Veselka: The Rainbow on the Corner at the Center of the World (2024)
New York City's beloved Ukrainian restaurant Veselka is best known for its borscht and varenyky, but it has become a beacon of hope for Ukraine. As the second-generation owner Tom Birchard reluctantly retires after 54 years, his son Jason faces the pressures of stepping into his father’s shoes as the war in Ukraine impacts his family and staff.
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Four Black transgender sex workers in Atlanta and New York City break down the walls of their profession.
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The Reverend (2022)
Winner of the DOC NYC Audience Award, Director Nick Canfield’s first film follows gospel-rock icon and activist Reverend Vince Anderson. After entering seminary, Vince dropped out to follow his second calling - music. With his band The Love Choir, he has played a now-legendary weekly show for over twenty years. Reconnecting with his faith and using his intense soulful music, he began to preach a type of spirituality that is open to all, meets people where they are, and moves everyone that sees him play. Reverend Vince is also deeply involved in social justice, working with other faith leaders around the country to build inclusive communities. Featuring Questlove and an ensemble of eccentric musicians, The Reverend is a rocking concert film as well as an intimate portrait of Reverend Vince’s inspiring personal and spiritual life.
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This short film documents the daily life of the goings-on on Orchard Street, a commercial street in the Lower East Side New York City.
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Man in Red Bandana (2017)
"Man in Red Bandana" is about Welles Remy Crowther, an extraordinary 9/11 hero. However, how his heroics became known is even more remarkable. Eight months after the disaster, his parents learned about how their son spent his last hour due to an ordinary object ... a red bandana. This revelation dramatically shifts their perspective on their loss. After hearing his remarkable story and how it unfolds, viewers will see how the actions of one man have touched 1,000s. This inspirational segment of the film depicts the unique, diverse and folklore ways that Welles is honored throughout the United States including in art, sports and song. Even President Barack Obama pays homage to this young man in the film. Our uplifting ending culminates in the revelation of a secret about Welles that can only be described as "perfect".
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Stones in Cold Water (2023)
Filmed throughout Ukraine just months before the full-scale Russian invasion, this vérité visual ethnography explores the overlaps of memory, hope, progress, and nostalgia at the scale of everyday life.
Christmas In Florida (2021)
A canceled Thanksgiving parade and no options professionally or personally, Kimberly DiPersia and Alex R. Wagner decide it would be a perfect opportunity to travel to Florida.
Lobanovskiy Forever (2016)
In 1975 Dynamo Kiev became the first Soviet team to win a major European trophy. The team’s rapid rise was remarkable and attributed to one man: Valeri Vasilievich Lobanovskyi. His technique as a manager is now the stuff of folklore - not least for his imposing a fitness regime so brutal that his players looked upon the matches themselves as relaxing.
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A group of young skateboarders find direction in their lives when they move to New York and start a pickle business.
Ukraine-Poland: The Border of Solidarity (2022)
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The Mona Lisa Curse (2008)
The Mona Lisa Curse is a Grierson award-winning polemic documentary by art critic Robert Hughes that examines how the world's most famous painting came to influence the art world. With his trademark style, Hughes explores how museums, the production of art and the way we experience it have radically changed in the last 50 years, telling the story of the rise of contemporary art and looking back over a life spent talking and writing about the art he loves, and loathes. In these postmodern days it has been said that there is no more passé a vocation than that of the professional art critic. Perceived as the gate keeper for opinions regarding art and culture, the art critic has supposedly been rendered obsolete by an ever expanding pluralism in the art world, where all practices and disciplines are purported to be equal and valid. Robert Hughes, however, is one art critic who has delivered a message that must not be ignored.
