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Documentary Educational Resources is committed to helping filmmakers produce movies that communicate ideas about our world's culture. We help independent filmmakers for one reason: story. Stories inform us about who we are, where we're going, and what we have done. Stories help shape the richness of our lives.
Richness in a story is more than an interesting anecdote or historial overview. A story allows us to look through another's eyes. In looking through those eyes, you chance a view of the world informed by another's thoughts.
Unfortunately, many important stories go untold - this is often our experience with commercial media. For this reason we would like you to support independent media. Through your support you allow our filmmakers to tell stories from perspectives that would otherwise go unheard.
Below is a list of documentary projects sponsored by Documentary Educational Resources. A list of our previous fiscal sponsorships can be found here. Donate to individual projects using credit card by clicking the donate button found at the bottom of each project's description.
If you are outside the United States, please contact us to make a donation by check or money order. All checks should be made out to DER.
Please note: All donations made to DER are tax-deductible.
Amua (We Have Decided)
Amua (We Have Decided): A Year on an African Farm is the story of four farm families in Western Kenya who are struggling to improve their livelihoods through agricultural development. Like millions of other smallholder farmers who wrestle with poor soils, tired seeds and fickle rains, Leonida, Francis, Ziborrah, and Rasoa live with a chronic, gnawing emptiness in their bellies. It is at its worst during the hunger season: the months when their previous harvest supplies run out and the new crop is yet to come in. In this part of Kenya 10 percent of children die before their first birthdays, mostly from hunger and malnutrition.
These four farmers have decided to try a likely — but far from guaranteed — solution. An organization called One Acre Fund (www.oneacrefund.org) offers to help them defeat their persistent hunger with improved seeds, fertilizer, training, and market access. It is a leap of faith, putting their trust in new technologies unavailable in the region until recently. As we grieve for their losses and cheer for their successes hope builds for the many like them who, by feeding their families, bring the promise of freedom from future famines to Africa — and the rest of the world.
Visit the official website: www.wehavedecided.org
Ankle Straps
68 year old Professor Emeritus John Southard recently came out to his M.I.T colleagues as a cross-dresser after nearly 40 years of easy collegiality. His exuberant outing is reflected, in part, by his efforts to reach out as an educator and counselor to other closeted students and faculty. Unfortunately, the institution is not an easy one to penetrate. John is eager to show his female persona, Tephra to his colleagues. A department fundraiser is planned, and John hopes this will be an opportunity to dress - and introduce Tephra. His consuming desire is to be finally accepted as a full person in the department as well as in society. So far, his efforts have been met with mixed reactions of unease, curiosity, indifference or avoidance. John's journey weaves a story that intersects gender presentation, acceptance, the immutability of established institutions and the ultimate affirmation of the human spirit.
Visit the filmmaker's website: www.mineralkingproductions.com
Arthur Polonsky: The Release from Reason
When the artist Arthur Polonsky turned 85, his son Gabriel decided to make a simple film about him, and found himself on an unexpected journey of his own. Discovering that he never knew how well known, admired and loved his father is in the Boston art community, the stage was now set for an all-encompassing historic portrait of one of the most important Boston painters of the 20th century. Beginning with Arthur's meteoric early career - major international exhibitions, a feature in LIFE Magazine, and broad critical acclaim, the film follows the triumphs and struggles of a life committed to art over seven decades. It reveals how Arthur is perceived by the art world, by himself, and by his son through the lens of his camera.
Filled with beautiful images of his work, Arthur Polonsky: The Release from Reason also reveals his philosophies on art and life, as he shares his humor and fascinating stories. Arthur was a prominent “Boston Expressionist,” (a name given to a loose group of young artists who graduated from the Museum School in the early 1950's) he is described as a “true visionary,” whose work is “mystical, mysterious, and spiritual,” yet he rejects those labels and “isms.” His role in this important era of American art is brought to life though archival images, and interviews with Boston's leading museum curators, scholars, fellow artists and the man who lived it, Arthur himself.
And finally, we find Arthur as he is today, full of life, returning to his studio to work on new paintings, revitalized by this film project that reconnects him with his son, old friends and colleagues, and past days of glory.
"There is this kind of mutual acceptance of the artist as some sort of magic-maker, that he is feared and admired unreasonably. This interests me because I think that art is the release from reason. That it lives in a world where reason is the goal as well. There it is interpreted, loved, and maybe useful. That's the word—I always wanted to find art useful in some way." —Arthur Polonsky.
Visit the filmmaker's website: APolonskyFilm.com
Big Top Without Borders
Big Top Without Borders is the story of two circuses, started by two friends, from two different corners of the world: Igloolik, Nunavut, 200 miles north of the Arctic Circle; and Conakry, Guinea, in Equatorial Africa. By embracing their traditions and harnessing the enthusiasm of two youth populations, these circuses give self-confidence and hope to a new generation of visually stunning circus performers.
Visit the film's official website at www.bigtopwithoutborders.com
Bodies at War: A Colombian Landmine Story
Bodies at War offers a window into Colombian people's lives as they strive to rehabilitate after landmine injury. Although unknown to most people who reside elsewhere, Colombia, a country at civil war for over fifty years, has one of the highest rates of landmine injuries in the world.
Visit the film's official website: www.acolombianlandminestory.com
Canada Lee - MAN OUT FRONT
Canada Lee was one of the greatest African American actors of the 20th Century, but most people have never heard his name. Lee poured his talent into fighting for racial equality. His uncompromising stance prompted the U.S. Government to label him a Communist, destroying his reputation and career. With the support of the Canada Lee Heritage Foundation and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Canada Lee - MAN OUT FRONT is the first film to explore his life and legacy.
