Tag Archives: America

Victor’s Last Class

At the age of 52 and suffering from terrible chronic back pain, Victor D’Altorio decided to end his life.

Victor was a proud homosexual, a lover of life, honest, and outrageous. As an acting teacher of the Meisner technique for 20 years, he was committed to living in the moment, and accepting all that that had to offer, however painful it may be. But after fighting bone marrow cancer into remission he found himself with debilitating degenerative disc disorder in his neck and back, and he could not deny the pain that he was in or the dim prospects of relief. His personal commitment to truth and honesty made him despise the idea of suicide in the traditional sense. He simply could not cause that pain to the ones he loved. He decided to tell everyone (via his blog) that he was going to kill himself. This is the starting point for our story.

Over the next five months together we see Vic soaking in the tub in pain, making sex jokes, yelling at the cameraman, crying over his deceased partner, teaching eager new students, wavering on the big choice, and bonding with Brendan, the film maker. During this time, Brendan’s mission changes. He stops being simply the filmmaker asking why, and becomes a close friend trying to change Victor’s mind. Brendan puts together an acting class for Victor to teach to remind him of the life he once loved living, he teams with other students to produce the play that Victor had written, he does all he can to convince his new friend and mentor to stick around.

Why I’m Not On Facebook

One man’s soul searching decision on whether or not he should join Facebook sets him off on an epic journey of self-discovery as he weighs the pros and cons of becoming a member of the world’s largest social network.

From long lost high school friends who use it to stay in touch with classmates, to the pick-up artist who trolls the site to score with women, to the criminal who tracks your every movement to know when to rob your house, the best and worst of Facebook is on display. We meet couples bought together using the site, and those driven apart, people who are addicted to its charms and even the Winklevoss twins, the co-creators of Facebook.

Blending interviews with news clips, TV shows and other archival footage, Brant Pindivic documents his search for the meaning of Facebook with a storytelling style that is both personal and endearing, throwing up surprises through out his journey.

The deeper he explores the social network’s vice like grip on those who use it the more he realizes the answers to its popularity lie within.   Whether you’re a fan of Facebook or not, this is one film that is funny, fascinating and a must for anyone wondering what everyone is talking about.

Love Me

Can people find love through the modern “mail-order bride” industry? Or is the international romance business just a scam? Sincere and unflinching, Love Me follows Western men and Ukrainian women as they embark on an unpredictable and riveting journey in search of love.

Each character’s experience exposes the myths and realities of this unique industry, while also exploring the much deeper, human story that is too often overlooked.

Forget everything you think you know about “mail-order” brides and get ready for an outrageously funny, touching and unforgettable look at the extreme lengths people travel for love.

 

Who Took Johnny

If you’ve ever gotten separated from your child for just a few moments and remember the depth of panic that sets in, then you can begin to understand what Noreen Gosch has felt over the last 30 years since her son Johnny disappeared delivering newspapers on the morning of September 5, 1982.

More than any other missing child case, Johnny’s story has spawned countless theories and has instilled intrigue in the millions who remember the kid on the side of a milk carton. Along the way there have been mysterious sightings, strange clues, bizarre revelations and ambiguous photographs. A confrontation with a person who claims to have helped abduct Johnny paves the way to a crime scene and the possible involvement of a child abduction and prostitution ring. And then a knock on the door in the middle of the night raises as many questions as perhaps it answers..

Who Took Johnny is an examination into the infamous thirty-year-old cold case behind the disappearance of Iowa paperboy Johnny Gosch, the first missing child to appear on a milk carton. The film focuses on the heartbreaking story of Johnny’s mother, Noreen Gosch, her relentless quest to find the truth about what happened that tragic September morning when Johnny never returned from his paper route and her life since in helping others to mobilise the authorities when their children go missing.

Who Took Johnny captures the endless intrigue and conspiracy theories surrounding the eye-witness accounts, compelling evidence and emotional discoveries which span three decades of the most spellbinding missing person’s case in U.S. history.

“Timely, shocking and relentlessly compelling, documentary Who Took Johnny recounts the strange story surrounding the disappearance of paperboy Johnny Gosch, one of the original milk carton kids..Viewers with a taste for true-crime drama and plausible conspiracy theories are likely to come away wanting more, making the film a good candidate for a spin-off series. Others may cherish the ambiguity here, the way Capturing the Friedmans it allows room for debate.. despite the potentially lurid nature of the material, the film is never exploitative and a sense of compassion and respect, one untarnished by sentimentality, for victims and their families shines through throughout.”
Leslie Felperin, The Hollywood Reporter

“An amazing, lunatic documentary that will leave you creeped-out, excited and surprised”
John Waters, director of Hairspray and Crybaby

 

Resistencia

“A thoroughly captivating window into history as never told by the winners — beautiful, enraging, profoundly inspiring.” Naomi Klein

June 28th, 2009. The Honduran people are preparing to vote in the first referendum in the country’s history. But, instead of waking up to ballot boxes, they see soldiers carrying out the first coup d’état in Central America in three decades.

