Emmy Award-winning chronicle of the history of Orchard House, the home in Concord, Massachusetts where Louisa May Alcott wrote and set Little Women.
Social & External
Self - Host / Orchard House Executive Director
A semi-documentary biography film about the life and work of Soviet film actor Pyotr Aleynikov. Includes newsreels from the 1930s, footage from films featuring Aleynikov and interviews with his closest friends and colleagues.
The story of the eventful life of George W. Bush—his struggles and triumphs, how he found both his wife and his faith—and the critical days leading up to his decision to invade Iraq.
“Marilyn vs. Marilyn” tells the story of a little-known period of Marilyn’s life – the years she spent in New York, trying to became a ‘serious”’ actress, taking lessons with Lee Strasberg and setting up a production company with her photographer and trusted friend, Milton Green. Based on hitherto unpublished – and magical - photos from the Greene archives, the film focuses on the photographic image of a woman who remains one of the greatest legends in the history of cinema… and an enduring enigma.
A look at President Richard M. Nixon—a man carrying the fate of the world on his shoulders while battling the self-destructive demands from within—spanning his troubled boyhood in California to the shocking Watergate scandal that would end his Presidency.
Shortly after his death in 2008, Maldoror made this film about her longtime friend and collaborator, the Négritude poet Aimé Césaire. In this film, she retraces the steps of Césaire’s travels across the globe — particularly back to his hometown in Martinique, where Maldoror interviews his relatives about his life — and her working relationship with Césaire, including fragments of her previous films about him, Un homme, une terre (1976) and Le masque des mots (1987).
New York in the 1920s. Max Perkins, a literary editor is the first to sign such subsequent literary greats as Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald. When a sprawling, chaotic 1,000-page manuscript by an unknown writer falls into his hands, Perkins is convinced he has discovered a literary genius.
Clara Immerwahr and her husband to be Fritz Haber are both young and gifted chemists. Their struggle for acknowledgment in nationalistic Germany during World War I lead to the development and use of the first chemical weapons.
The life and career of Italian opera singer Farinelli, considered one of the greatest castrato singers of all time.
The romanticized gallant adventures of Pauline Bonaparte, Napoleon's sister. First "engaged" to the Conventionnel Fréron, then separated from him by her brother for political reasons, Pauline joined Napoleon in the Italian army, where she fell in love with the comté de Canouville. But the First Consul married her to his friend, General Leclerc, whom she followed on the expedition to Saint-Domingue. Unconcerned about fidelity, she began to love her husband just as he was about to die of yellow fever. Back in France, she was soon consoled by other gallants. Napoleon, now emperor, hastened to marry her off to Prince Borghese, but he was unable to make her love him. She soon returned to Paris to lead the life of a gallant woman, incognito, and again met Canouville, whom the emperor tried in vain to separate from her. But soon the Russian campaign begins, and her lover is killed. All that remains for Pauline, this time disconsolate, is to reconcile with her brother on the road to exile.
Despite being blocked at almost every turn in pursuit of the sport he loved, Seve Ballesteros fought against adversity to become the most spectacular and charismatic golfer to ever play the game.
In this artistic exploration of the life and work of writer Henry Miller, filmmaker Joe Kishton skillfully weaves clips of films and interviews of Miller with the music of Laurie Anderson. From Miller himself we hear of his difficult relationship with his parents, and of his need to create, even (or especially) when his message abrades social mores.
Twenty Four year-old Corsican refugee Napoleon Bonaparte is a lowly artillery captain in the French army at the siege of Toulon. Destitute and relying on his success in the new and dangerous revolutionary society, his mother and siblings become embroiled in Napoleon's struggle. The opponents are the English but the enemy are the revolutionaries authorities who seek to keep him in his place. Using his astonishing tactical mind, his sheer audacity and extraordinary military bravery, Napoleon emerges victorious and sets out on a path that would one day lead him to the throne of France.
The story of how Norma Jeane Mortenson became Marilyn Monroe (1926-62), a lucid path of self-discovery, from anonymity to stardom: the painful birth of a myth.
Semi-Biographical film documenting the life of The Reverend Wilbert Awdry, creator of the beloved Thomas The tank Engine Stories
The documentary consists of tape of Don's show (never been filmed before), interviews with Don's contemporaries, (Steve Lawrence, Bob Newhart, Debbie Reynolds, etc.), established comedians (Billy Crystal, Rosanna Barr, Robin Williams, Chris Rock, etc.) and young comedians (Jeff Atoll, Jimmy Kimmel, Sarah Silverman, etc.).