Visit the official website: www.canadaleedoc.com
Cartoon College
Cartoon College (working title) is the definitive story of contemporary comics as seen through the eyes of the students and faculty of the Center for Cartoon Studies, America's premiere institution of higher learning for the study of comics-making. This feature-length documentary chronicles a generation of artists at the dawn of a creative and social epiphany.
Since its inception in 2005, the Center for Cartoon Studies in White River Junction, Vermont has welcomed aspiring cartoonists from all over the world to study the art of making comics — a medium that after a hundred years of superheroes and Sunday funnies is just now beginning to tackle issues of universal importance. As celebrated cartoonist and CCS faculty Jason Lutes put it, “[Comics] are a means of expression that can encompass virtually any subject. There's this vast untapped potential.” Today CCS is helping to facilitate a new breed of cartoonist, outsider artists who, like the poets and folk singers of the early 1960s or the graffiti artists and punk rockers of the early ‘80s, are threatening to unleash their own brand of creative expression into the mainstream and claim a spot near the top of the cultural hierarchy.
Camden International Film Festival
The Camden International Film Festival (CIFF) is committed to supporting and generating interest in independent documentary films. Considered the "premiere US fall festival stop for docs," the annual festival presents a snapshot of the cultural landscape through the year¹s best non-fiction storytelling, connecting filmmakers with eager audiences and industry representatives to discuss documentary film as an art form, a catalyst for change and as an outlet for the independent voice.
The 7th Annual Camden International Film Festival will take place Fall 2011, screening the best international documentary film to audiences in venues throughout Midcoast Maine.
Contributions to the Camden International Film Festival are now being accepted online. Gifts of any size are tax-deductible, and are greatly appreciated. Donations will go towards creating more year round programming and bringing the finest nonficiton films and filmmakers to Midcoast, Maine this Fall for the annual Camden International Film Festival.
For more information, please visit: www.camdenfilmfest.org
A Civil Remedy
A Civil Remedy is a short documentary film about a vision of justice for children and women who are trafficked for sex in America.
The story of sex trafficking involves vulnerability, systemic and systematic violence, entrenched inequalities, shocking profitability, and the failure of law. The film tells the story of one victim who survived - an American girl who was trafficked into prostitution in Boston at the age of seventeen, escaped to her family, and survived to finish school and become an anti-trafficking advocate.
Against this backdrop, the film weaves the perspectives of three commentators — Gloria Steinem, Cherie Jimenez, and Siddharth Kara — as they explore the importance of survivors' stories, the meaning of justice, and the need to place new legal tools in the hands of victims. A civil remedy — a state civil action for damages against traffickers, pimps, and purchasers — will empower victims to reclaim their equal place in their community, see their violators held accountable, and drain resources from this global sex industry.
For more information, visit: www.filmandlaw.com
The Club
The Club is a candid documentary film exploring the lives of several women across the world who lost their mothers in their formative years, and the impact this loss has had on the unconventional lives they've made for themselves and ultimately the women they've become.
Chronicling the stories of four women from a range of different backgrounds, at varying stages of their lives who are all still identifying their own paths and how their mother's absence has and continues to play a role in their lives. The gracious contributions of Rosie O'Donnell, Molly Shannon and NY Times Bestselling author of Motherless Daughters, Hope Edelman, also demonstrates the gravitas of this subject matter.
From the heart of Sao Paulo, Brazil to the bustling streets of New York City; the seemingly idyllic Calabasas, California to the hot and sweaty Deep South, all the way across to the alternative hub of Bristol England; this film is an eclectic patchwork of personal stories woven together with rich archival footage to give theirexperiences context and the film a strong sense of intimacy and nostalgia. As women who lost their mothers during childhood, the filmmakers will offer a unique approach and a sense of authenticity that aims to be an honest yet hopeful depiction of the long-term impacts of early mother loss.
For more information, please visit: www.theclubdocumentary.com
Crossing the Bridge
Crossing the Bridge is a richly photographed, character-driven documentary film that follows the stories of several people in Kosovo during this most crucial time for them and for the region: the aftermath of Kosovo's independence and formation as a new state.
Best known for its appearance on the world stage when NATO troops stepped in to halt the mass slaughter of Albanian Kosovars by Slobodan Milosevic's Serb nationalists in 1999, Kosovo has a long way to go to rebuild. It is the poorest country in the poorest part of Europe, and with Christian Serbs and Muslim Albanians living in an uneasy co-existence after a brutal history together, it still has a heavy UN presence.
The film will reveal the personal struggles, the political tension, and the hidden magic of people trying to overcome seemingly unbridgeable differences in this era of inter-ethnic turmoil - drawing a vivid portrait of life in this ethnically split country and looking beyond the political headlines to see what it really takes to build a democracy from scratch.
For more information, please visit: www.raisinbomber.com
Devil May Care
In Devil May Care, Bob Dorough, the 86-year-old musical legend behind Schoolhouse Rock, proves how creativity can keep you young; he rises at dawn to compose new tunes, travels the world for gigs, and drinks his younger band-mates under the table. Ever the enduring hipster, Dorough is the unlikely “leading man” in a film that charts his resilience and celebrates his panache — and just happens to give an offbeat history of American popular culture as he recounts collaborations with Miles Davis, Lenny Bruce, Lawrence Ferlenghetti, Maya Angelou, Sugar Ray Robinson, The Fugs, Charlie Parker, David Johanssen (to name a few). Throughout the film — and precisely because of it — we see contemplation and vulnerability pierce the showman's cloak, even as his indomitable spirit reverberates beyond the film. Provocative and character-driven (with a quirky, charismatic character), this is an “anti-biopic,” a film of wide interest for its story, its visual style and its diverse soundtrack.