This is the story of the two thousand farming families who challenged the coup by taking over the plantations of the most powerful landowner in the country and converting them into worker-run cooperatives.

Shot over four years, the film is both a testament to the capacity of an organized movement to transform the most fertile land in the country, as well as an account of the coup regime’s violent attempts to get the land back.

Burzynski: Cancer Cure Cover Up

Burzynski: The Cancer Cure Cover-up is the story of a pioneering biochemist who discovered a unique and proprietary method of successfully treating most cancers. This documentary takes the audience on a near 50-year journey both Dr. Burzynski and his patients have been enduring in order to obtain FDA-approved clinical trials of Antineoplastons. Defying the face of skepticism, legal attacks from state and federal agencies, and a powerful propaganda campaign to stop Burzynski – this doctor and his patients are still going strong.

Due to the continued failed efforts of state and federal agencies in their attempts to stop Burzynski from continuing to treat patients and expand his research, special interest groups have since launched a relentless propaganda campaign against Dr. Burzynski, and his supporters and patients, in hopes  that this game-changing innovation never reach the open market.

The primary reason that the cancer industry and its regulatory agencies fear the approval of Antineoplastons is purely economical.

If Antineoplastons were FDA-approved for just one cancer type this would mean that anyone of any age diagnosed with any type of cancer could legally insist their oncologist provide them with Antineoplastons “off-label”.   Given the gentle and nontoxic nature of these medications, most people would begin to opt for Antineoplastons as a first line of defense against their cancer instead of first choosing life-threatening yet profitable chemotherapy and radiation.

Burzynski: The Cancer Cure Cover-up investigates this hidden cancer treatment and the decades of failed lawsuits the US government and FDA have pursued in order to try to silence him.

Private Violence

Private Violence explores a simple, but deeply disturbing fact of life: the most dangerous place for a woman is her own home. Every day in the US, at least four women are murdered by abusive (and often, ex) partners. The knee-jerk response is to ask: ‘why doesn’t she just leave?’.

Private Violence shatters the brutality of this logic. Through the eyes of two survivors – Deanna Walters, a mother who seeks justice for the crimes committed against her at the hands of her estranged husband, and Kit Gruelle, an advocate who seeks justice for all women – we bear witness to the complicated and complex realities of intimate partner violence. Their experiences challenge entrenched and misleading assumptions, providing a lens into a world that is largely invisible; a world we have locked behind closed doors with our silence, our laws, and our lack of understanding. Kit’s work immerses us in the lives of several other women as they attempt to leave their abusers, setting them on a collision course with institutions that continuously and systematically fail them, often blaming victims for the violence they hope to flee. The same society that encourages women to seek true love shows them no mercy when that love turns dangerous. As Deanna transforms from victim to survivor, Private Violence begins to shape powerful, new questions that hold the potential to change our society: ‘Why does he abuse?’, ‘Why do we turn away?’ and ‘How do we begin to build a future without domestic violence?’

“The obstacles against effectively protecting battered women and prosecuting their abusers are vividly illustrated in ‘Private Violence’.. This potent documentary is a natural for public broadcast tube slots” Variety, Dennis Harvey

“‘Private Violence’, a documentary on Monday night on HBO, shows with shocking clarity that the worst of such cases rarely involve just a single punch, and that the problem is far more entrenched than a trending-on-Twitter moment makes it seem.” New York Times, Neil Genzlinger

“Hill managed powerful and intimate access to women who suffered with the realities.” Huffington Post, Rob Feld

“Domestic violence is a door marked ‘Do Not Open’, and here is Private Violence, opening it, and saying, ‘Step inside, have a look.'” Vulture, Matt Zoller

“Private Violence does not, as some social-issue documentaries do, continuously slam us in the face with these statistics. Instead, the film takes us inside, takes us behind closed doors, to come face-to-face with victims, families, and advocates” Bitch Flicks, Leigh Kolb

“Private Violence, an HBO documentary that follows the stories of several domestic violence survivors, is challenging the stigmas and stereotypes that surround the topic of domestic violence and, through intimate and often disturbing storytelling, details the intricacies of an issue that most people don’t fully understand.” Popsugar, Hilary White

Inside Her Sex

Inside Her Sex is a thought-provoking documentary that explores female sexuality and shame through the eyes and experiences of three women from different walks of life, each brave enough to chart her own course of sexual discovery.

While we live in a highly sexualized society, the messaging around sexuality, particularly female sexuality, is distorted and rife with shame. What we should look like, who we should want, what we should desire…in fact, who we should be, is dictated to us from screens and pages and people. As if there is one correct answer.

Stepping outside the common narrative is never straightforward. Exposing our deeper selves can be terrifying, even risky.

Candice, Elle, and Samantha have little in common. Not their age, not their hometowns, not their family circumstances. But they are all women. They are all sexual. And be it through circumstance or happenstance, they have each faced their sexual selves head on, and chosen to step outside the bounds of what society has dictated they should be, raising some interesting questions:

What happens if we are able to tap into our innate sexuality? To push beyond the bounds of societal structure and expectation? To stand up to powerful messaging and divert from the prescribed course?