In 19th-century Italy, Giacomo Leopardi channels his debilitating illness and isolation into poetry.
Everyone thinks that Bob Kane created Batman, but that’s not the whole truth. One author makes it his crusade to make it known that Bill Finger, a struggling writer, actually helped invent the iconic superhero, from concept to costume to the very character we all know and love. Bruce Wayne may be Batman’s secret identity, but his creator was always a true mystery.
For the first time one of Hollywood's greatest stars tells his own story, in his own words. From a childhood of poverty to global fame, Cary Grant, the ultimate self-made star, explores his own screen image and what it took to create it.
Armando Iannucci presents a personal argument in praise of the genius of Charles Dickens. Through the prism of the author's most autobiographical novel, David Copperfield, Armando looks beyond Dickens - the national institution - and instead explores the qualities of Dickens's work that still make him one of the best British writers. While Dickens is often celebrated for his powerful depictions of Victorian England and his role as a social reformer, this programme foregrounds the elements of his writing which make him worth reading, as much for what he tells us about ourselves in the twenty-first century as our ancestors in the nineteenth. Armando argues that Dickens's remarkable use of language and his extraordinary gift for creating characters make him a startlingly experimental and psychologically penetrating writer who demands not just to be adapted for television but to be read and read again.
The story of British serial killer John Christie, who committed most or all of his crimes in the titular terraced house, and the miscarriage of justice involving Timothy Evans.
A British crime novelist travels to her publisher's upmarket summer house in Southern France to seek solitude in order to work on her next book. However, the unexpected arrival of the publisher's daughter induces complications and a subsequent crime.
FBI informant Jim Hoffman lures troubled automobile magnate John DeLorean to an undercover sting for cocaine trafficking.
A writer stumbles upon a long-hidden secret when he agrees to help former British Prime Minister Adam Lang complete his memoirs on a remote island after the politician's assistant drowns in a mysterious accident.
An orphaned man recalls his upbringing with his aunt and her husband, the parson, in a small Western town during the Reconstruction.
Mort Rainey, a writer just emerging from a painful divorce with his ex-wife, is stalked at his remote lake house by a psychotic stranger and would-be scribe who claims Rainey swiped his best story idea. But as Rainey endeavors to prove his innocence, he begins to question his own sanity.
Through deeply personal interviews with her siblings and an examination of the photographs, letters, and belongings left behind, Mariska assembles a new portrait of her mother Jayne Mansfield, an extraordinary and complex woman.
In a California desert town, a short-order cook with clairvoyant abilities encounters a mysterious man with a link to dark, threatening forces.
Diaries, audiotapes, videotapes and testimonials from friends and colleagues offer insight into the life and career of Gilda Radner -- the beloved comic and actress who became an icon on Saturday Night Live.
The epic story of a family involved in the Oklahoma Land Rush of April 22, 1889.
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.
Explores the true story of the notorious Jesse James, how the myth developed during his lifetime, and how the legends have persisted over 100 years after his death at the hands of his former friend, Robert Ford.
A documentary about the life and films of director John Ford.
Tom Sawyer and his pal Huckleberry Finn have great adventures on the Mississippi River, pretending to be pirates, attending their own funeral and witnessing a murder.
Nancy Drew, a smart high schooler with a penchant for keen observation and deduction, stumbles upon the haunting of a local home. A bit of an outsider struggling to fit into her new surroundings, Nancy and her pals set out to solve the mystery, make new friends, and establish their place in the community
Dexter Cornell, an English Professor becomes embroiled in a series of murders involving people around him. Dexter has good reason to want to find the murderer but hasn't much time. He finds help and comfort from one of his student, Sydney Fuller.
Supersonic charts the meteoric rise of Oasis from the council estates of Manchester to some of the biggest concerts of all time in just three short years. This palpable, raw and moving film shines a light on one of the most genre and generation-defining British bands that has ever existed and features candid new interviews with Noel and Liam Gallagher, their mother, and members of the band and road crew.
A warrior-assassin is forced to hide in a small town in the American Badlands after refusing a mission.
Dick Proenneke retired at age 50 in 1967 and decided to build his own cabin in the wilderness at the base of the Aleutian Peninsula, in what is now Lake Clark National Park. Using color footage he shot himself, Proenneke traces how he came to this remote area, selected a homestead site and built his log cabin completely by himself. The documentary covers his first year in-country, showing his day-to-day activities and the passing of the seasons as he sought to scratch out a living alone in the wilderness.
Adrian Messenger, a famous writer, asks his friend Anthony Gethryn, a former British agent, to help him investigate the whereabouts of the people who appear on a list, without asking him the reason why he should do so.