Trains

After shooting more short films and documentaries, Deschanel wrote, directed and shot Trains, a short film that won the Silver Bear at the 1976 Berlin Film Festival. Trains is an exquisitely filmed short format documentary on passenger trains throughout the course of one day.

Le Musée et le Milliardaire anticonformiste

Who Killed Fourth Ward?

Originally founded as Freedman’s Town after the Civil War, The Fourth Ward is one of the oldest and most culturally significant black communities in Houston, Texas. In the 1970s, the city along with big business interests planned to redevelop the Fourth Ward in order to revitalize the dilapidated real estate and freshen the image of downtown Houston. The price of progress in this case would be the removal of many poor black families. The film explores a complex series of encounters with elected city officials, businessmen and the people of Fourth Ward in order to better understand how a city like Houston works. Who makes the decisions about where resources are spent and so determines the growth and wealth of the community.

Undocumented in the Pandemic

With The Marshall Project and the Pulitzer Center, a look at one immigrant mother’s struggle to keep her children safe and housed, with her husband detained by ICE in a facility where COVID is spreading. Also in this two-part hour, Love, Life & the Virus.

Frankenthaler: Toward a New Climate

A 30-minute film about Helen Frankenthaler, who invented the stained canvas at the age of 24 and influenced a whole generation of "color field" painters.

Georgia O'Keeffe

Georgia O'Keeffe appears on camera for the first time to talk candidly about her work and her life in this 1977 documentary.

Gertrude Stein: When You See This, Remember Me

The thoughts, words, and compelling presence of Gertrude Stein flows richly through this portrait of the author's Paris years from 1905 through the 1930s.

Mary Cassatt: Impressionist From Philadelphia

This documentary portrait is the first to celebrate the only American member of the French Impressionist school and the first American woman to become a famous painter. 'Mary Cassatt Impressionist From Philadelphia' is not only a biography of the artist’s life and work; the film sees both in the context of the status of the woman painter in Victorian America in the second half of the 19th century.

Still Looking

Janet Adler's moving 1970 short documentary about dance therapy illustrates a therapeutic approach using body and movements. The most powerful sequence shows the therapist working individually with two autistic girls.

Scott Joplin: King of Ragtime Composers

A short 1977 documentary about the originator of the ragtime rhythm.

Being Me

A 1975 documentary short about how children perceive themselves in terms of their surroundings, family, and ethnicity.

The Walls Come Tumbling Down

A 1975 documentary short about a strike being conducted by public-housing residents in St. Louis.

Sam

A 1971 film study of a Japanese American who lived in a detention camp during World War II.

Women of the Toubou

Short documentary about the Sahara-dwelling Toubou, a tribe in which the women are treated as equals by the men.

Die autogerechte Stadt - Gibt es Wege aus dem Verkehrschaos?

In 1959, Hans Bernhard Reichow published his book "Die autogerechte Stadt - Ein Weg aus dem Verkehrs-Chaos" (The car-friendly city - a way out of traffic chaos), in which he proposed a city oriented towards the needs of motorized private transport. This documentary discusses his idea.

Blackpool, Harden and Grange-over-Sands

A colourful miscellany of footage from both sides of the Pennines.

Die Mutigen 56 - Deutschlands längster Streik

Emma Freese is desperate when her husband Alfred falls ill at the Howaldtswerke in Kiel. How is the family supposed to get by without their wages? The war has scarred this generation, but now things are supposed to be looking up. The workers want their fair share and are fighting for an income that also gives them room to live. In October 1956, 34,000 metalworkers in the shipyards and factories of Schleswig-Holstein walk off the job to fight for justice and their dignity. This strike is still regarded as the toughest and longest in Germany. Employers and politicians stand in the strikers' way.

Another Chance

A short 1983 documentary about an alternative to prison.

Lila

A 1980 short about the life and work of 80-year-old practicing psychiatrist Lila Bonner-Miller, who is at once a doctor, a church leader, an artist, a great-grandmother, and a remarkable example to all who know her.

Himalayan Pilgrimage

A 16-minute short shot with a totally subjective eye; conveys the mythic life sense and social elements of a people who live in the world's highest mountains.