Released in 2007
Directed by Dan Klores, Fisher Stevens
Storyline - The bizarre true story of Linda Riss and Burt Pugach.
Directed by Dan Klores, Fisher Stevens
Storyline - The bizarre true story of Linda Riss and Burt Pugach.
The Seven Five - 2014 - Tiller Russell
Released in 2014
Directed by Tiller Russell
Directed by Tiller Russell
Storyline - Meet the dirtiest cop in NYC history. Michael Dowd stole money and dealt drugs while patrolling the streets of 80s Brooklyn.
Tears of Gaza - 2010 - Vibeke Løkkeberg
Released in 2010
Directed by Vibeke Løkkeberg
Directed by Vibeke Løkkeberg
Storyline - In a rough style, by way of unique footage, the brutal consequences of modern wars are exposed. The film also depicts the ability of women and children to handle their everyday life after a dramatic war experience. Many of them live in tents or in ruins without walls or roofs. They are all in need of money, food, water and electricity. Others have lost family members, or are left with seriously injured children. Can war solve conflicts or create peace? The film follows three children through the war and the period after the ceasefire.
Disturbing Footage
You've been warned!
You've been warned!
Soupçons - 2004 - Jean-Xavier de Lestrade
Released in 2004
Directed by Jean-Xavier de Lestrade
Directed by Jean-Xavier de Lestrade
Storyline - Soupçons (French for "Suspicions", also known as Death on the Staircase and The Staircase) is a 2004 French television miniseries by Jean-Xavier de Lestrade documenting the trial of Michael Peterson, accused of murdering his wife, Kathleen Peterson.
Following from de Lestrade's Oscar-winning Murder on a Sunday Morning, filming began soon after Peterson's indictment. Camera crews were given access to the accused's extended family, the defense attorneys, and to the court room. The film features a brief appearance by Mike Nifong, a future figure in the Duke lacrosse case, working with the team prosecuting Peterson.
The 8 Episodes + Extras
Burroughs The Movie - 1983 - Howard Brookner
Released in 1983
Directed by Howard Brookner
Directed by Howard Brookner
Storyline - Burroughs: The Movie explores the life and times of controversial Naked Lunch author William S. Burroughs, with an intimacy never before seen and never repeated. The film charts the development of Burroughs' unique literary style and his wildly unconventional life, including his travels from the American Midwest to North Africa and several personal tragedies. Burroughs: The Movie is the first and only feature length documentary to be made with and about Burroughs.
The film was directed by the late Howard Brookner. It was begun in 1978 as Brookner's senior thesis at NYU film school and then expanded into a feature which was completed 5 years later in 1983. Sound was recorded by Jim Jarmusch and the film was shot by Tom DiCillo, fellow NYU classmates and both very close friends of Brookner's.
Extreme Private Eros - Love Song 1974 - 1974 - Kazuo Hara
Released in 1974
Directed by Kazuo Hara
Directed by Kazuo Hara
Storyline - In this intensely intimate documentary, filmmaker Kazuo Hara takes on a very difficult subject: his former lover, Takeda Miyuki. A feminist bisexual in 1970s Japan, Miyuki is a maverick in a rigid society driven by convention. As much a participant in this film as he is the filmmaker,
Hara follows Miyuki to Okinawa and documents her uncommon life as his feelings unravel in front of the camera. As Hara himself confessed, "I like to make something happen and then shoot it." With its grainy black and white scenes and its out-of-synch sound, Extreme Private Eros: Love Song 1974 creates the illusion of a home movie, but its intimacy pushed the bounds of the documentary cinema in Japan.
Gokushiteki erosu: Renka 1974 (Extreme Private Eros : Love Song 1974) was shot over several years, mostly in handheld b&w and often with out-of-synch sound, this raw confessional has Hara following his ex-wife, 26-year-old radical feminist Miyuki Takeda. The two lived together for three years and share a child, and this 93-minute documentary captures their post-break-up relationship and her new life without him. This was a brutal dose of reality for notoriously-private Japanese viewers to swallow, as it matter-of-factly tackles heartache, sex, insecurities, gender politics, and even on-camera childbirth.
Beginning in 1972, Miyuki and her child have moved to Okinawa, and Hara stays with her for a few turbulent days. During Miyuki's travels, her barfly girlfriends provide a bleak peek into Okinawa's skankiest nightclubs and their resident sluts, such as 14-year-old Chichi, who prefers funkadelic-dressed American G.I.'s to junior high. Later Miyuki shacks up with a black G.I. who can barely speak Japanese, but has no trouble getting her pregnant (and in a touching family-phone-call moment, Miyuki's mother urges her to dispose of it).
And when she misguidedly tries to distribute pamphlets to the local prostitutes, she's nearly beaten up. On top of that, Hara continually interrogates his ex, he begins crying on camera, and if he can add to the on-screen tension, he does -- like recruiting his current (much cuter) girlfriend Sachiko to interview increasingly-bitter Miyuki.
