The life and work of Robert Frank—as a photographer and a filmmaker—are so intertwined that they’re one in the same, and the vast amount of territory he’s covered, from The Americans in 1958 up to the present, is intimately registered in his now-formidable body of artistic gestures. From the early ’90s on, Frank has been making his films and videos with the brilliant editor Laura Israel, who has helped him to keep things homemade and preserve the illuminating spark of first contact between camera and people/places. Don’t Blink is Israel’s like-minded portrait of her friend and collaborator, a lively rummage sale of images and sounds and recollected passages and unfathomable losses and friendships that leaves us a fast and fleeting imprint of the life of the Swiss-born man who reinvented himself the American way, and is still standing on ground of his own making at the age of 90.
You May Also Like
Michael Winterbottom, celebrated director of 24 Hour Party People, The Road to Guantanamo, and The Trip, joins forces with actor, comedian, and provocateur Russell Brand for that most unlikely of documentary approaches: an uproarious critique of the world financial crisis. Building on Brand’s emergence as an activist following his 2014 book Revolution, where he railed against “corporate tyranny, ecological irresponsibility, and economic inequality,” The Emperor’s New Clothes pairs archival footage with comedic send-ups conducted in the financial centers of London and New York. Brand spotlights not only how the crisis affected the working class around the world, but also how the uber-wealthy benefited from the downturn. With Winterbottom providing his signature ingenuity and pinpoint directorial control, they generate a riveting, boisterous, and, at times, cathartic riff on the extreme disparities between the haves and have nots in contemporary society.
Landfill is a documentary that emerged from the perception of a paradox in relation to litter. While most people want to get rid of it, I met some ladies, pioneers of recycling, that they miss the trash from others in side of the house. From the time where I met up making the film, many things happened, both in the media, with all the newly fallacious discourse of sustainability, and in my personal relationship with the trash, when I became the ‘householder. ‘ This is a film of these seven women, who are truly experts.
Delves into the career of the notorious Italian filmmaker, Aristide Massaccesi aka Joe D’Amato, the infamous director behind the legendary Video Nasties Anthropophagus: The Beast and Absurd.
Dallas comedian Ralph Barbosa talks about how he grew up with his grandparents and ran a hair salon in his bedroom when he was 13 years old.
The crew of “The Patent Scam” travelled from coast to coast, as well as to Eastern Texas to investigate the law offices that were filing numerous patent lawsuits and benefiting from the hard working small businesses. What they discovered was riveting.
Five-time Emmy winner Dennis Miller skewers politics and the Americans who love them in his 9th stand-up comedy special
The path to going plant-based has obvious upsides, but can also be isolating and difficult. Shouldn’t there be some middle ground for people looking to make a change without totally upending their lives? Leader of the Reducetarian Movement, Brian Kateman explores this issue through the lens of his own personal decision to reduce eating meat. Grappling with how to sort through conflicting advice, Brian seeks a practical path forward.
Chinatown Fair opened as a penny arcade on Mott Street in 1944. Over the decades, the dimly lit gathering place, known for its tic-tac-toe playing chicken, became an institution, surviving turf wars between rival gangs, changing tastes and the explosive growth of home gaming systems like Xbox and Playstation that shuttered most other arcades in the city. But as the neighborhood gentrified, this haven for a diverse, unlikely community faced its strongest challenge, inspiring its biggest devotees to next-level greatness.
The 1973 story of a Mexican captain’s impulsive decision to enter the first regatta to circumnavigate the globe.
Look around you for items marked ‘Made in the USA’. How many items did you find? Could the loss of manufacturing jobs be a vital reason why our economy is struggling? Does ‘Made in the USA’ mean anything anymore? After witnessing the tragic effects caused by a factory shutdown in his hometown of Ravenswood, WV, Josh Miller takes off across the country for 30 days on an epic journey into the heart of America seeking to discover the answers to these questions.
Documentarians Justine Shapiro and B.Z. Goldberg traveled to Israel to interview Palestinian and Israeli kids ages 11 to 13, assembling their views on living in a society afflicted with violence, separatism and religious and political extremism. This 2002 Oscar nominee for Best Feature Documentary culminates in an astonishing day in which two Israeli children meet Palestinian youngsters at a refugee camp.
Three miles north of Molkom, hidden deep in the lakeside forests of Sweden, lies Angsbacka; a 21st Century playground for adults. Once a year, their gates open to a thousand international participants, placed in ‘Sharing Groups’ at random. A Swedish celebrity, a Californian hippy, a Finnish grandmother and a back-packing Australian rugby coach, who stumbled on the wrong party, are amongst the group that take us on an unforgettably quirky, two-week emotional roller-coaster. Firewalking, Shamanism, Tantric Sex and myriad other physical, psychological and esoteric experiences, guide our unlikely heroes towards enlightenment, love, loathing and themselves. Will they ever be the same again?