Visit the official website: www.devilmaycarethemovie.com
Dinosaurs in Eden
What would the world look like if Darwin was sent packing, and the Bible brought back as a history book? It might look something like the 100,000-square-foot Creation Museum, where life-like dinosaurs graze while children play nearby, and Adam and Eve are extremely attractive individuals swimming in a stream. It might look like a 7-day rafting trip through the Grand Canyon where evidence of Noah's flood is taught as you float through some of the world's most breath-taking scenery. It might look like the inside of any number of mega-churches, where music, dance and art workshops teach children that God created the world and humans in 7 literal days. And it might sound like an impassioned sermon condemning mainstream culture - where Darwin's theory of evolution is alive and well.
Dinosaurs in Eden is a one-hour documentary film about a national community of creationists and their quest to shape the world around them in religious, social, and political terms. By examining both the message and its method of delivery, this film presents an in-depth look into a widespread, modern-day religious movement.
Directing Dissent
Directing Dissent is a film about John Roemer, teacher and social activist, and his decisions to either live within the law, or have a sound basis for civil disobedience. It not only shows his distinctive and unconventional style of teaching, but uses it as a framework within which to explore his past.
Roemer's story involves near-death experiences and adventures, both as director of the Maryland ACLU and while playing a pivotal role in helping to integrate Maryland. In the conversations with Roemer he discusses significant personal and historical issues, including Plessy v. Ferguson (1896, a Supreme Court decision upholding racial segregation in private businesses under the doctrine of "separate but equal"), the Gwynn Oak Park demonstrations, integrating the ocean, and why civil liberties are important. At the same time, it is our hope that Directing Dissent will speak directly to and energize those who continue to advocate for social change — from teachers to activists, social workers to students.
Directing Dissent is seeking tax-deductible contributions for the production and distribution of this film.
Visit the official website: www.directingdissent.com.
Divided Families
There are an estimated 100,000 first generation Korean Americans with immediate family members in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK). These families have been left divided for over 50 years and many of them have already passed away, or are in their 70s, 80s, and 90s. Though American citizens, there are no formal mechanisms for family members to identify or even dream of reunion with their family in the DPRK. Sadly, many of us are not aware of this tragedy.
Divided Families is a documentary retracing story of one divided family member, Mrs. Chahee Lee Stanfield, a retired librarian in Chicago. For over thirty years she has lived the American dream, leaving a home ravaged by wars to forge her own destiny. She remembers the moment when she was separated from her father and her brother. It was the eve of the Pacific War and her family decided to go back home to Taegu, Korea after living in Manchuria. She left with her mother on a train to Taegu and her father and brother were supposed to meet them one week later but in that week, political lines were drawn. She didn't know that her departure from that train station would be the last that she would ever see them and without having the chance to ever say goodbye, over half a century would pass.
Many Korean Americans share her story and are waiting for that day when they would see their families. Because of this collective tragedy, ChaHee has organized a movement to fight for this generation's right to see their family members before it's too late.
This is a journey of separation, immigration, and epic search for a father and a brother in a rush against time.
Visit the film's website at www.dividedfamilies.com.
To make a donation to this film, click the donate button below.
Down the Fort
Down The Fort is a multimedia public history documentary and archive project for "the Fort," a traditional Sicilian fishing enclave adjacent to the historic Gloucester harbor. It is a collection of oral histories, visual artifacts and local expressive culture gathered from individuals, businesses and families tied to the Fort. It offers a permanent record and preserves valuable memories for families and a city whose roots emanate from this historic neighborhood. It also creates a channel of expression for members of the community looking to celebrate and honor the generations of families who have lived, worked, loved and died "down the Fort.'
Visit the official website: www.downthefort.com
Exit Zero
How long does the impact of deindustrialization last? Exit Zero uses family stories to offer an intimate portrait of the former steel mill community of Southeast Chicago and the lasting effects that the loss of heavy industry has had on the region. Interweaving home movies, found footage, and a first person narrative, the film traces the stories of multiple generations of filmmaker Christine Walley's family in this once-thriving steel mill community. From the turn-of-the-century arrival of immigrants to work in Chicago's mammoth industries to the labor struggles of the 1930s to the seemingly unfathomable closure of the steel mills in the 1980s and 90s, these family stories convey a history that serves as a microcosm of the nation.
Following Walley's father, a former steelworker, as he wanders aimlessly through a transformed Calumet region now made up of industrial brownfields, toxic landfills, and gambling casinos, the film suggests the social and environmental stakes of such transformations. Although the film is personal, it tells a story that resonates across some of the crucial disjunctures of our time: the ever-widening gap between rich and poor, the collapse of the American Dream for working people, and the toxic legacy of a vanished industrial past.
Field Marks
Field Marks is a feature-length documentary that looks at birdwatchers from all walks of life and investigates the culture of avian observation. Determination can be as transparent as the lens of a binocular - but if you look into the wrong end, you'll see something distorted - something distant. Field Marks goes beyond the stereotypical idea of birder as eccentric affluent, and goes behind the binoculars, gazing into the squinted eyes of the birdwatcher.
Our goal in producing Field Marks is to reveal birdwatching to the general public in an innovative light. The film aims to provide an understanding of birdwatching using a multilayered approach including the personal, the social and the environmental. We are structuring the film in such a way that is both entertaining and educational so that it can be relevant to birdwatchers and non-birdwatchers alike. While birdwatching is enjoyed by almost 50 million Americans, it is still a subculture whose motivations are essential to keep the planet functioning. Through filming and research, we've noticed a correlation between a well-rounded understanding of nature and a desire to protect it. Awareness fosters conservation - and media fosters awareness.
Please visit fieldmarksfilm.com to learn more about our project. We thank you in advance for your interest and support.
