The Illumination

When Gordon Gund went blind in 1970 at age 30 due to retinitis pigmentosa, he resolved to find a cure for the disease and created the Foundation Fighting Blindness. After decades of scientific research, a major breakthrough emerged, and this short film showcases the inspirational story of a 17-year-old Belgian boy who is a beneficiary of this work.

To Be or Not to Be: Klingons and Shakespeare

The story behind the translation and performance of Shakespeare's "Hamlet" in Klingon.

En la ciudad perdida

The city of Madrid as it appears in the Spanish films of the 1950s. A small tribute to all those who filmed and portrayed Madrid despite the dictatorship, censorship and the critical situation of industry and society.

Salvador Dalí at Work

Filmmaker Jonas Mekas follows the surrealist artist around the streets of New York documenting staged public art events.

Twenty Years After

This short celebrates the 20th anniversary of MGM. Segments are shown from several early hits, then from a number of 1944 releases.

We're in the Movies, Now!

Promotion reel/souvenir of a 1939-40 meeting of the Paramount Studios sales people.

Return to Crystal Lake: Making 'Friday the 13th'

You Don't Back Down

In Nigeria, a young Canadian doctor serves in a local mission hospital and learns much from the experience. Stationed abroad under the Canadian University Service Overseas Plan, Dr. Alex McMahon and his schoolteacher wife find every day a fresh challenge. An interesting study of intercultural help.

Studio 5

Shot live in the studio during the evening broadcast on Swedish public television, the film shows the news like you've never seen them before.

Foster Child

Gil Cardinal searches for his natural family and an understanding of the circumstances that led to his becoming a foster child. An important figure in the history of Canadian Indigenous filmmaking, Gil Cardinal was born to a Métis mother but raised by a non-Indigenous foster family, and with this auto-biographical documentary he charts his efforts to find his biological mother and to understand why he was removed from her. Considered a milestone in documentary cinema, it addressed the country’s internal colonialism in a profoundly personal manner, winning a Special Jury Prize at Banff and multiple international awards.

Afrocentricity

On the surface, this collection of shorts by up-and-coming African American filmmakers arrived at a perfect time. The cutting-edge products of the New Black Cinema of the early '90s had disappeared, giving way to embarrassingly stereotypical, scatological fare such as Booty Call and Next Friday. This feature-packed compilation (which includes production notes, interviews with all of the filmmakers, and audio commentary by four) attempts to prove that African American cinema is intent on moving past the lowbrow humor, as six of the seven shorts steer clear of any comedy.

Quest for the Ring

Edith+Eddie

Edith and Eddie, ages 96 and 95, are America's oldest interracial newlyweds. Their unusual and idyllic love story is threatened by a family feud that triggers a devastating abuse of the legal guardianship system.

Alfonso Sánchez

Famous Spanish film critic Alfonso Sánchez talks about his personal life, his work and Anouk Aimée. A sentimental tribute to one of the most relevant figures on the Spanish film scene.

Granny's Flags

Haja Fatma, a mother to eight children, tells the tale of family life in Tripoli during the Libyan Revolution. Women, young and old, all contributed during these hostile months in their own unique way. A human portal into the acts of ordinary people in their hope for freedom.

Hedda Hopper's Hollywood No. 2

Hedda Hopper plays hostess at a party for her (grown) son William (DeWolfe Jr.). Hopper, attends the dedication of the Motion Picture Relief Fund's country home and goes to the Mocambo. There is also a sequence dedicated to the Milwaukee, Wisconsin world premiere of the first short in this series attended by more that a few film stars.

Cuentos chinos

The history of Chinese migration to Mexico, from its birth at the start of the twentieth century, through the Mexican revolution, the anti-Chinese movement, and up to the current state of Chinese migrants in the country. A documentary about xenophobia in Mexico and the search for identity of a group of people caught between two cultures.

Altas Cidades de Ossadas

Karlon, born in Pedreira dos Húngaros (a slum in the outskirts of Lisbon) and a pioneer of Cape Verdean creole rap, runs away from the housing project to which he had been relocated.

Rocky Jumped a Park Bench

A location tour of the Rocky filming locations in Philadelphia.

Estilhaços

This is a film about how war settles in the bodies of the people who are forced to experience it directly. And then, thousands of miles away and dozens of years ahead, how, like a virus, it can still infect other human beings.