Truman & Tennessee: An Intimate Conversation
The parallel lives of writer Truman Capote (1924-84) and playwright Tennessee Williams (1911-83): two friends, two geniuses who, while creating sublime works, were haunted by the ghosts of the past, the shadow of constant doubt, the demon of addictions and the blinding, deceptive glare of success.
The Sit-In: Harry Belafonte Hosts the Tonight Show
For one week in February 1968, Johnny Carson gave up his chair to Harry Belafonte, the first time an African-American had hosted a late night TV show for a whole week.
The War at Home
Documentary film about the anti-war movement in the Madison, Wisconsin area during the time of the Vietnam War. It combines archival footage and interviews with participants that explore the events of the period on the University of Wisconsin–Madison campus.
The Price of Sugar
On the Caribbean island of the Dominican Republic, tourists flock to pristine beaches, with little knowledge that a few miles away thousands of dispossessed Haitians are under armed guard on plantations harvesting sugarcane, most of which ends up in US kitchens. Cutting cane by machete, they work 14 hour days, 7 days a week, frequently without access to decent housing, electricity, clean water, education, healthcare or adequate nutrition. The Price of Sugar follows a charismatic Spanish priest, Father Christopher Hartley, as he organizes some of this hemisphere's poorest people, challenging the powerful interests profiting from their work. This film raises key questions about where the products we consume originate, at what human cost they are produced and ultimately, where our responsibility lies.
Roving Mars
Join the Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity for an awe-inspiring journey to the surface of the mysterious red planet.
The Age of Anxiety
The Age of Anxiety is a film that delves into a crisis in motion according to the World Health Organization, disorders related to dread are the most prevalent mental illnesses on the globe at the moment. Is this a disease of modernity? Or is our highly competitive and material culture itself undermining our nerves? The Age of Anxiety explores these questions, while also investigating the role that pharmaceutical companies and even the psychiatric profession play in this phenomenon. Is our anxiety fueling an industry that in turn is profiting from and exploiting our dread in a vicious and self-perpetuating cycle?
Best of Enemies: Buckley vs. Vidal
A documentary about the legendary series of nationally televised debates in 1968 between two great public intellectuals, the liberal Gore Vidal and the conservative William F. Buckley Jr. Intended as commentary on the issues of their day, these vitriolic and explosive encounters came to define the modern era of public discourse in the media, marking the big bang moment of our contemporary media landscape when spectacle trumped content and argument replaced substance. Best of Enemies delves into the entangled biographies of these two great thinkers, and luxuriates in the language and the theater of their debates, begging the question, "What has television done to the way we discuss politics in our democracy today?"
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