Gesar's Bard
This is the story of Dawa, a divinely inspired bard of the "King Gesar" epic in the aftermath of a devastating earthquake in East Tibet's Jiegu town. With unique access to the famous bard as well as the disaster zone that has been off-limits to western media, Dawa's story takes us into the fault lines between old Tibet and modern development, which is rapidly transforming the region. With the old Tibetan town reduced to rubble, a brave new Jiegu emerges from the ashes, as Chinese redevelopment of the region takes a giant leap forward. In the midst of such seismic shifts, Dawa turns to King Gesar and other divine protectors of the land.
The Giant Music Box
Three generations of the van der Linde family have been intimately involved in teaching and playing piano in Vermont for nearly four decades. What began as an informal piano camp, founded by Rein and his wife, Rosamond, for their children and their playmates, grew rapidly to become the unique and inspiring piano camp it is today.
In a grand old house with twenty-six pianos filling every nook and cranny, children of all levels and from all around the world learn from a diverse faculty at Summer Sonatina. The Sonatas - live-in piano camp for adults, some who have returned annually for over twenty years - are offered for ten days each month of the year. The Giant Music Box will capture the passion of the four van der Linde daughters and one son, as well as the energy of their mother, Rosamond, a vibrant, unorthodox, yet brilliant teacher. We will follow Polly van der Linde - program director and piano whisperer - and her staff and students through the four seasons, beginning and ending with the Autumn Sonata.
The Giant Music Box will be a moving and inspiring film - rich in sound, full of drama and heart - as we join those who love piano on their individual and collective journey. From the pratfalls of the practice room through pre-concert jitters, we will share, finally, the transformative and joyous experience of making and sharing music in The Giant Music Box.
Greyhound: Racing Into The Light
Revered by royalty from the Egyptian pharaohs to the kings and queens of England, greyhounds were a favored pet and hunting partner. Egyptians considered the birth of a litter of greyhounds second in importance only to the birth of a son. A status symbol for medieval England's ruling class, commoners were forbidden to own greyhounds, and killing one was a capital offense. So elegant their appearance, greyhounds are featured in many classic and Renaissance masterpieces.
Sadly, however, if not for a greyhound's likeness on the side of a bus, a great many Americans today wouldn't know a greyhound from a chihuahua. Fewer know their history or how the greyhound racing industry functions.
Greyhound is the first full-length documentary film to trace the 4,000-year history of this amazing breed and to present an evenhanded, in-depth examination of the controversial greyhound racing industry. The film will include the commentary of racing-greyhound breeders and trainers, track owners, animal scientists, humane groups, veterinarians, racing officials, greyhound adoption groups, state racing commissioners, professional gamblers, and others.
Growing Season
In the heart of Houston, the health department is forging an alliance with vulnerable communities to try to counter both the health and economic insecurities of living in a “food desert,” where fast food is plentiful, but vegetables and fruit are hard to find. Neighborhoods are learning how to grow the produce themselves and the health department is sponsoring the gardens.
Growing Season tells the story of a community garden in one of these neighborhoods: Hiram Clarke. The film follows a single garden and the people who tend it from the moment the ground is broken, until the harvests come in from the first growing season. Will a group of Houstonians, unfamiliar with agriculture, be willing and able to grow and cook their own produce? Growing Season will explore how this new garden shapes the community and the lives of the people who work the soil.
Visit the website: www.growingseasonmovie.com
Holy Ghetto
A film by iLan Azoulai
Tracing the narratives of marginalized women within Tel Aviv's red light district, Holy Ghetto explores the devastating legacy of Israel's long unregulated sex trafficking industry on a generation of silenced, stateless women.
The character-driven film will intimately explore personal narratives that are emblematic of a nation's battle towards recovery: three sex trafficking victims trying to regain their rights as mothers and legal citizens and to liberate themselves from a cycle of prostitution, drugs, poverty and abuse, and an American whose independently-operated shelter struggles to help them. Holy Ghetto will document their stories with authenticity, providing a detailed picture of the landscape from which its victims must recover. At the same time, it will acknowledge Israel's efforts to regulate the industry and rehabilitate the victims. It is a film with global relevance, positioned at a time when nations are fraught with a similar recuperative process.
Visit the film's website: www.holyghetto.com
How to Grow a Band
What happens to a musical prodigy after his wife leaves and his band splits up? By the time he turned 25, Chris Thile had already sold two million records with the Grammy-winning, pop-bluegrass trio Nickel Creek and had been called "perhaps the most virtuosic American ever to play the mandolin." Now, broken-hearted and restless, Thile is beginning again.
How to Grow a Band is an up-close look at Chris Thile's daring new project and the musicians he has drafted to help him find his way. The film follows the new band, Punch Brothers, on their first tour as they debut "The Blind Leaving The Blind," Thile's four-movement suite with lyrics inspired by his divorce and the band's intense collaboration. On the road, the Punch Brothers soon face questions about whether Thile can lead them - and his audience - where he wants them to go.
From Punch Brothers' first show at a folk festival in Scotland, to their triumphant performance at Lincoln Center in New York, How to Grow a Band tells a musical coming of age story. It explores the tensions between individual talents and group identity, art and commerce, innocence and wisdom. An intimate portrait of dizzying young talent at a crossroads, How to Grow a Band is ultimately a film about growing up and starting over.
Visit the film's official site.
Hollow: An Interactive Documentary
Hollow: An Interactive Documentary represents a universal struggle shared by rural communities across the United States by focusing on one of the hardest hit areas: Southern West Virginia. Intimate documentary portraits reveal the faces behind the statistics of McDowell County an area plagued with deep-rooted stereotypes, high unemployment, loss of population, youth exodus and poverty as they continue to live, work and enjoy life in a community where the buildings and institutions fall into disrepair around them.
