Blank city is an "absorbing snapshot of a daring time" (LA Times) when a disparate crew of renegade filmmakers emerged from an economically bankrupt and dangerous moment in New York history. From the late 1970's through the mid 80's, when the East Village was still a wasteland of cheap rent and cheap drugs, these directors created bold works that would go on to profoundly influence the development of independent film as we know it today. Made on DIY...

Koji Wakamatsu's epic docudrama explores the political unrest of 1960s Japan, when mass student uprisings coincided with the beginnings of the far-left United Red Army group, which tortured and murdered its "deviant" members during a 1972 training session. An uncompromising piece of filmmaking from one of Japan's most controversial filmmakers, with a score by American musician (and ex-Sonic Youth member) Jim O'Rourke.

Uncle Chatzkel portrays the patient triumph of one man’s dignity and intellect over genocide, oppression and personal adversity. Chatzkel Lemchen has lived through the Russian revolution, two world wars, a communist regime and the transition of Lithuania from Soviet republic to an independent state. During the Holocaust his parents and children, along with many of their fellow Jewish citizens, were killed by the Nazis and their Lithuanian supporters....

A collection of nine enchanting films 1901-1925 offers a nostalgic peek into the Yuletide pleasures of the early 20th century.

Called the "Woodstock of Poetry" by American Film, and "Dazzling" by the Los Angeles Times, Poetry in Motion is an unprecedented anthology of twenty-four leading North American poets who sing, chant, anything but "read" their work. The result is a celebration of poetry's ancient oral tradition. And an energetic demonstration that verse is alive and thriving in the media-blitzed age.

While there's been no shortage of commentary about the structural crisis plaguing the American economic and political system, from wage stagnation and chronic unemployment to unchecked corporate and state power and growing inequality, analyses that offer practical, politically viable solutions to these problems have been few and far between. This illustrated presentation from distinguished historian and political economist Gar Alperovitz is a rare...

Winner of Critic's Prize at the Berlin Film Festival 2012, Tabu is the exquisitely surreal two-part tale of Aurora, who upon her death-bed will make a mysterious request to see a man no one had ever heard of, transporting us to the foothills of 1960s Africa in order to tell a story that occurred fifty years ago - the story of an irrational taboo and its extravagant consequences. Shot in lush black and white 16mm and 35mm.

Moscow 1955. Stalin has been dead two years, but not even Khrushchev's thaw can prevent Komsomol shock troops from hounding hipsters (stilyagi), fans of American jazz, culture and fashion. The student Mels, a Komsomol member, meets Polya, a hipster, while conducting a raid on a hipster hangout. Mels falls in love with Polya while his Communist comrade harbors romantic feelings for him. Mels ingratiates himself into Polya's group of hipsters who meet...

During this critical decade in American life, artists built on the styles of the 1950s. An explosion of artistic energy produced Pop art, Minimalism, color-field painting, and hard-edged abstraction. Sculptors and painters on both coasts explored new methods and new subject matter. American art in the sixties examines the key figures of that decade including Rauschenberg and Johns, two crucial transitional figures between Abstract Expressionism and...

Raphael Nadjari's extraordinary two-part documentary weaves together clips from more than 70 years of Israeli film with commentary from filmmakers, scholars and critics - including Amos Gitai, Joseph Cedar, Avi Mograbi, Yehuda Ne'eman, Menachem Golan, Moshe Ivgy, Ronit Elkabetz and Zeev Revach. Crafted for both insiders and outsiders, the film traces the evolution of the country's cinema alongside political and social history: part one spans the years...