Finding Fidel

Finding Fidel tells the remarkable story of war cameraman Erik Durschmied, who in 1958 journeyed to Cuba’s Sierra Maestra mountains to interview a little-known rebel leader named Fidel Castro. A month later, Castro’s band of fighters rolled into Havana, and the world would never be the same.

Intercutting Durschmeid’s reflections on the lost promise of Castro’s Revolution with his rarely seen interview with the young Fidel, award winning filmmaker Bay Weyman explores the hinge of fate, the vagaries of history, and the power of media in both men’s lives.

Durschmied spent weeks in Castro’s guerrilla headquarters, filming fascinating scenes of camp life with the rebels, and conducting the only known English-language interview with Fidel from the period just before he came to power. The interview is a unique time capsule, vividly depicting Castro’s early views, his struggle against the dictator Batista, and his goals for the Revolution.

“There is no Communism or Marxism in our idea,” Fidel insists. “Our political philosophy is representative democracy and social justice in a well-planned economy.”

Finding Fidel follows Durschmied as he returns to Cuba on the 50th Anniversary of the Revolution, retracing his original route to the mountains. Durschmied tells the true story behind his interviews with Fidel, and of the future dictator’s consummate use of the media to control his message and create his image. The daring young cameraman brought Castro’s message to the world just as Havana fell, and as a result his career took off.

Though he has witnessed many of the major events of our times, for Durschmied the interview on a mountaintop in Cuba remains the most meaningful. As he returns to Castro’s camp in the Sierra Maestra, he finds an unexpected touchstone that marks the beginning and end of the journey.

Mad As Hell

The Young Turks, one the most popular online news show in the world, has amassed a YouTube network of over 2.4 million subscribers and 2 billion views. But that wasn’t always the case.

MAD AS HELL documents the tumultuous, at times hilarious and altogether astonishing trajectory of Cenk Uygur, The Young Turks’ main host and founder, as he traverses from unknown Public Access TV host to internet sensation by way of YouTube. When he ventures into national television by landing the 6 PM time slot on MSNBC, Cenk’s uncensored brand of journalism is compromised as he becomes a thorn in the side of traditional news media; his unwavering dedication to speaking the truth puts him at the nexus of the battle between new and old media, and makes MAD AS HELL not only entertaining, but incredibly timely as well.

 

Princes of the Yen

Princes of the Yen reveals how post-war Japanese society was transformed to suit the agenda of powerful interest groups, and how citizens were kept entirely in the dark about this. History is now repeating itself around the world.

Based on a book by Professor Richard Werner, a visiting researcher at the Bank of Japan during the 90s crash, during which the stock market dropped by 80% and house prices by up to 84%. The film uncovers how the Bank of Japan pumped up and then crashed the Japanese economy, with an aim of inducing change. Today, what happened in Japan 25 years ago is repeating itself in Europe, with an aim of centralizing power in the Eurozone.

The film shows why it is important for central banks to be accountable and transparent. It also explains how International Financial Organizations such as the IMF seek to impose conditions on countries that are mainly of benefit to dominant Western interests. For anyone interested in understanding recent developments and the significance of the establishment of institutions such as the AIIB and the BRICS led New Development Bank, Princes of the Yen provides the background.

Princes of the Yen reveals with clarity the control levers that underpin the dominant ideology of the 21st Century. Piece by piece, reality is deconstructed to reveal the world as it is, not as those in power would like us to believe that it is.

“Because only power that is hidden is power that endures.”

Groundswell Rising

Groundswell Rising shows how Fracking – an untested energy extraction process – has contaminated drinking water and jeopardized health. We meet scientists, doctors and farmers across the political spectrum engaged in a David and Goliath struggle against Big Oil and Gas, decrying a process that puts profits over people.

Homeowners near wells suffer from respiratory ailments and property devaluation. A former industry employee shows skin lesions and edema, a result of working on drilling rigs, while others witness mistakes (5% of all wells leak) and explosions, against a back drop of rising ill health, as more and more suffer, from nose bleeds to asthma.

But there is cause for hope.

Local mothers groups unite to win some protections, while lease holders outraged by the corporations strong-arm tactics win local bans. Common Cause uncovers corruption as corporations buy influence to evade environmental protection laws, and the movement begins to gather momentum as actor Mark Ruffalo and singer Natalie Merchant support—and sometimes lead—their efforts.

Grassroots efforts have achieved bans, moratoriums, and referendums on Fracking, giving hope to others worldwide faced with the same nightmare. Transcending the genre of environmental film, Groundswell Rising’s passionate stories inspire and empower.

“Groundswell is ultimately a rousing, convincing rallying cry that the little guys, working in numbers, can triumph” LA Weekly

“But however you stand on the issue, you’re likely to be moved by the film’s portraits of grassroots activists managing to make their voices heard despite the opposition of major corporations and the big money at their disposal.” The Hollywood Reporter