Hollow features 50 documentary portraits mapped on an interactive HTML-5 website that engages viewers through the use of data, personal stories, maps, contemporary footage, user-generated content and archival imagery specifically designed to help address the issue of "rural brain drain" and build a new identity for West Virginians. Members of the community will take part in the filmmaking process by creating 20 of the 50 short documentaries in efforts to build engagement and social trust and empower the community to work together for a better future.
Home Country
Maine and Somalia lie at opposite ends of the world, yet are connected by tenuous threads of memory that span the distance between. Home Country is a feature length documentary about personal geography as one young man treads the balance between place and identity in the 21st century.
Visit the film's official site.
Icaros: Songs of the Amazon
Traditional Amazonian healers or curanderos, claim the spirits of the plants communicate with them through lullabies, called Icaros. Every being in the rainforest has an Icaro and its melody alone is believed to possess curative powers. A curandero will sing a plant's song while preparing and administering it as a medicine to invoke the spirit of the plant as an ally in healing. These songs have been described as the "quintessence of shamanic power."
The lullabies are melodic transmissions from earth to man and they display an intimate relationship to nature that is in jeopardy. As we are losing species of plants to deforestation we are also losing Icaros to the buzz of the modern world. The trend of indigenous youth migrating to cities and away from traditional cultural practices leaves elder shaman as the sole keepers of these sacred songs.
We will create an audio-visual archive to preserve the Icaros and a feature documentary to explore their power and history. We will investigate how the songs are used to promote healing, how one learns an Icaro, and how/if speficic songs vary throughout the Amazon.
The Joy of Sox
Who would have thought that Western science, Eastern metaphysics, and prayer would converge in Fenway Park?
For most Red Sox fans, being crowned as World Champions, was the fulfillment of a lifelong dream. For two fans, however, it was the beginning of a quest to uncover the deeper truth behind that magical season and behind the player-fan interaction, in general.
The Joy of Sox documentary film explores the world of subtle energy science through the lens of baseball fandom. Do fans affect players through the power of their attention? Is it better to pray for your team or against the opposition? Is Fenway Park a sacred space?
Join Eric Leskowitz, MD, a board certified psychiatrist at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital, as he journeys from ballpark to laboratory interviewing fans, players, baseball commentators, and pioneering scientists including: Larry Dossey, MD, author of Reinventing Medicine and Prayer is Good Medicine; Dr. William Tiller, Professor Emeritus, Stanford University, and featured scientist on What the Bleep?; Rollin McCraty, Ph.D the founder of the Institute of HeartMath; and Rupert Sheldrake, Ph.D., author of The Sense of Being Stared At.
An article on MLB.com profiles The Joy of Sox, calling it "nothing short of shocking, heartwarming, and illuminating."
This provocative film will be the What the Bleep? for sports and spirituality, quirky and informative enough for everyone to enjoy and learn from. The Official The Joy of Sox web site.
Like River, A Girl
The Lost Girls' story has never been told, explored or even documented. The story of the Lost Boys and their life in the United States has gained lots of media attention, while the heroic story of these young women has been harder to uncover. Like River, A Girl is a character driven documentary feature that explores the life of Aduei Riak, one of the Lost Girls who came to America through a resettlement program in 2000. Through Aduei, we will learn about the Lost Girls and chronicle her journey and her ongoing struggle to help the people in her home village of Malek in Southern Sudan through the building of a school for girls. The film will focus on her passion to empower young Sudanese women through education, and the parallel story will be a history of the Lost Girls through Aduei's personal account.
Visit the film's official site: www.likeriveragirl.com
Nawal's Feast
In this excursion through the cradle of civilization, ancient recipes prepared in vibrant neighborhoods restore faith that Iraqi culture endures in those most universal of human activities - cooking and eating.
We are guided through this world by Nawal Nasrallah, an Iraqi scholar and food writer. The film is based on one of her books, Delights from the Garden of Eden.
The film's dramatic structure moves between demonstrations given in a starkly white studio kitchen outside of Iraq, and those same recipes coming to life in the homey confines of Iraqi kitchens.At the conclusion, a dozen Iraqi scholars share a feast of the dishes Nawal has cooked at a long table set on a darkened stage with only the food and guests lit.
We seek to melt hardened hearts with warm food from Iraq.
For more information, visit the film's website.
Oil in the Family
Oil in the Family is a feature-length documentary film that is both poetry and policy. It explores our marriage to oil through a uniquely personal journey. New England filmmaker Jon Goldman traces his roots (and good fortune) back to his family's Louisiana oil field. There, he discovers that his grandmother played a vital role in the creation of one of the most celebrated - and derided - documentaries ever made, Robert J. Flaherty's Louisiana Story.
Visit the official website: www.oilfilms.com
Opus 139
Opus 139: To Hear the Music will tell the story of Charles Brenton Fisk, a brilliant Massachusetts nuclear physicist who turned away from the militaristic developments in his field during World War II in order to pursue his passion for music.
Leaving his early involvement in the Manhattan Project and a graduate program at Stanford University, Fisk returned to coastal Gloucester, Massachusetts to pursue organ building. Over the next 50 years, the C.B.Fisk Pipe Organ Company has become a premier American builder of mechanical action pipe organs, combining exacting physics and mechanical engineering with acoustic artistry to produce the largest of musical instruments.
Now, Charles Fisk's legacy of collegial problem solving is continued by dedicated artists and craftspeople, who will undertake the design and construction of a very special instrument: Opus 139 in Harvard University's Memorial Church. To suit the changing needs of the University's worship space, the new organ will require renovation to the Church's second floor gallery and a design that will allow it to sing with the congregation and grace a landmark of Boston history and architecture.
Trained by Charles Fisk and passionately dedicated to his principles and working method, the modern day guild of artisans at C.B.Fisk, Inc. will strive to help future generations of visitors to Harvard hear the music that entranced their founder.
View the official trailer here.
