A Story from Africa

Mário

Are even the best and brightest revolutionary movements doomed to inevitable compromise, betrayal and failure? That question haunts this documentary, a biography of Angolan-born Mário Pinto de Andrade (1928–1990), a key figure in African revolutionary and anti-colonial struggles.

Red Hollywood

A documentary that examines the films made by the victims of the Hollywood Blacklist and offers a radically different perspective on a key period in the history of American cinema.

Bless Their Little Hearts

Charlie Banks, chronically unemployed, struggles to find dignity and a meaning for life in the impoverished Los Angeles neighborhood of Watts.

Four Corners

James Benning's "Four Corners" uses a specific geographical location to pose larger questions about the United States. Here, the geographic and wholly imaginary place Four Corners, that favorite tourist destination where Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah meet, becomes a kind of theoretical ground zero, the site from which Benning can give voice to other, pointedly unofficial American stories.

When It Rains

A musician spends New Year's Day trying to help his friend pay the rent.

And When I Die, I Won't Stay Dead

A journey into the life and work of beat poet and activist Bob Kaufman and his insistence that poetry is fundamental to humanity's moral survival.

The Pocketbook

In the course of a botched purse-snatching, a boy comes to question the path of his life. Billy Woodberry’s second film, and first completed in 16mm, adapts Langston Hughes’ short story, Thank You, Ma’am, and features music by Leadbelly, Thelonious Monk and Miles Davis. (Ross Lipman)

Marseille après la guerre

The film uses a collection of post-World War II black & white photographs to portray the dockworkers of Marseilles, many of whom were of African descent. Set in and around a 1947 strike protesting weapons shipments to the French in Indochina, the images evoke the life and work of Senegalese filmmaker, Ousmane Sembène, a former dockworker, and one of the founding figures of the New African Cinema of the 1960s.

When We Were Kings

It's 1974. Muhammad Ali is 32 and thought by many to be past his prime. George Foreman is ten years younger and the heavyweight champion of the world. Promoter Don King wants to make a name for himself and offers both fighters five million dollars apiece to fight one another, and when they accept, King has only to come up with the money. He finds a willing backer in Mobutu Sese Suko, the dictator of Zaire, and the "Rumble in the Jungle" is set, including a musical festival featuring some of America's top black performers, like James Brown and B.B. King.