From his Memphis studio, Ernest Withers’ nearly 2 million images were a treasured record of Black history but his legacy was complicated by decades of secret FBI service revealed only after his death. Was he a friend of the civil rights community, or enemy—or both?
Related Movies
Gene Kelly - An American in Hollywood (2025)
Gene Kelly is a legend of the heyday of the Hollywood musical. His name stands for masterpieces such as "Singin' in the Rain" and "An American in Paris". As a singer, dancer, actor, choreographer and director, he was a true all-round artist who revolutionized the world of dance in particular. Kelly, who loved to experiment, explored new forms of dance expression and helped a whole generation of young talents to fame. From his beginnings in cabarets and on Broadway to his recognition as a choreographer and director, the documentary shows how the good-looking star with a charming smile expanded the boundaries of dance expression: He danced in the open air in the streets of New York, with a cartoon character or his own reflection. But this dazzling entertainer image should not obscure the fact that Kelly, as a staunch supporter of the American civil rights movement, also saw dancing as a political statement.
The F.B.I. Story: The FBI Versus Alvin Karpis, Public Enemy Number One (1974)
J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI go after notorious bank robber and kidnapper Alvin Karpis and his gang.
George Washington Carver at Tuskegee Institute (1937)
Color footage of inventor George Washington Carver at Tuskegee University in Alabama. Dr. Carver is filmed at his apartment, office, laboratory, and garden.
Journey to the UFC: Joe Pyfer (2024)
Following years of surgeries and grueling rehab, Joe makes an unforgettable comeback, earning his spot in the UFC with a spectacular knockout.
Sisis Erben - Die Kinder der Kaiserin Elisabeth (2022)
A mother figure idealized by the cinema, Empress Elisabeth of Austria did not flourish with her four children. What kind of mother was the rebellious Sissi?
Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution (2020)
Down the road from Woodstock in the early 1970s, a revolution blossomed in a ramshackle summer camp for disabled teenagers, transforming their young lives and igniting a landmark movement.
Be Water (2020)
In 1971, after being rejected by Hollywood, Bruce Lee returned to his parents’ homeland of Hong Kong to complete four iconic films. Charting his struggles between two worlds, this portrait explores questions of identity and representation through the use of rare archival footage, interviews with loved ones and Bruce’s own writings.
Coded Bias (2020)
Exploring the fallout of MIT Media Lab researcher Joy Buolamwini's startling discovery that facial recognition does not see dark-skinned faces accurately, and her journey to push for the first-ever legislation in the U.S. to govern against bias in the algorithms that impact us all.
Indian Rights for Indian Women (2018)
Three intrepid women battle for Indigenous women's treaty rights.
The Keepers of the Streak (2015)
The NFL has staged 48 Super Bowls. Four photographers have taken pictures at every one of them. In KEEPERS OF THE STREAK, director Neil Leifer tells the story of this exclusive club, made up of John Biever, Walter Iooss, Mickey Palmer and Tony Tomsic. With their cameras, they have captured football's biggest game of the year for almost five decades.
Conor McGregor: Notorious (2017)
Conor McGregor is the biggest star in the history of Mixed Martial Arts. Filmed over the course of 4 years, Notorious is the exclusive, all-access account of Conor’s meteoric rise from claiming benefits and living in his parents' spare room in Dublin to claiming multiple championship UFC belts and seven figure pay-packets in Las Vegas.
The Dead Nation (2017)
A documentary-essay which shows Costică Axinte's stunning collection of pictures depicting a Romanian small town in the thirties and forties. The narration, composed mostly from excerpts taken from the diary of a Jewish doctor from the same era, tells the rising of the antisemitism and eventually a harrowing depiction of the Romanian Holocaust.
Maria by Callas (2017)
Told through performances, TV interviews, home movies, family photographs, private letters and unpublished memoirs, the film reveals the essence of an extraordinary woman who rose from humble beginnings in New York City to become a glamorous international superstar and one of the greatest artists of all time.
Clint Eastwood: The Last Legend (2022)
The portrait of the last cowboy Hollywood legend dives into the 65 years of an extraordinary career in Hollywood, highlighted iconic films like The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, as well as Million Dollar Baby, Mystic River and Gran Torino all the way to Cry Macho in 2021. It is no small task to cover more than 60 years of cinema history, especially when it is trying to surveyed with such breadth and diversity: TV star, international star, controversial icon, contested director, filmmaker with a capital F, Eastwood has been through it all, experienced it all, and it is first of all this romantic trajectory, this true American pastoral that the documentary wants to tell with all the passion it possibly can.
Ashes and Snow (2005)
Ashes and Snow, a film by Gregory Colbert, uses both still and movie cameras to explore extraordinary interactions between humans and animals. The 60-minute feature is a poetic narrative rather than a documentary. It aims to lift the natural and artificial barriers between humans and other species, dissolving the distance that exists between them.
Killers of the Flower Moon (2023)
When oil is discovered in 1920s Oklahoma under Osage Nation land, the Osage people are murdered one by one—until the FBI steps in to unravel the mystery.
Zuckerberg: King of the Metaverse (2024)
The documentary explores Zuckerberg's journey from a Harvard student to founder and CEO of Facebook. Two decades after Facebook was established, a feature-length documentary tells the inside story of the events that shaped Mark Zuckerberg's life and career, and the impact they have had on people's lives. Told through testimony from key figures and archive footage, Zuckerberg: King of the Metaverse looks at the rise of the world's youngest billionaire.