Our Mockingbird
Our Mockingbird, a one-hour documentary, depicts how Harper Lee's classic coming of age story, To Kill A Mockingbird, still resonates in our national discourse about race, class, and justice. Our Mockingbird is also about the power of arts in education to transform lives as illustrated by a high school production of the adapted play, To Kill A Mockingbird, in Birmingham, Alabama. Two Birmingham high schools, one all-black and one all-white, collaborate on a life-changing production of the play and come to grips with the tumultuous civil rights history in their hometown. Along with the story of the high school production, scholars, writers, students, teachers, lawyers, judges, and actors all weigh in on the influence of To Kill A Mockingbird.
For more information contact: sandy.ourmockingbird@gmail.com
The Paduka of the Guru
The aim of this film is to chronicle the enigmatic and controversial life and legacy of the late religious philosopher Dr. Bibhuti Singh Yadav, from his birth into a low-caste cow-herding clan in a remote rural village of North India to his career as an international scholar and Professor of Indian Religions at Temple University in Philadelphia, USA.
The film integrates into Yadav's biography an ancient and enduring ritual performed exclusively by members of the Yadav family and rooted in a myth that narrates the Yadav's identity as a low caste clan who rejected Indra, the high caste god of storm, rain and thunder, to devote their worship to Krishna, himself a member of the low caste Yadav clan. This myth is well known to all India but this particular ritual - Karaha - is not and has never been previously documented. The Yadav ritual specialists defy laws of physics by bathing in clay cauldrons of boiling hot milk and immersing their nearly naked limbs and torso in the raging flames of the holy sacrificial fire. The ritual is a sensational, dramatic, mimetic re-enactment of the identity defining moment in the mythical history of the Yadav family.
Peace Through Education
Peace Through Education is a feature length documentary film that examines the role of education in minimizing conflict and creating critical opportunities for children in Afghanistan.
We will examine this theory through the story of Mohammad Khan Kahroti and his determination to create and build a school for Afghani children in his home village of Shin Kalay. The school existed successfully for eight years, starting with only 16 students and growing to 1200.
Sadly, tragedy struck mid October 2008; an unidentified group of people took it upon themselves to loot the institution, bulldoze it, and destroy everything, leaving it in a heap of rubble on the ground. Their reason: they didn't agree with a secular education for the children of his village.
Through the words of former students and Mohammad himself we will be able to see the impact that Green Village School had on the students and the village of Shin Kalay and the devastating aftermath of its loss. We will follow Mohammad on his emotional journey to rebuild his school; from the fundraising efforts in the US to the brick by brick reconstruction of the Green Village School.
Will Mohammad be able to rebuild his school? Will his village survive this tragedy? These questions will be answered through the journey that lies ahead in Peace Through Education.
Visit the film's official website: www.peacethrougheducationfilm.com.
Pelotero
In the Dominican Republic baseball is experiencing a golden age. From the streets to the stadiums, the youth of the Dominican Republic dream of one day emerging from the dugout onto a Big League field. From the time they can walk, kids practice with rolled up sock balls and broomsticks, waiting for the day they are old enough to sign. That day comes at the age 16 when players are given the chance to try out for professional teams. The best will sign, changing their lives forever as they try to advance through the system.
Pelotero is a feature length documentary that follows five teenage players intimately as they train and try-out for MLB teams, all while trying to balance life as a teenager in the run up to July 2nd, the day they become eligible to sign. While their stories delve into the dark side of Dominican baseball - age falsification, steroid usage, and corruption - at the heart is a story of young players battling incredible odds to play the game they love.
Meet Bob. Bob has a rare genetic disorder — he can die if he breaks his bones. His diagnosis is Hardcastle's Syndrome, and he comes from one of only five families in the world known to be affected by this disease. In 2004 Bob was given a life expectancy of five years and told any broken bone would result in cancer, and could be lethal.
RARE BONES, though providing an in-depth look at a family enduring this rare disease, focuses on a life fully lived. Undeterred by his bone risk, Bob engages in activities like hunting, ice fishing, and demolition derby. Bob also started his own tow truck company, called “Hop-to-It Towing” in honor of his amputated leg. Instead of opting for the doctor recommended desk job, Bob chooses to live out his days his way, and on his terms.
Visit the official website: www.rarebonesfilm.com
Refuge: Stories of the Selfhelp Home
In the late 1930s, a determined group of German Jewish refugees left behind well-established lives and most of their possessions in Hitler's Germany to find safe haven in Chicago. Here, these newcomers set out to create a vibrant and supportive community for themselves and others fleeing Nazi persecution, eventually establishing the Selfhelp Home for elderly refugees. Refuge: Stories of the Selfhelp Home tells the story of this singular place that for generations has brought over 1,000 Holocaust survivors and refugees together under one roof.
Through interviews with Selfhelp's residents and founders, some of the last eyewitnesses to this period in history, Refuge moves back and forth seamlessly between their stories — before, during and after World War II — to show how one small community came together, through prescience and pooled resources, to care for its oldest generation.
Visit the official website: storiesofselfhelp-film.com
Relief Riders International
Relief Riders International is a humanitarian-based, adventure travel company that organizes horseback journeys through remote areas while providing humanitarian aid to local people.
Since 2004 Relief Riders International has helped over 18,700 people, including 12,000 children in Rajasthan, India and adds Cappadocia, Turkey to the Relief Ride itinerary in 2011.
Visit the official website: www.reliefridersinternational.com.
Romeo
A new film project by Lorna Lowe Streeter. Romeo, a documentary, examines the complexities of battering through the eyes of Antonio, a 32 year-old, Haitian-American counselor for violent men.
Most of us are unaware of the full extent of battering not only in American society but world-wide. The ramifications of these acts of violence across generations is devastating. Many people in the target audience for this program lead secret lives as a batterer or a victim who struggles to exist in conditions such as those that appear in the film.
