2015 METROPOLIS COMPETITION WINNER NYC PREMIERE A look at NYC’s gentrification and growing inequality in a microcosm, Class Divide explores two distinct worlds that share the same Chelsea intersection – 10th Avenue and 26th Street. On one side of the avenue, the Chelsea-Elliot Houses have provided low-income public housing to residents for decades. Their neighbor […]
WORLD PREMIERE What lies at the root of America’s fatherhood crisis? Daddy Don’t Go takes an intimate look at the struggles of four diverse, disadvantaged NYC fathers to beat the odds stacked against them and defy the deadbeat dad stereotype. Fighting against homelessness, unemployment, bureaucracy and, in some cases, a criminal past, Alex, Nelson, Roy […]
NYC PREMIERE Between 1957 and 1965, former LIFE Magazine photojournalist W. Eugene Smith obsessively photographed and taped the goings-on at the dilapidated Sixth Avenue loft he called home. As revealed in this astonishing WNYC-produced time capsule, what he captured is a treasure trove of NYC jazz of that period, including a three-week rehearsal by the […]
2015 AUDIENCE AWARD WINNER NYC PREMIERE Left on Purpose began as a portrait of the life of Mayer Vishner, an antiwar Yippie activist. In the midst of filming, the aging radical informs director Justin Schein that, having had his fill of solitude and depression, he intends instead to make the project about his death – […]
WORLD PREMIERE Chinatown Fair opened as a penny arcade on Mott Street in 1944. Over the decades, the dimly lit gathering place, known for its tic-tac-toe playing chicken, became an institution, surviving turf wars between rival gangs, changing tastes and the explosive growth of home gaming systems like Xbox and Playstation that shuttered most other […]
NYC PREMIERE What makes a good parent? How do you prove you are one, after you’ve been deemed unfit? Having lost custody of their children to Child Protective Services, two parents in New York City and Seattle fight to win back the trust of the courts and reunite their families in Stephanie Wang-Breal’s moving film. […]
WORLD PREMIERE After David Ourlicht was stopped and searched by the NYPD for no discernible reason, he filed a class-action suit against the City of New York, alleging racial profiling in the police department’s stop-and-frisk policy. Following the charismatic young man over three years as he awaits the trial, Spencer Wolff reveals how David has […]
WORLD PREMIERE Illustrating the transformative power not only of music, but of mentorship, Ben Niles’s film is an uplifting look at Juilliard’s Music Advancement Program for inner- city youth. Several diverse and inviting kids are followed for two years as they devote their weekends to developing their musical proficiency, receiving hands-on instruction typically impossible in […]
NYC PREMIERE For Michael Dowd, being a police officer wasn’t a calling, it was just a job— and, assigned to the 75th Precinct in crime-ridden East New York, not an easy or lucrative one. Seizing the opportunity to profit, he stole money from drug dealers, eventually recruiting his partner into an expanding criminal ring. Their […]
NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE Confronting a bankrupt, decaying city and the dashed hopes of the civil rights generation, African-American and Latino teenagers violently took over the streets of 1970s New York. The South Bronx became a war zone ruled by gangs like the Savage Skulls and the Ghetto Brothers. Hypnotic archival footage and present-day interviews with […]