zarzynski
Director: Peter Pepe
Runtime: 58 min