Category Archives: In the Works

An exploration of the need for human connection through the anonymity of telephone hotlines.

Once ubiquitous in the pre-Internet era, hotlines served to connect strangers for a multiplicity of purposes – some for profit, others for the public good – from the titillation of phone sex to the potential lifesaving of a suicide prevention line. While they may not be quite as common today, when people are more apt to Google their way to porn or online forums for their needs, there are still hundreds of hotlines still in operation, serving many of those same roles. Director Tony Shaff explores what motivates individuals to reveal personal details about their lives in conversations with faceless strangers, and how it affects those hotline operators. Continue reading →

In the aftermath of the devastating 2011 Japanese earthquake and resultant tsunami, strangers attempt to build a bridge of memory by locating the owners of the debris that washes ashore across the expanse of the Pacific Ocean.

The footage of the March 11, 2011 catastrophe became immediately well-known, with 20,000 casualties and whole villages claimed by the sea. Over the past two years, 25 million tons of debris has slowly been floating across the ocean toward North America. Among this flotsam are people’s memories. Directors Nicolina Lanni and John Choi’s film aims to follow the various individuals locating these lost objects – beachcombers, water sports aficionados, scientists – as they identify their finds and attempt to reunite them with their owners. In so doing, they hope to provide a sense of hope and a connection with a past completely uprooted by natural disaster. Continue reading →

The Oscar-nominated director of INCIDENT IN NEW BAGHDAD exposes the federal war on whistleblowers.

Increasingly, government whistleblowers – those courageous individuals who are driven by their conscience to reveal sensitive, classified, and potentially incriminating information to the public – are themselves being prosecuted as criminals. In an age of instantaneous communication, heightened paranoia, and divisive politics, the impulse to punish those who would unearth embarrassing or illegal activities threatens to erode the very foundations of freedom upon which the country is built. Director James Spione, whose INCIDENT explored visual evidence of such wrongdoing allegedly disseminated by Bradley Manning, profiles four whistleblowers and reveals the personal costs speaking the truth has had on their lives. Continue reading →

The maker of THE PHILOSOPHER KINGS and LA SOURCE investigates quiet in a world of noise.

Taking a fittingly meditative approach, director Patrick Shen examines the nature of sound and the necessity of silence to human existence and wellbeing. Noting the increasing cacophony of modern life, and its corresponding hectic pace, not to mention physical damage to our hearing, Shen attempts to lead viewers in a rediscovery of the value of quiet, long privileged in spiritual practice and in memorial traditions. Continue reading →

The harrowing experiences faced by a lesbian and a gay man reveal a culture of intolerance in Jamaica.

Referred to by human rights groups as the most homophobic place on earth, Jamaica maintains draconian sodomy laws and has been notable for its high incidence of anti-LGBT violence and rhetoric, especially in its popular music. In a culture where the denial of dignity and rights to LGBT people is a given, director Micah Fink profiles two individuals who have faced persecution and near-death because of their sexuality: Human rights activist and lawyer Maurice, forced to flee the country fearing death threats after the media reported on his marriage to a man, and young mother Simone, gunned down just outside her own home. Their stories reveal the faces of the victims of homophobia and the consequences of a country seemingly unwilling to deal with such human rights abuses. Continue reading →

A New York City-based filmmaking duo craft an intimate portrait of life in the Appalachian Mountains.

Set in small town Nickelsville VA, and centered around its titular road, the stories of six residents reveal a different way of life. Through their subjects’ perspectives, filmmakers Chelsea Brodsky and Andrew Moynehan explore mountain life, marked by self-sufficiency and tradition, with a heavy dose of music and religion. Positing Nickelsville in an almost timeless space, where longtime residents largely eschew the trappings of modern conveniences and concerns, the filmmakers document the history, arts, and culture of the region to create a universal portrait of community. Continue reading →

The co-writer/editor of BEING ELMO and the co-director/producer of SONS OF PERDITION move from Muppets and Mormons to magicians and mountebanks in this portrait of a man who’s made it his mission to expose charlatans… while keeping up to his own tricks.

Justin Weinstein and Tyler Measom explore the life and work of James “The Amazing” Randi, the famed octogenarian magician and mentalist who has turned his talents to exposing others who use similar tricks to take advantage of people. In the course of revealing their subject and his crusade, however, the filmmakers discover that Randi is implicated in a much larger, and more serious, deceit – his partner of a quarter century, Jose, is not who he says he is. Is Randi a hypocrite, aiding and abetting this fraud, or did the man who’s made it his business to unearth deception himself fall for this flimflam? Continue reading →

An exploration of aging, death, and dying through the lens of self-selecting, specialized retirement communities.

Curious about the phenomenon of retirement in America, and noting the erosion of a sense of traditional familial responsibility for caring our elders, filmmaker Davey Field examines the resultant development of manufactured senior communities organized around specific interests tied to various ethnic, religious, socioeconomic, vocational, or identity-based factors. Often organized collectively, the residents take an active role in constructing their own chosen substitute families, and, importantly, setting the terms for the way their later years, and eventual deaths, play out. Continue reading →

The makers of BATTLE FOR BROOKLYN profile a determined mother who searches for her missing son – more than thirty years after his disappearance.

On September 5, 1982, twelve-year-old Johnny Gosch went on his regular newspaper delivery route in West Des Moine, IA. He was never seen again – except as the first missing child whose photo appeared on the side of a milk carton. His mother, Noreen, facing inadequate action from the authorities, began a personal mission to find out what happened to Johnny – a quest that continues to today. In the face of strange theories and unconfirmed sightings, Noreen persists in her work, not only for her son, but for other missing children, helping to save other parents from the pain she has endured for decades. The filmmakers behind Rumur – David Beilinson, Suki Hawley, and Michael Galinsky – tell Noreen’s story, with the goal of shedding light on Johnny’s fate. Continue reading →