
Peter Alagona
Terry Wright
10.0Milestone No. 3 is a documentary following three lifelong friends as they travel across the country to California for the very first time. Armed with doubts and anxiety about continuing his filmmaking career, director Nicholas Dapolito enlists the help of friends and family to examine why he creates, and if this path is truly right for him.
7.6Riding Giants is story about big wave surfers who have become heroes and legends in their sport. Directed by the skateboard guru Stacy Peralta.
7.5Follows the story of "Grizzly Man" Timothy Treadwell and what the thirteen summers in a National Park in Alaska were like in his attempt to protect the grizzly bears. The film is full of unique images and a look into the spirit of a man who sacrificed himself for nature.
8.0In prisons ruled by toxic masculinity, dancing is an absolute taboo. But at Lancaster’s A-Yard, near Los Angeles, a group of young men, willing to take a chance to be mocked in the yard, start a dance class led by French choreographer Dimitri Chamblas. This class quickly becomes an intoxicating escape from their grim reality so they decide to create a dance show. In this exceptional context, the inmates engage with overwhelming sincerity, evoking their childhood, ganglife, the crimes, the prison, and their desire for transformation. Beyond damaged lives and a prison system on the edge of the abyss, DANCING IN A-YARD explores redemption and the capacity of human beings to reinvent themselves, when given a chance. And more importantly, how art and introspection can help see the light.
7.3The creative chemistry of four brilliant artists —drummer John Densmore, guitarist Robby Kreiger, keyboardist Ray Manzarek and singer Jim Morrison— made The Doors one of America's most iconic and influential rock bands. Using footage shot between their formation in 1965 and Morrison's death in 1971, it follows the band from the corridors of UCLA's film school, where Manzarek and Morrison met, to the stages of sold-out arenas.
5.7A documentary exploring the importance of revival cinema and 35mm exhibition - seen through the lens of the patrons of the New Beverly Cinema - a unique and independent revival cinema in Los Angeles.
Buchanan Mall is five consecutive blocks of public parkland in the heart of San Francisco’s Western Addition. 7,000 low-income residents who live adjacent to Buchanan Mall face acute challenges: recent, rapid gentrification and decades-long cycles of unemployment and mass incarceration. Against this backdrop, a remarkable new story has unfolded. This predominantly African-American community has come together to re-imagine and reclaim Buchanan Mall as connective tissue, repairing the neighborhood’s fractured social fabric, celebrating local culture, creating small businesses, and advocating for safe, affordable housing.
Based in the Western Addition neighborhood in San Francisco, CommunityGrows teaches cooking and gardening in local elementary schools and after school programs, and provides job skills to more than 1,300 low-income youth.
Low-level narcotics offenders too often cycle in and out of jail, re-offending soon after they hit the streets. District Attorney Kamala D. Harris has convened City leaders to answer this problem and, along with key partners, has launched Back on Track, an innovative education and employment reentry initiative focusing on young adult drug offenders. Designed to increase community safety by reducing recidivism, Back on Track couples strict accountability and close supervision with education, employment support and health care. The purpose of Back on Track is to prevent young people from committing crimes by leading them to make life changing choices.
0.0This video examines the grizzly bear, one of nature's greatest predators. It is part of a multi-volume Time Warner series that markets the ferocious, killing aspects of various wild animals.
0.0Naturalists Charlie Russell and Maureen Enns film recently discovered grizzlies on Siberia's Kamchatka peninsula.
Puente de la Costa Sur, winner of the San Francisco Foundation 2004 Community Leadership Awards (John R. May Award) - for its creative, grassroots efforts to provide education, social justice advocacy, direct services, and community connections enabling immigrant men in rural San Mateo County to improve their living and working conditions
Arabella Martinez, winner of the San Francisco Foundation 2005 Community Leadership Awards (The San Francisco Foundation Award), was recognized for her commitment to building culturally relevant services and resources necessary for strong and vibrant communities, and for her outstanding contributions to Oakland’s Fruitvale district and the creation of the Fruitvale Transit Village.
