Partisans of Vilna

An intimate portrait of Suzan-Lori Parks, featuring actors Don Cheadle and Jeffrey Wright. The film shows the playwright’s process and how a play gets produced in behind-the-scenes footage of Topdog/Underdog in rehearsal and performance. It captures the play’s triumphant Broadway debut and traces Parks’ opportunities, challenges, and personal milestones during the production of her 2002 Pulitzer Prize winner.

Using historical footage, still photographs, and live interviews, the filmmaker tells the story of Jewish life in Poland between the two World Wars. Includes scenes of urban and rural life, and covers the rise and flourishing of the many religious and secular economic, political, and social movements which characterized Jewish society at this time. Film is a broad survey rather than focusing on any particular sub-topic. Notable in that it deals with the vibrancy of the life of this population of 3.5 million, and not with the tragedy of its subsequent destruction.

A heartbreaking record of the thirteen-month struggle between a community fighting to survive and a corporation dedicated to the bottom line.

Music For The Movies: Bernard Herrmann explores the work of a composer who created music for over 50 films, collaborating with such diverse directors as Orson Welles, Nicholas Ray, and Martin Scorsese. Best remembered for his twelve-year collaboration with Alfred Hitchcock in such classics as Vertigo, North By Northwest, and the unforgettable Psycho, Herrmann pioneered many fundamental techniques of film scoring in the course of his 35-year career.

Celebrities and creatives -- including musician David Byrne, performance artist Spalding Gray, comedian Sandra Bernhard, radical activist Abbie Hoffman, and poet Allen Ginsberg-- recall their earliest sexual experiences.

With a revived interest in the scores created for Hollywood films in the 1930's and 40's. "Music for the Movies: The Hollywood Sound" explores a segment of that legacy through composers like Max Steiner ("Gone with the Wind"), Franz Waxman ("Bride of Frankenstein") and Erich Korngold ("The Adventures of Robin Hood"), all of whom came from Europe. Steiner was a pupil of Ravel. The American roster includes David Raksin ("Laura") and Alfred Newman ("The Hunchback of Notre Dame"). Host and narrator John Mauceri conducts the BBC National Orchestra of Wales against a backdrop of clips from the various movies.