Movies

This film recounts the people and events leading up to the one of the most despicable hate-crimes during the height of the civil-rights movement, the bombing of the 16th Street Church in Birmingham, Alabama. In that attack, four little African-American girls lost their lives and a nation was simultaneously revolted, angered and galvanized to push the fight for equality and justice on.

The film begins with the idea that 25 percent of the people in the world who are incarcerated are incarcerated in the U.S. Although the U.S. has just 5% of the world's population. "13th" charts the explosive growth in America's prison population; in 1970, there were about 200,000 prisoners; today, the prison population is more than 2 million. The documentary touches on chattel slavery; D. W. Griffith's film "The Birth of a Nation"; Emmett Till; the civil rights movement; the Civil Rights Act of 1964; Richard M. Nixon; and Ronald Reagan's declaration of the war on drugs and much more.

Featuring never-before-seen footage, this documentary delivers a startling new look at the Peoples Temple, headed by preacher Jim Jones who, in 1978, led more than 900 members to Guyana, where he orchestrated a mass suicide via tainted punch.

Follows Martin Luther King's life and decades-long civil rights activism.

This documentary tells the rise and fall of the Black Panther Party, one of the 20th century's most alluring and controversial organizations that captivated the world's attention for nearly 50 years.

Dolores Huerta bucks 1950s gender conventions by starting the country's first farm worker's union with fellow organizer Cesar Chavez. What starts out as a struggle for racial and labor justice, soon becomes a fight for gender equality within the same union she is eventually forced to leave. As she wrestles with raising 11 children, three marriages, and is nearly beaten to death by a San Francisco tactical police squad, Dolores emerges with a vision that connects her new found feminism with racial and class justice.

An in-depth look at the culture of Los Angeles in the ten years leading up to the 1992 uprising that erupted after the verdict of police officers cleared of beating Rodney King.

Winner of "Best Documentary" at the Orlando FIlm Festival, "Perfect Bid" explores how Slauson became adept at recording and memorizing prices of products featured on the show since its inception in 1972, culminating in him helping a contestant place a perfect bid during a 2008 Showcase, and ending in one of the biggest controversies in game show history as covered by TIME Magazine, Esquire, TMZ and more. Upon seeing a rough cut, Roger Dobkowitz, 5 time Emmy winner and 36-year producer of the show, along with television legend, Bob Barker, both commended Wallis' workmanship, and gave of their time in support of the project by participating in interview sessions and providing invaluable context for the film. "I think this wonderful documentary has a big chance of breaking away from all the other documentaries that come out each year. I am happy someone is recognizing the dedication of our fans," said Dobkowitz. "Ted Slauson is a loyal friend and true. People like that are the reason I didn't have to work for a living....its the least I could do" - Bob Barker.

In 1979, James Baldwin wrote a letter to his literary agent describing his next project, "Remember This House." The book was to be a revolutionary, personal account of the lives and assassinations of three of his close friends: Medgar Evers, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. At the time of Baldwin's death in 1987, he left behind only 30 completed pages of this manuscript. Filmmaker Raoul Peck envisions the book James Baldwin never finished.

Using interviews and rare archival footage, JOHN LEWIS: GOOD TROUBLE chronicles Lewis' 60-plus years of social activism and legislative action on civil rights, voting rights, gun control, health-care reform and immigration. Using present-day interviews with Lewis, now 79 years old, Porter explores his childhood experiences, his inspiring family and his fateful meeting with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1957. In addition to her interviews with Lewis and his family, Porter's primarily cinéma verité film also includes interviews with political leaders, Congressional colleagues, and other people who figure prominently in his life.

Fred Hampton was the leader of the Illinois Chapter of the Black Panther Party. This film depicts his brutal murder by the Chicago police and its subsequent investigation, but also documents his activities in organizing the Chapter, his public speeches, and the programs he founded for children during the last eighteen months of his life.

The role of the June, 1969 Stonewall Riots - so named for the Greenwich Village gay hotel and bar, the Stonewall Inn, in front of which the riots occurred - in gay liberation and the foundation of gay rights in the United States is presented. The riots are largely seen as the turning point in establishing what gay rights there are today. The societal situation for homosexual men and women - including the laws of the day - in the mid-1960s before the riots is presented. Those include forty-nine of fifty states banning homosexuality, homosexual men and women being able to be arrested for a plethora of reasons outside of gay sex (those reasons for which straight people would probably not be arrested), the rise of a homosexual enclave in among other places a one block stretch on Columbus Street in Greenwich Village, and no homosexual man or woman in the United States truly being "out". Those involved on both sides of the riots discuss the situation that led to the first night truly becoming a riot, it which could have been like any night in any large American city where the police were raiding gay bars for the purpose of arresting homosexuals. And the immediate aftermath is discussed, including a celebratory first anniversary event in the Village, which arguably could be considered the first open gay pride parade.

In the early 1970s, teenagers with disabilities faced a future shaped by isolation, discrimination and institutionalization. Camp Jened, a ramshackle camp "for the handicapped" in the Catskills, exploded those confines. Jened was their freewheeling Utopia, a place with summertime sports, smoking and makeout sessions awaiting everyone, and campers who felt fulfilled as human beings. Their bonds endured as they migrated West to Berkeley, California - a promised land for a growing and diverse disability community - where friends from Camp Jened realized that disruption and unity might secure life-changing accessibility for millions. Co-directed by Emmy®-winning filmmaker Nicole Newnham and film mixer and former camper Jim LeBrecht, this joyous and exuberant documentary arrives the same year as the 30th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, at a time when the country's largest minority group still battles daily for the freedom to exist. CRIP CAMP: A DISABILITY REVOLUTION is executive produced by President Barack Obama and Michelle Obama; Tonia Davis and Priya Swaminathan; Oscar® nominee Howard Gertler and Ray Lifchez, Jonathan Logan and Patty Quillin; LeBrecht, Newnham and Sara Bolder produce.

Twenty-five years after the verdict in the Rodney King trial sparked several days of protests, violence and looting in Los Angeles, filmmakers examine that tumultuous period through rarely seen archival footage.

Carl Reiner presents the stories of people in the over ninety age category who display exceptional success in combating common aspects of aging. Growing old is what you make of it. The stars of this show sing dance joke and philosophize about how to stay young at heart.

Documentary of 1980s near-nuclear ground explosion of a Titan II missile in Damascus, Arkansas in Silo 374-7, based on Eric Shlosser's award-winning book of the same title. A riveting minute by minute account of the accident started by the failure to follow written maintenence procedures.

For nine months prior to World War II, in an act of mercy unequalled anywhere else before the war, Britain conducted an extraordinary rescue mission, opening its doors to over 10,000 Jewish and other children from Germany, Austria, and Czechoslovakia. These children, or Kinder (sing. Kind), as they came to be known, were taken into foster homes and hostels in Britain, expecting eventually to be reunited with their parents. The majority of them never saw their families again.

A powerful documentary that exposes the direct connection between the long history of U.S. intervention in Latin America and the immigration crisis we face today. From the territorial expansionist policies that decimated the young economies of Mexico, Puerto Rico and Cuba, to the covert operations that imposed oppressive military regimes in the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Nicaragua and El Salvador, Harvest of Empire provides an unflinching look at the origins of the growing Latino presence in the United States. Adapted from the landmark book written by journalist Juan Gonzalez, the film tells the story of an epic human saga that is largely unknown to the great majority of citizens in the U.S., but must become part of our national conversation about immigration.