8.0A core group of architects embraced the West Coast from Vancouver to LA with its particular geography and values and left behind a legacy of inspired dwellings. Today, architects celebrate the influence established by their predecessors.
7.2Harvey Milk was an outspoken human rights activist and one of the first openly gay U.S. politicians elected to public office; even after his assassination in 1978, he continues to inspire disenfranchised people around the world.
6.8While California is going bankrupt, one business is booming. "How Weed Won the West" is the story of the growing medical cannabis / marijuana industry in the greater Los Angeles area, with over 700 dispensaries doling out the buds. As a treatment for a wide range of conditions, cannabis is quickly proving itself as a healthier natural alternative to many prescription drugs.
0.0For decades, Barbara Dane lent her stellar singing voice to social-justice movements in the Bay Area and beyond, garnering an impressive FBI file along the way. Deeply respected by fellow luminaries in folk, blues and jazz, Dane built a far-reaching legacy with music, activism, and love. As Maureen Gosling’s celebratory portrait reveals, early solidarity with those suffering racial and economic injustice sparked Dane’s passion to use her talent to sustain marginalized people. Rather than chase stardom, she followed her own maternal instincts to root herself and her family among generations of activist performers. Bonnie Raitt, Jane Fonda and other notables attest to Dane’s unique way of shaping and being shaped by tumultuous social revolutions from the 1950s on. Nearing 90, Dane triumphantly tours with piano virtuoso Tammy Hall to celebrate a life of staying awake and connected, true to her ideals. One star among many illuminates so much.
10.0Explore the 1928 collapse of the St. Francis Dam, the second deadliest disaster in California history. A colossal engineering and human failure, the dam was built by William Mulholland, a self-taught engineer who ensured the growth of Los Angeles by bringing the city water via aqueduct. The catastrophe killed more than 400 people and destroyed millions of dollars of property.
9.0"I especially hope to inspire young women, because I often feel like so much emphasis is put on how beautiful you are, and how thin you are, and not a lot of emphasis is put on what you can do and how smart you are. I'd like to change the emphasis of what's important when looking at a woman." Filmed in San Francisco in 2000, Margaret Kilgallen (1967-2001) discusses the female figures she incorporated into many of her paintings and graffiti tags. Loosely based on women she discovered while listening to folk records, watching buck dance videos, or reading about the history of swimming, Kilgallen painted her heroines to inspire others and to change how society looks at women. Three of Kilgallen's heroines—Matokie Slaughter, Algia Mae Hinton, and Fanny Durack—are shown and heard through archival recordings. Kilgallen is shown tagging train cars with her husband, artist Barry McGee, in a Bay Area rail yard and painting in her studio at UC Berkeley (source: Art21).
7.4Filmmakers Alastair Fothergill and Keith Scholey chronicle a year in the lives of an Alaskan brown bear named Sky and her cubs, Scout and Amber. Their saga begins as the bears emerge from hibernation at the end of winter. As time passes, the bear family must work together to find food and stay safe from other predators, especially other bears. Although their world is exciting, it is also risky, and the cubs' survival hinges on family togetherness.
7.6Years spent recording footage of creatures from every corner of the globe is bound to produce a bit of drama. Here's a behind-the-scenes look.
7.1A presentation of a case for a needed transition out of the current socioeconomic monetary paradigm which governs the entire world society. This subject matter will transcend the issues of cultural relativism and traditional ideology and move to relate the core, empirical 'life ground' attributes of human and social survival, extrapolating those immutable natural laws into a new sustainable social paradigm called a 'Resource-Based Economy'.
7.0Explore the evolution of Buzz Lightyear from toy to human in the making of Pixar’s Lightyear. Dive into the origin and cultural impact of everyone’s favorite Space Ranger, the art of designing a new “human Buzz,” and the challenges faced by the Lightyear crew along the way.
7.2A new mother’s memories of her own youth prepare her to navigate motherhood in the increasingly challenging world that polar bears face today.
