Made for PBS’s Great Performances series, Orlando Bagwell’s Emmy Award-winning film is an homage to Alvin Ailey, the pioneering African-American choreographer and founder of New York City’s renowned Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. Following Ailey’s death, the Theater’s artistic director, Judith Jamison, choreographed “Hymn,” a celebration of his influence featuring Anna Deavere Smith. Bagwell uses […]
Claiming a space for representations of lesbian and gay African Americans, and providing an unprecedented opportunity for black families to address issues of sexuality, identity and personal history, Harris’s bold, impressionistic film focuses on three sets of queer siblings, including the director and his brother, artist Lyle Ashton Harris. Accompanied by a Digital Diaspora Family […]
In memory of Roland Legiardi Laura, who passed away earlier this year. Three New York teenagers find themselves profoundly changed by a radical poetry workshop. Putting pen to paper they’re able to imagine a future where fathers aren’t in jail, mothers aren’t abusive and college isn’t something you only see on TV. Can their words […]
Last year, Stanley Nelson’s film The Black Panthers was on the DOC NYC Short List. This year, as he receives a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Visionaries Tribute, we bring back his breakthrough film The Black Press, which traces the history of African-American journalism. Throughout the 20th century, papers like the Chicago Defender and Pittsburgh […]
10th Anniversary screening. In the enthralling, and often surprisingly funny, Cannes award-winning Sisters in Law, two fierce and feisty women challenge tradition to make a difference in Cameroon law. Prosecutor Vera Ngassa and judge Beatrice Ntuba give long-silenced women their day in court, empowering them to cast off the roles of victims and demand justice. […]
45th anniversary screening, in memory of Al Maysles, who passed away this year. What began as a Direct Cinema portrait of the Rolling Stones becomes a disturbing record of a notorious concert. In contrast to Woodstock’s free-flowing peace and love, a palpable tension hangs over the free Altamont Speedway show on December 6, 1969, recognized […]
20th anniversary screening. Jon Alpert and Maryann De Leo teamed with former drug addict Rich Farell, a resident of Lowell, Massachusetts, for this harrowing chronicle of addiction in the economically depressed blue-collar town. Filmed over a year and a half, Brenda, Dicky and Boo-Boo are followed in and out of crackhouses, rehab and jail, seeking […]
Sixteen French pastry chefs gathered at the prestigious Meilleurs Ouvriers de France competition for three intense days of mixing, piping and sculpting everything from delicate chocolates to six-foot sugar sculptures in hopes of being declared by President Nicolas Sarkozy one of the best. The finalists, France’s culinary elite, risk their reputations as well as sacrifice […]
This breakthrough documentary follows door-to-door Bible salesman Paul Brennan and his colleagues over several weeks as they ply their trade from Boston to Chicago to Miami. New York Times critic Vincent Canby wrote, “It’s such a fine, pure picture of a small section of American life that I can’t imagine its ever seeming irrelevant, either […]
Robert Drew, who died this year, led a company of trailblazers in observational documentary. One of the most striking films from this era is The Chair, which follows the attorney Louis Nizer as he attempts to save the prisoner Paul Crump from the electric chair. Drew was joined by Richard Leacock, Gregory Shuker, DA Pennebaker […]