Social & External
An exploration of Edmond Dédé and Basile Barès were 19th-century New Orleans composers of color. Dédé, born free, was an orchestral composer and violist, known for his opera Morgiane. Barès, born into slavery, was a pianist and composer of music for dance halls, unique for being the only known American composer with a copyright assigned to his work while enslaved.
The life and career of the hailed Hollywood movie star and underappreciated genius inventor, Hedy Lamarr.
The story of the rape of Nanking, one of the most tragic events in history. In 1937, the invading Japanese army murdered over 200,000 and raped tens of thousands of Chinese. In the midst of this horror, a small group of Western expatriates banded together to save 250,000. Nanking shows the tremendous impact individuals can make on the course of history.
Sam Green's intimate portrait of Annea Lockwood shares with us a glimpse into the enthralling world of sound that she has been exploring and creating for many years. It is a touching and personal story of imagination and love.
In the waning days of summer 1931, Honolulu's tropical tranquility was shattered when a young Navy wife made a drastic allegation of rape against five nonwhite islanders. What unfolded in the following days and weeks was a racially-charged murder case that would make headlines across the nation, enrage Hawai'i's native population, and galvanize the island's law enforcers and the nation's social elite.
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (1881-1938) was a Turkish field marshal, revolutionary statesman, author, and the founding father of the Republic of Turkey, serving as its first president from 1923 until his death in 1938.
Using exclusively archival footage, Erwin Leiser traces the rise and collapse of the Third Reich, from Adolf Hitler’s early years to the devastation of Europe and his suicide in 1945. The film draws heavily on material produced and preserved by the Nazi propaganda apparatus to confront the mechanisms, imagery, and consequences of totalitarian power.
Explores the life and innovations of composer and electronic music pioneer Suzanne Ciani.
Known for his mournful "Adagio for Strings," Samuel Barber was never quite fashionable. This acclaimed film is a probing exploration of his music and melancholia. Performance, oral history, musicology, and biography combine to explore the life and music of one of America’s greatest composers. Features Thomas Hampson, Leonard Slatkin, Marin Alsop and many more of the world's leading experts on Barber's music, with tributes from composers Leonard Bernstein, Aaron Copland, Virgil Thomson and William Schuman. The film was broadcast on PBS, and screened at nine film festivals internationally, with three best-of awards. It was named a Recording of the Year 2017 by MusicWeb International.
A prolific composer and one of the most celebrated poets in Brazilian music, Paulo César Pinheiro is the author of Canto das Três Raças and O Poder da Criação, among other samba, samba-enredo and song classics. Partner of Baden Powell, Tom Jobim and Edu Lobo, was created by Elis Regina, Clara Nunes and Maria Bethânia. Here, sitting on his couch, he reflects on human nature and leads a journey that evokes and involves big names in MPB, covering half a century of music, from the height of the festival era to the period of protest songs against the military dictatorship.
"Elemental" is the groundbreaking television event from Academy Award-winning executive producer Robert Zemeckis that reveals how the elements of the periodic table have controlled the outcome of human history. This one-hour drama tells the harrowing story of the Hindenburg disaster. Sophisticated cinematography, animation and spectacular visual effects bring this fiery saga to life in a way no audience has seen before.
This documentary focuses on 1939, considered to be Hollywood's greatest year, with film clips and insight into what made the year so special.
A poetic journey through the paths and places of old Castile that were traveled and visited by the melancholic knight Don Quixote of La Mancha and his judicious squire Sancho Panza, the immortal characters of Miguel de Cervantes, which offers a candid depiction of rural life in Spain in the early 1930s and illustrates the first sentence of the first article of the Spanish Constitution of 1931, which proclaims that Spain is a democratic republic of workers of all kind.
With an original staging of text and music, Orlando follows the trail of one of the greatest composers of the Renaissance: Orlando di Lasso (also known as Roland de Lassus). His life and masterful oeuvre continue to move people to this day. Although he was a European star at the time, di Lasso had to endure the indignities of his social status as a servant. This documentary explores the relationship between art and power, musically accompanied by the ensemble La Tempête.
The Wonder Commission is a new music commission of The Well, composed by Dr. Brian Raphael Nabors and performed by the Antigone Music Collective. Inspiration for the new music emerges from Nabors' conversation with writer, physicist, and professor at MIT, Alan Lightman. The music also integrates the voices of youth from UpSpring's Summer 360 camp for unhoused youth and their questions about science, wonder, and hope.
Winston Churchill understood the power of films, but the true extent of his use of cinema as a propaganda tool is rarely explored. In 1934, one of Britain's most celebrated film producers, Alexander Korda, signed Churchill up as a screenwriter and historical advisor. It was the start of a unique collaboration. Churchill provided script notes for Korda's productions and penned an epic screenplay. When war broke out, their collaboration took on national importance. Korda was sent on a mission to Hollywood to help bring America into the war, with positive results. With access to previously undiscovered documents, this film documentary examines that mission and a friendship that underpinned a unique, creative partnership.
