First Run Features (Firm)
1) Scrap
Description
Discover the vast and strangely beautiful places where things go to die and meet the people who collect, restore, and recycke the world's scrap. SCRAP scratches beneath flaking paint and rusting metal to reveal the beauty and pathos in the ugliness we leave behind.
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Exploring the revolution in journalism sparked by the turbulence of the 1960s, this documentary tells the story of maverick editor Harold T.P. Hayes, who made Esquire magazine a galvanizing force in American culture. A leading architect of the 'New Journalism', Hayes granted unprecedented journalistic freedom to the most talented artists and writers of the time including Tom Wolfe, Gay Talese, Nora Ephron, Peter Bogdanovich, Gore Vidal, Diane Arbus,...
Description
Carol Wall's debut memoir – about cancer, friendship, and cultivating an open heart – was a breakout success. But joy turned to tragedy when the breast cancer she wrote about returned, and she died months after its publication. Carol’s husband, Dick, determined to help her life-affirming message find its audience, becomes the book’s unlikely spokesperson and embarks on a nationwide book tour. He’s joined by the couple’s filmmaker son,...
4) Charleen
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One month in the life of Charleen Swansea, North Carolina poet, mother, beloved teacher, eccentric, romantic, and complex star of McElwee's *Sherman's March*.
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Visionary, radical, spiritual seeker, renowned poet, founding member of a major literary movement, champion of human rights, Buddhist, political activist and teacher – Allen Ginsberg’s remarkable life shaped the very soul of American counterculture. For 25 years, Academy Award®-nominated director Jerry Aronson accumulated more than 60 hours of film on Allen Ginsberg, resulting in this comprehensive portrait of one of America’s greatest poets,...
Description
Across America, small family farms are racing against climate change. Unpredictable weather and new diseases are destroying the very crops they depend upon. In New Jersey, when a devastating disease wipes out farmers' fields, growers turn to scientists for help. FIELDS OF DEVOTION follows the unique relationship between farmers and scientists as they work together over a decade to develop disease and climate resistant food crops.
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In today's uncertain world, what is the meaning of home? Over four years, filmmaker Alan Govenar talked to over 60 people around the globe about the evolving ways we think about one of our most basic needs — from a student in Buenos Aires to a homeless couple living in a makeshift tent in the wods, a hot dog vendor in New York City to an artist in Nairobi. As global crises have left millions both bound to and displaced from their habitats, LOOKING...
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One man's wild, lifelong adventure of testing society's boundaries through his subversive art, FAR OUT ISN'T FAR ENOUGH combines traditional documentary storytelling with original animation culled from seven decades worth of art from the renegade children's book author and illustrator. Using a palette of 20th century events to paint an artist's epic yet controversial life story, the film offers a retrospective of Ungerer's life and art, and ponders...
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An in-depth, intimate exploration of the true story behind Ben Affleck’s Oscar-winning film *Argo*. In this gripping new documentary, the story of the “Canadian Caper” is told by the man who knows it best: Ken Taylor, Canada’s former ambassador to Iran, who hid the six Americans in his official residence and obtained the counterfeit documents that allowed them to make their dramatic escape from Tehran. Based on Robert Wright’s book, the...
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Carmen de Lavallade and Geoffrey Holder, two living legends in the world of American dance, are the subjects of this intimate and revealing documentary. Carmen achieved notoriety in the early 1950s, as a lead dancer of incomparable beauty and grace with Alvin Ailey’s American Dance Theater. Geoffrey, large in life and an elemental force on stage, found fame not only as a dancer but also as an actor, soda spokesman and theater director. He and Carmen...
Description
The goal was clear: defeat the Nazis who were entrenched high in the snowy mountains of Italy. Drawing together an elite group of champion skiers, mountain climbers and European mountaineers, the U.S. Army created the 10th Mountain Division, America's only mountain and winter warfare fighting unit. From the intensive training atop the Colorado Rockies to the spectacular night climb of Italy's Riva Ridge - where the 10th scored their biggest victory...
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One of the world's most elusive and admired choreographers, Paul Taylor was on the cutting edge of modern dance for over 60 years and helped shape the artform unti his death in 2018. Beginning in 2010 he allowed the camera to delve into his creative process. Centered on Taylor's guiding voice, audiences can see how a new dance gets hammered out to perfection, through sweat and inspiration. PAUL TAYLOR: CREATIVE DOMAIN is an inside look at a genius...
14) Free Puppies!
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Tells the story of a chronically underlooked crisis that's dogging the rural American South. By rescuing countless dogs from euthanasia and neglect, a group of intrepid women in northwest Georgia have stepped up to compensate for the lack of a local animal shelter — taking matters into their own hands. Punctuated by traditional bluegrass tunes, this authentic indie doc is the perfect combo of warm fuzzies and a serious, sometimes heartbreaking mission....
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After years of living with mysterious symoptoms, a young girl from Brooklyn and a Duke University scientist are diagnosed with a disease said not to exist: Chronic Lyme disease. The Quiet Epidemic follows their search for answers, which lands them in the middle of a vicious medical debate. What begins as a patient story becomes an investigation into the history of Lyme disease. A paper trail of suppressed scientific research reveals why this tick-borne...
16) Nightingale
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Captivated by its sweet song, an emperor takes a nightingale into his palace as his companion. But when the emperor shows more interest in a bejeweled mechanical bird, the nightingale flees. It returns only when the lonely emperor sees how foolishly he has behaved.
17) Absurdistan
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Welcome to Absurdistan, a small village in the high desert mountains, just on the outskirts of reality, where magical visions and bizarre events fuse together. The village is facing a water shortage, but the men are too lazy to fix a rickety pipeline and the women are getting fed up with their good-for-nothing husbands. Led by young Aya, the women make a simple vow: “No water, no sex.” The men's only hope is Temelko, whose long-promised wedding...
18) The Dancing Frog
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A mother tells her young daughter a curious story from their family history: Great-Aunt Gertrude and a talented frog she names George achieve fame and success as they travel the world performing, before eventually retiring to the south of France, never to be seen or heard from again.
20) Champagne
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CHAMPAGNE is the true story of a young teenage girl whose mother is incarcerated for murder. Living in a Catholic Children's home run by an order of nuns, she provides poignant commentary about her mother, her own situation, and her outlook for the future. Starring the voice of the real-life Champagne, this award-winning film shows how hope can spring forth even in the most challenging of times. Featuring the voices by Ruby Dee and Linda Lavin.