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It begins as a documentary about “The Amazing Johnathan,” a uniquely deranged magician who built a career out of shock and deception in the 1980s—but becomes a bizarre story about the unravelling of his documentarian.
In 2014, a Chinese billionaire opened a Fuyao factory in a shuttered General Motors plant in Dayton, Ohio. For thousands of locals, the arrival of this multinational car-glass manufacturer meant regaining their jobs - and dignity - after the recession left them high and dry. American Factory takes us inside the facility to observe what happens when workers from profoundly different cultures collide.
The story of being Muslim in America in the Age of Trump, following five disparate Muslim Americans here in New York. A key feature of this era is new opportunities for Muslim-Jewish alliances, which is explored in the film. The film is siumultaneously an exploration of a political fight about rights of a religious minority, as well as an intimate look at little known Muslim communities.
Army of Lovers is a Swedish pop-dance band that has enjoyed a string of European hits in the 1990s, hits that are based on kitsch lyrics, high camp videos, and a libertine philosophy.This documentary film takes a fun and revealing look at one of Europe's most outrageous acts, the band's enduring popularity in Israel, and the vocalist's surprising decision to move to Israel, a decision that brings about their first-ever concert in the Holy Land.
Stage manager Rachel Gurner still lives in her childhood apartment - along with her off-kilter actress sister, Jackie; eccentric playwright father Mel; and deadpan preteen niece Dodge - above the tiny theatre they own and operate. Level-headed and turtleneck-wearing Rachel is the only thing standing between her family and utter chaos. Then, in the wake of a sudden family tragedy, Rachel and Jackie learn their presumed-deceased mother is actually alive and thriving as a soap-opera star. Now the sisters' already-precarious balance turns upside down, and Rachel must figure out how to liberate herself from this surreal imbroglio. Co-writer/director/star Hannah Pearl Utt is a triple threat with an impeccable sense of timing and a flair for juxtaposing unpredictable elements. Just as pragmatic Rachel and off-the-wall Jackie seem to hail from different planets while inhabiting the same universe, so too do the film's over-the-top moments and characters coexist alongside subtle, grounded ones. Equal parts madcap comedy, adult coming-of-age story, and poignant drama, Before You Know It gleefully defies categorization, and that is its genius.
The Bolex camera has been a trusty tool for filmmakers since its introduction in the 1920s. In this personal film, Alyssa Bolsey delves into her family's history to uncover the story of the camera's inventor, her great-grandfather, Jacques Bolsey. A Russian refugee living in neutral Switzerland during WWI, Bolsey developed the iconic Bolex as a way to democratize image-making. Archival footage and interviews with renowned filmmakers who still swear by Bolsey's invention offer an ode to the man and his movie camera.
Carl Laemmle is the extraordinary life story of the German Jewish immigrant who, as much as anyone, invented the modern motion picture business. The man whose motto was, "It can be done," fought and ultimately conquered Thomas Edison's attempts to monopolize the film industry. Creating Universal Pictures in 1912, Laemmle would go on to give many Hollywood legends their starts, including Walt Disney, John Ford, William Wyler and others. He also hired many women directors and made Lois Weber the highest paid director on his lot. Under Laemmle's leadership, Universal would become known for its classic monster movies (The Phantom of the Opera, Frankenstein, Dracula, etc.). When he sold Universal in 1936, Laemmle would go on to do something far moreimportant than any movie: battling Adolph Hitler's government, confronting a notoriously anti-Semitic U.S. State Department and ultimately rescuing over 300 Jewish refugee families from Nazi Germany.
50 miles north of New York City lies the town of Monroe, where one of the fastest-growing Hasidic communities in the country thrives deep within the Hudson Valley. As the 25,000+ population within the village of Kiryas Joel looks to expand their city, the neighboring villages of non-Hasids see the encroaching community as a burgeoning power grab, leading to an increasingly tense standoff between locals. Shot over several years with seemingly boundless access, Emmy-winning director Jesse Sweet's documentary observes the simmering tensions that have come to define the community of Monroe, and the myriad ways in which the town's divide echoes the country's as well.
In July 1995, a heat wave overtook Chicago: high humidity and a layer of heat-retaining pollution drove the heat index up to more than 126 degrees. City roads buckled, rails warped, electric grids failed, thousands became ill and people began to die - by the hundreds. Cooked tells the story of this heat wave, the most traumatic in U.S. history, in which 739 Chicago citizens died in a single week, most of them poor, elderly, and African American. Balancing serious and somber with her respectful, albeit ironic and and signature quirkly style, Peabody award-winning filmmaker Judith Helfand explores this drama that, when peeled away, reveals the less newsworthy but long-term crisis of pernicious poverty, economic, and social isolation and racism. Cooked is a story about life, death, and the politics of crisis in an American city.
As America prepares to enter WW2, Hungarian film director Michael Curtiz grapples with political intervention and a dysfunctional relationship with his estranged daughter amid the troubled production of Casablanca in 1942.