Visit the film's official website here.
The Scissors Dancers
A one-hour HD documentary film by Gaby Yepes and Mitchell Teplitsky for international television, about an ancient ritual/dance and community originating in the southern Peruvian Andes. The film follows, over one year, the stories of a new generation of aspiring teenage dancers - most now living in the coastal slums of Lima, where their families migrated to escape poverty and terrorism. Through their stories, the film explores a larger global issue - how will indigenous cultures adapt in a 21st century globalized world?
Shine On
SHINE ON chronicles seven girls & young women with various physical and intellectual disabilities and their families as they participate in the 5th annual Miss “You Can Do It” Pageant. The contestants are not judged by the fit of the gown or by how perfect they look, but on how brightly they're hearts and spirit shine through.
The real winners of this pageant may just be the family and friends cheering in the audience. In a world where people are always asking what's wrong with these girls and young women, SHINE ON is celebrating what's right with them.
For more information, visit the filmmaker's website: www.shineonfilm.com
Silence Opens Doors
“Lock yourself in your bathroom for the next ten years and tell me how it will affect your mind,” remarked Charles, an inmate of the Tamms CMAX prison in Southern Illinois, where inmates spend 23 hours a day in solitary confinement.
Silence Opens Doors goes inside one of the harshest living situations in our country, but only to make a point about the environment in which we all live. It follows acticists with the Tamms Year 10 Coalition, as they work with legislators to create a voice for prisoners and perforate the cells. It goes into the labs of scientists who are developing a new generation of weapons that use sound to kill. It goes into conservative Quaker communities in Ohio that practice a form of worship rooted in silence. Silence Opens Doors weaves a story about invisibility, transcendence, the struggle to be heard, and our efforts to imprint our identities on personal and political soundscapes.
A Simple Act
Every night at 8 a miracle happens.
A Simple Act is the story of Patty and Rick Parker and an act of kindness that becomes bigger than those involved. When Rick has to undergo emergency heart surgery seventeen-year-old Rudy Favard, captain of the Malden Catholic football team, steps in to save the family.
Visit the official site: www.14steps.org
Soy Andina
Two Peruvian dancers raised in different worlds - an immigrant folk dancer from the Andes, a modern dancer from Queens, NY - return to Peru to reconnect with roots and an astonishing world of traditional dance and culture.
After fifteen years in New York, Nélida Silva returns to her Andean birthplace to host the fiesta patronal - a week of dance, music, and ritual honoring the town's patron saint. But Neli's changed, and so has the village...
Meanwhile, Cynthia Paniagua, a dancer raised in Queens by a Peruvian mom, embarks on her own Peruvian journey after meeting Neli - determined to "quench a burning desire to know the real Peru, to unearth the mystery of the dances."
Soy Andina is an exuberant cross-cultural road trip, propelled by traditional music and dance rarely seen outside the country. But the core story is intimate and universal: a yearning for roots and connection in a globalized world.
Visit the film's website: www.soyandina.com
Sunlight Man: The Life & Times of John Gardner
Novelist John Gardner – bestselling author of Grendel, The Sunlight Dialogues, Nickel Mountain and other works – died in a motorcycle accident in 1982. Sunlight Man is the story of Gardner’s complex life and turbulent times, as seen from the point of view of his filmmaker son, Joel.
Through interviews, archival film, still photographs and present day location shots, Joel Gardner’s odyssey weaves together several parallel stories in Sunlight Man. Joel examines the myths surrounding his father’s early years, including the death of a younger brother in a farm accident. He traces his father’s swift rise to fame with the publication of Grendel, his subsequent fall from critical favor, and tells of his father’s personal struggles – in art and in life – which led to his death at 49.
Alongside his exploration of John Gardner’s life and work, Joel Gardner tells his own story in intimate terms. Joel compares and contrasts the choices he’s made against those of his father. By the end of the film, Sunlight Man, Joel Gardner is able to come to terms with his father, with himself, and with the tangled legacy John Gardner left in his wake.
Tiapapata Art Centre
The Tiapapata Art Centre was established in 1989 with various art courses offered informally to children and adults. Since then the Art Centre has grown to be a dynamic and innovative contributor to the art scene in Samoa and, in June 2006, was registered as a Charitable Trust with the Government of Samoa. Printmaking, ceramics, fabric printing, wood and bone carving, and paper recycling are some of the more popular courses taught. Filmmaking is also a growing field for the Art Centre with particular emphasis on human rights education documentaries (three produced to date with work on a fourth about to start) and ethnographic recordings, mainly of oral traditions associated with archaeological sites in Samoa.
At the end of March 2007, the Tiapapata Art Centre burned to the ground in fire caused by a Raku firing attended by students and teachers from a local high school and university. Luckily no-one was injured but there is now an urgent need for financial support to rebuild the Art Centre.
To Timbuktu with Vieux Farka Toure
Journey on a musical pilgrimage following the extraordinary life and work of Vieux Farka Toure. Born in Mali, West Africa, on the banks of the Niger River just outside of Timbuktu, in a country rich in cultural and ancestral wealth yet bound by economic poverty, Vieux is son to the late guitarist and multi Grammy Award winner Ali Farka Toure. Ali is legend in Mali and one of the most celebrated musicians out of Africa. Rooted in the traditional music from his father, and moved by popular sounds from around the world, Vieux has just made his musical debut and is now at the cutting edge of the world music scene.
We begin the journey in Bamako, the capital of Mali, where Vieux now lives (when he's not on tour), and we'll travel with him throughout the country by 4x4, camel and boat, into the Sahara desert just outside of Timbuktu, where Vieux will perform at the Festival in the Desert. After experiencing the music, variety of cities, people and landscapes in Mali, we'll move to the United States. Here we'll see Mali's connection to American history - a story that goes back the origin of the American blues in West Africa, and the later influence of American soul music in Mali.