7.6Reaching 29,029 feet, Mount Everest has long captivated mountaineers of all stripes. But a peak that draws athletes and mountaineers to new heights isn’t without danger — or a dark side. Perhaps the peak’s greatest mystery is the missing body of Andrew “Sandy” Irvine who disappeared alongside George Leigh Mallory in 1924 just 800 vertical feet from the summit. In Lost on Everest, we follow along as a team of elite climbers with new intel on the location of his missing body set out to solve what may be mountaineering’s great mystery. Along with the body, the team hopes to find Irvine’s camera and the footage that could rewrite history.
7.3The Crash Reel tells the story of a sport and the risks that athletes face in reaching the pinnacle of their profession. This is Kevin Pearce’s story, a celebrated snowboarder who sustained a brain injury in a trick gone wrong and who now aims, against all the odds, to get back on the snow.
8.0Take the Ball, Pass the Ball is the definitive story of the greatest football team ever assembled. For four explosive years, Pep Guardiola's Barça produced the greatest football in history, seducing fans around the world. In this exclusive, first-hand account of events between 2008 and 2012, the players themselves reveal the tension of the bitter Guardiola-Mourinho rivalry, the emotion of Abidal's fight back from cancer to lift the European Cup and how Messi, the best footballer the world's ever seen, was almost rejected by Barça as a 13-year-old.
7.2Over seven decades, actor and activist George Takei journeyed from a World War II internment camp to the helm of the Starship Enterprise, and then to the daily news feeds of five million Facebook fans. Join George and his husband, Brad, on a wacky and profound trek for life, liberty, and love.
7.5In 2013, the world's media reported on a shocking mountain-high brawl as European climbers fled a mob of angry Sherpas. Director Jennifer Peedom and her team set out to uncover the cause of this altercation, intending to film the 2014 climbing season from the Sherpa's point-of-view. Instead, they captured Everest's greatest tragedy, when a huge block of ice crashed down onto the climbing route...
7.3IRIS pairs legendary 87-year-old documentarian Albert Maysles with Iris Apfel, the quick-witted, flamboyantly dressed 93-year-old style maven who has had an outsized presence on the New York fashion scene for decades. More than a fashion film, the documentary is a story about creativity and how, even in Iris’ dotage, a soaring free spirit continues to inspire. IRIS portrays a singular woman whose enthusiasm for fashion, art and people are life’s sustenance and reminds us that dressing, and indeed life, is nothing but an experiment.
8.1Life Is But a Dream is a HBO documentary about the life of US singer Beyoncé Knowles during the years 2011 and 2012 and on the recording of her fifth album. The film was directed by Beyoncé herself. The film shows Beyoncé from intimate moments of her pregnancy to behind the scenes and rehearsals of the main concerts of that time.
6.8JB Smoove and Martin Starr host a celebration of 20 years of "Spider-Man" movies, from the Sam Raimi trilogy to Marc Webb's movies and the trio from Jon Watts.
6.1THE SPIRIT MOLECULE weaves an account of Dr. Rick Strassman's groundbreaking DMT research through a multifaceted approach to this intriguing hallucinogen found in the human brain and hundreds of plants, including the sacred Amazonian brew, ayahuasca. Utilizing interviews with a variety of experts to explain their thoughts and experiences with DMT, and ayahuasca, within their respective fields, and discussions with Strassman’s research volunteers, brings to life the awesome effects of this compound, and introduces us to far-reaching theories regarding its role in human consciousness.
6.4The Captains is a feature-length documentary film written and directed by William Shatner. The film follows Shatner as he interviews the other actors who have portrayed starship captains in the Star Trek franchise.
6.5A documentary that explores the downloading revolution; the kids that created it, the bands and the businesses that were affected by it, and its impact on the world at large.
7.4One Life captures unprecedented and beautiful sequences of animal behaviour guaranteed to bring you closer to nature than ever before, as well as a second disc packed full of never before seen extras including an exclusive making of featurette narrated by Daniel Craig.
6.9An epic cinematic and musical collaboration between SHERPA filmmaker Jennifer Peedom and the Australian Chamber Orchestra, that explores humankind's fascination with high places.
7.0An unflinching look at the how the battle over abortion rights has played out in the United States over the last 15 years.