Songs of War: Music as a Weapon

Music elates, touches the soul and bypasses reason. Music is magic. But precisely this magic can turn it into an insidious weapon for music and violence belong together. The brutal power of African war dances, the ferocity of Maori Hakas, the earth-shattering roar of US sound guns blasting Metallica at Taliban hideouts the principle is always the same: Aggressive sounds demoralise the enemy and whip the allies into a frenzy. In Songs of War, director Tristan Chytroschek explores the extraordinary harmony between music and violence. Sesame Street composer, Christopher Cerf, always wanted his music to be fun and entertaining. But then he learned that his songs had been used to torture prisoners in Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib. He is stunned by this abuse of his work and wants to find out how this could happen.

Children of Shatila

Many people first became aware of the Shatila refugee camp in Lebanon after the shocking and horrific Sabra-Shatila massacre that took place there in 1982. Located in Beirut's "belt of misery," the camp is home to 15,000 Palestinians and Lebanese who share a common experience of displacement, unemployment and poverty. Fifty years after the exile of their grandparents from Palestine, the children of Shatila attempt to come to terms with the reality of being refugees in a camp that has survived massacre, siege and starvation. Director Mai Masri focuses on two Palestinian children in the camp: Farah, age 11 and Issa, age 12. When these children are given video cameras, the story of the camp evolves from their personal narratives as they articulate the feelings and hopes of their generation.

Breath of Life

Dr. Richard Dawkins and Dr. Robert Trivers talk about the potential for an environmental catastrophe and why humans are destroying the world.

Fluor Film

Johnny Tootall

Discharged from Bosnian war, Johnny carries the weight of this war on his shoulders. He left the war with a dark and frightening secret, the murder of a young boy that haunts him. But Johnny carries many demons. The death of his father, running from his destiny as Chief of the Band and abandoning the love of his life. Nevertheless, Johnny must return home, the wolf spirit has called. Upon his return, he finds a new war. His estranged brother is leading his people in a revolt to save their sacred land. Johnny faces a dilemma; does he fight to save his people, or does he save himself? His journey will guide him to realizing that they are the same. In a blink, his world changes and in death, his brother guides him on a spirit walk to meet his destiny as leader of his people.

Old South

In Athens, Georgia, a college fraternity traditionally known to fly the confederate flag moves to a historically Black neighborhood and establishes their presence by staging an antebellum-style parade. What starts with a neighborhood struggle over cultural legacies in the South, the opening of a community garden becomes a grounds for understanding, as well as a physical and emotional space for healing, offering a sense of possibility and hope for the future.

All Eyes and Ears

A timely exploration into the complex links between the U.S. and China. Interspersed with remarks from journalists and experts, All Eyes and Ears interweaves the stories of U.S. Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman, his adopted Chinese daughter, Gracie Mei, and blind legal advocate Chen Guangcheng as they find purpose, identity and resolve amid the two nations’ evolving relationship.

Top Spin

Three teenagers battle their way through the world of competitive ping pong with their hearts set on the Olympics.

A Beautiful Fucking Experience

'A Beautiful Fucking Experience,' is a feature length documentary that celebrates music, in particular the live music experience, as told through the journey of The Flaming Lips on their Guinness world record breaking 24 hour tour through the Mississippi Delta.

The Small Ones

During World War II, the United States Army hired Lynne Sachs’ cousin, Sandor Lenard, to reconstruct the bones, small and large, of dead American soldiers. This short anti-war cine-poem is composed of highly abstracted battle imagery and children at a birthday party.

Untitled

A revealing one-shot portrait of two Nepali newlyweds in a moment of rest and playful interaction, Stephanie Spray's Untitled challenges our perception of two themes at the very core of ethnographic filmmaking: human relationships and the ways in which they can be experienced by the viewer. Only fourteen minutes long, Untitled is uncut, rejecting the implications of edited sequences and also purposefully excluding subtitles over the couple's conversation. The style of the film confronts the history of ethnography as a controversial study of the "other" by refusing us any clear messages or meanings behind what is being presented, challenging the viewer to come up with their own answers to any questions that may arise.

Edie: Girl on Fire

Model, film star, muse, socialite, icon. Edie Sedgwick was the very first "it" girl of the Andy Warhol Factory scene. The arc of her life traced the rise and fall of the 1960s recklessness. After being the toasted by the whole of New York City, Edie died alone of a drug overdose in California at the age of 28. She was both the harbinger of celebrity culture and someone who stood entirely outside of it, an artist who painted life, bravely and spontaneously, with her own hand.

Still Dreaming

Once a star on Broadway, always a star – at least that is what a group of feisty, humorous, and inspirational actors think as they embark on a journey to perform Shakespeare's 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' at their retirement home. With the help of two enthusiastic New York City theater directors who are not quite sure what awaits them, the troupe is formed among thespians whose skills and minds are not what they once were. As performance day nears, the tension mounts, with the actors battling to overcome crises, as well as themselves. But the show must go on and go on it does, with the troupe clinging to the hope of experiencing the magic and exuberance of performing on stage just one last time. - Sandy Wolf

Strange Love

Can two strangers really fall in love by asking each other 36 psychologist-approved questions and staring into each other's eyes for four minutes straight?

Don't Blink - Robert Frank

The life and work of Robert Frank—as a photographer and a filmmaker—are so intertwined that they're one in the same, and the vast amount of territory he's covered, from The Americans in 1958 up to the present, is intimately registered in his now-formidable body of artistic gestures. From the early '90s on, Frank has been making his films and videos with the brilliant editor Laura Israel, who has helped him to keep things homemade and preserve the illuminating spark of first contact between camera and people/places. Don't Blink is Israel's like-minded portrait of her friend and collaborator, a lively rummage sale of images and sounds and recollected passages and unfathomable losses and friendships that leaves us a fast and fleeting imprint of the life of the Swiss-born man who reinvented himself the American way, and is still standing on ground of his own making at the age of 90.

In Groove We Trust, A Joe Bowie Experience

How do funky machismo and buddhism go together in one man? This music documentary takes you into the groove of Joseph Bowie and his Defunkt, a major innovator in the history of jazz funk.