Today the musical connections live on through Vieux. As he travels around the world, moving audiences and critics virtually everywhere he steps foot, his universal spirit is connecting him to popular musicians from all walks of life; from NY based DJ's that created his remix album, to American country folk musicians. Beyond a successful debut album, largely due to his ability to make music that is palatable to any ear, his increasing musical collaborations and inspiration throughout the world suggest that his music is bound for an even larger audience and world sound.
With the most frequent media images of Africa focusing on disease, poverty, violence, or an attention to culture that's so specific that we lose any sense of humanity, Vieux's story will show another side. To follow Vieux, we'll experience how music is lived, we'll see the complexities of Africa's fight for survival in the 21st century, and we'll learn how we as an international community are inextricably linked and celebrated through the music of Vieux Farka Toure.
To further explore, visit www.totimbuktu.com.
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To the Village Square
To the Village Square: Democracy and Nuclear Power In The New Millennium, a new feature-length documentary film which chronicles citizen participation in the political battle over the future of Vermont Yankee, one of America's oldest-running nuclear power plants.
Vermont is the only state in the U.S. where the legislature is empowered to make a decision about the future operation of an aging nuclear power plant after its operating license expires. The original 40-year license of the state's only nuclear reactor, Vermont Yankee, is set to expire in March 2012.
Grassroots environmental and anti-nuclear activists have worked for decades calling for the closure of Vermont Yankee, citing environmental and public health dangers from both the routine and accidental releases of radioactivity from the reactor, as well as the unresolved issue of long-term storage of high-level nuclear wastes. Pro-nuclear power advocates and Energy company officials argue that Vermont Yankee and other nuclear power plants operate safely and provide a reliable source of jobs and electricity, without adding carbon emissions to the atmosphere.
With over 100 hours of HD video material already filmed, To the Village Square will feature the perspectives of people on all sides of the nuclear power debate, including Vermont state Senators and House Representatives, former nuclear power engineers (now turned whistleblowers), grassroots activists, Entergy officials, Vermont Yankee engineers and other plant workers, local residents at town meetings and community forums, state officials, federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission representatives, and the candidates for the Vermont Governor's race.
The film is directed by Robbie Leppzer of Turning Tide Productions, whose previous documentaries and commissioned magazine segments have been broadcast nationally on PBS, CNN, CNN International, HBO/Cinemax, Sundance Channel and HDNet, Link TV and Free Speech TV.
Visit the filmmakers website: www.turningtide.com.
Unorthodox
A year spent in Israel is a rite of passage for most teenagers brought up in the American Modern Orthodox Jewish community: nearly all high school graduates, both religious and non-religious, embark on this journey of spiritual renewal. Filmmakers Anna Wexler and Nadja Oertelt followed three teenagers - Chaim, Jake, and Tzipi - as they spent a year studying in Israel. Unorthodox is a film that not only documents the unique year in Israel amongst the Orthodox Jewish population, but also represents a more universal narrative: that of anyone who has ever questioned her most deeply-rooted beliefs.
For more information, visit www.unorthodoxmovie.com.
U.S.E.D.
From the State Capitol and the back-alleys of Denver to above ground syringe exchanges throughout the world, U.S.E.D., a one-hour documentary, sheds light on the politicians, drug addicts, social justice activists, people of faith, police, scientists, and medical professionals raising tough questions about why public parks are littered with dirty syringes and drug users are dying from Hepatitis C and HIV. From one group so fed up with policy that they disobey the law to hand out clean syringes, to concerned citizens working to pass a pro-syringe exchange bill at the Colorado State Legislature, U.S.E.D. chronicles people challenging public health practice and political process. Examining multiple sides of the harm reduction debate, U.S.E.D. tells an internationally relevant story about a neglected population in crisis and a public deciding how to respond.
Uprooted: Memoirs of Jewish Iran
Uprooted: Memoirs of Jewish Iran is a character driven documentary about the exodus of the Jews of Iran as a result of the Islamic Revolution of 1979. This story is remarkable in many ways: it is the story of the evolution of the Islamic Republic; it is the story of uprootedness and acclimation--an example of the American immigrant experience; and a story of danger and adventure as many immigrants left Iran clandestinely, at night, with the aid of smugglers--on camels and trucks, and through mountains and deserts. The film will explore the experiences of three women while simultaneously depicting the history of the period through scholarly commentary, stock footage and images. It will examine the fluctuating environment of the time and its effects on Iranian Jewish identity and culture both in Iran and in the United States. Dating back 2500 years, the Jewish community of Iran has a wide girth, deep roots, broad boughs, and a high crest.
Volcano People
Elizabeth Rose and Alexander Berman are making a documentary film about people living in the shadow of the world's most dangerous volcano. Koryaksky – a UN “Decade Volcano” that looms over the city of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky – has a history of destructive eruptions. Despite this menacing classification, the aboriginal Eveny herd reindeer at the volcano's base and consider it an important cultural landmark. These reindeer herders have not been seen since the collapse of the Soviet Union when the subsidies for their indigenous way of life disappeared and their herds were culled by the thousands.
Today, a self-made Eveny shipping entrepreneur, Aleksandr Adukanov, has bought up a herd of 500 reindeer to reestablish his culture's ancestral pastoral practice. He sees volcanic eruption as a metaphor for his own situation: disaster happens, but opportunity often lies in its wake. Now, his son Maxim is studying the same volcano as a scientist at the region's state-funded University, fulfilling a passion that sprang from the legends of his youth.
This documentary is about the terrible beauty of disaster and the human ability to rise above it.
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