A variety of scientific subjects, including the laboratory of a plastic surgeon in London, and his method for applying permanent makeup; a new school for kiddies employing finger paint so they can express their urge to put things on paper; Army aviation, showing the latest development in blind landing. Produced in Cinecolor.
When Allied forces liberated the Nazi concentration camps in 1944-45, their terrible discoveries were recorded by army and newsreel cameramen, revealing for the first time the full horror of what had happened. Making use of British, Soviet and American footage, the Ministry of Information’s Sidney Bernstein (later founder of Granada Television) aimed to create a documentary that would provide lasting, undeniable evidence of the Nazis’ unspeakable crimes. He commissioned a wealth of British talent, including editor Stewart McAllister, writer and future cabinet minister Richard Crossman – and, as treatment advisor, his friend Alfred Hitchcock. Yet, despite initial support from the British and US Governments, the film was shelved, and only now, 70 years on, has it been restored and completed by Imperial War Museums under its original title "German Concentration Camps Factual Survey".
The Captains is a feature-length documentary film written and directed by William Shatner. The film follows Shatner as he interviews the other actors who have portrayed starship captains in the Star Trek franchise.
Behind-the-scenes documentary about how Lionel Messi succeeded in lifting the World Cup – the only trophy to have eluded him in an incredible career.
In the early-morning hours of July 23, 2007, in Cheshire, Conn., ex-convicts Steven Hayes and Joshua Komisarjevsky broke into the family home of William Petit, his wife, Jennifer, and their daughters, Michaela, 11, and Hayley, 17. Dr. Petit was beaten and tied to a pole in the basement. The three women were bound in their bedrooms while the men ransacked the house. The brutal ordeal continued throughout the morning, ending with rape, arson and a horrific triple homicide.
Performance artist Marina Abramovic prepares for a major retrospective of her work at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
Long-lost footage from Elvis Presley's legendary Las Vegas residency in the 1970s woven together with rare 16mm footage from Elvis on Tour, and 8mm from the Graceland archive, plus recordings of Elvis telling "his side of the story" rediscovered during Baz Luhrmann's research for his 2022 film, Elvis.
With unprecedented access to the official archives and intimate recollections from the band, both current and past, Iron Maiden: Burning Ambition invites fans to experience one of the most iconic journeys in music history. Spanning five decades, this electrifying documentary charts the band’s rise from the pubs of East London to the world’s biggest stadiums. Featuring exclusive interviews with band members and contributors such as Javier Bardem, Lars Ulrich and Chuck D, as well as all-new animated sequences of the band's legendary mascot, Eddie, the film offers a rare and intimate look at Iron Maiden’s uncompromising vision and unwavering connection with their truly global army of fans.
A woman’s Holocaust memoir takes the world by storm, but a fallout with her publisher-turned-detective reveals her story as an audacious deception created to hide a darker truth.
The life and career of one of comedy's most inimitable modern voices, Mr. Gilbert Gottfried.
Unravel the case of Utah therapist Jodi Hildebrandt, whose child abuse arrest with parenting YouTuber Ruby Franke exposed a twisted tale of manipulation.
Police pull over a woman who claims she just gave birth. But the baby — and the blood — aren't hers. Twisted lies unravel in this true-crime documentary.
Al Pacino's deeply-felt rumination on Shakespeare's significance and relevance to the modern world through interviews and an in-depth analysis of "Richard III."
Described as being a film about determination, danger and the ocean’s greatest depths, James Cameron's "Deepsea Challenge 3D" tells the story of Cameron’s journey to fulfill his boyhood dream of becoming an explorer. The movie offers a unique insight into Cameron's world as he makes that dream reality – and makes history – by becoming the first person to travel solo to the deepest point on the planet.
In the Realms of the Unreal is a documentary about the reclusive Chicago-based artist Henry Darger. Henry Darger was so reclusive that when he died his neighbors were surprised to find a 15,145-page manuscript along with hundreds of paintings depicting The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What is Known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glodeco-Angelinnian War Storm, Cased by the Child Slave Rebellion.
Documentarian Ross McElwee originally set out to make a travelogue of sorts tracing General William T. Sherman's infamous scorched-earth march through the Confederacy in the latter stages of the Civil War. Instead, haunted by a recent breakup with a girlfriend, McElwee ends up documenting his progress -- or lack thereof -- in starting a new relationship. His journey then becomes one of self-reflection and self-discovery rather than a historical/sociological exploration.
A night of drunken chaos rocks a quiet Dutch town in this shocking documentary about a teen's birthday invite that accidentally went viral on Facebook.
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.
The life and career of an actor, artist, and icon. His own journey through his own camera.
The story of artist Lil Peep from his birth in Long Island and meteoric rise as a genre blending pop star & style icon, to his death due to an accidental opioid overdose in Arizona at just 21 years of age.
Those who knew iconic funnyman John Candy best share his story, in their own words, through never-before-seen archival footage, imagery, and interviews.