Moving back to Tokyo in '73, Miyuki works at a "birth commune" for new mothers. And when she has her baby, Hara is there with his trusty camera, as she delivers it at home without any help whatsoever. Although the entire sequence is out-of-focus, it's quite a sight; one long, uncut shot of Miyuki laying on the floor, spread-legged, squeezing out her "mixed blood" child onto the ground.
This insanely intimate document never flinches, as Miyuki verbally shames her infant son for looking and acting like his father, and Hara's narration continually criticizes Miyuki's screwed-up lifestyle. Sneaky Hara also captures some dialogue without Miyuki's apparent knowledge, such as a nasty conversation with Sachiko, as she insults everything about her ex, including his lousy bedroom prowess.
Hara was blasted by critics when this was released and I can understand why. I've dealt with ex-girlfriends and it can be a tense scene -- but I'd never dream of filming it for posterity!
This Love Song is an emotionally scalding yet absorbing cinematic open wound.
The Singing Detective - 1986 - Jon Amiel
Released in 1986
Directed by Jon Amiel
Directed by Jon Amiel
Storyline - Tormented and bedridden by a debilitating disease, a mystery writer relives his detective stories through his imagination and hallucinations.
The Singing Detective is a television serial drama, written by Dennis Potter.
Mystery writer Philip E. Marlow is suffering writer's block and is hospitalised because his psoriatic arthropathy, a chronic skin and joint disease, is at an acute stage forming lesions and sores over his entire body, and partially cripples his hands and feet. Dennis Potter suffered from this disease himself, and he wrote with a pen tied to his fist in much the same fashion Marlow does in the last episode. Although severe, Marlow's condition was intentionally understated compared to Potter's whose skin would sometimes crack and bleed.
The six episodes are "Skin", "Heat", "Lovely Days", "Clues", "Pitter Patter" and "Who Done It".
Let The Fire Burn - 2013 - Jason Osder
Released in 2013
Directed by Jason Osder
Directed by Jason Osder
Storyline - A history of the conflict of the City of Philadelphia and the Black Liberation organization, MOVE, that led to the disastrously violent final confrontation in 1985.
MOVE was originally called the Christian Movement for Life when it was founded in 1972. Its founder, John Africa, was functionally illiterate so he dictated a document called The Guideline to Donald Glassey, a social worker from the University of Pennsylvania. Africa and his contemporary, mostly African-American followers wore their hair in dreadlocks. They advocated a radical form of green politics and a return to a hunter-gatherer society while stating their opposition to science, medicine, and technology. As John Africa himself had done, his devotees changed their surnames to Africa to show reverence to what they regarded as their mother continent.
John Africa's MOVE members lived in a commune in a house owned by Glassey in the Powelton Village section of West Philadelphia. They staged bullhorn-amplified, profanity-laced demonstrations against institutions that they opposed, such as zoos (MOVE had strong views on animal rights), and speakers whose views they opposed. MOVE activities drew close scrutiny from law enforcement authorities.
1978 shoot-out
On August 8, 1978, a deadly end came to an almost year-long standoff with police over a court order requiring MOVE to vacate their Powelton Village house at 311 N 33rd Street. When police attempted entry, shooting erupted and Philadelphia Police Department officer James J. Ramp was killed by a shot to the back of the neck. MOVE representatives claimed that he was facing the house at the time and deny MOVE responsibility for his death. Seven other police officers, five firefighters, three MOVE members, and three bystanders were also injured.
The MOVE 9
Nine MOVE members were each sentenced to a maximum of 100 years in prison for third degree murder for Ramp's killing. Seven of the nine first became eligible for parole in the spring of 2008, but were denied it. Parole hearings now occur yearly.
In 1998, at age 47, Merle Africa died in prison. In 2015, at age 59, Phil Africa died in prison. The remaining 7 are Chuck Africa, Michael Africa, Debbie Africa, Janet Africa, Janine Africa, Delbert Africa, and Eddie Africa.
1985 bombing
In 1981 MOVE relocated to a row house at 6221 Osage Avenue in the Cobbs Creek area of West Philadelphia. After the move, neighbors complained for years that MOVE members were broadcasting political messages by bullhorn at all hours and also about the health hazards created from piles of compost.
The police obtained arrest warrants charging four occupants with crimes including parole violations, contempt of court, illegal possession of firearms, and making terrorist threats. Mayor W. Wilson Goode and police commissioner Gregore J. Sambor classified MOVE as a terrorist organization. On May 13, 1985, the police, along with city manager Leo Brooks, arrived in force and attempted to clear the building and execute the arrest warrants. This led to an armed standoff with police, who lobbed tear gas canisters at the building. The police said that MOVE members fired at them; a gunfight with semi-automatic and automatic firearms ensued. Commissioner Sambor then ordered that the compound be bombed. From a Pennsylvania State Police helicopter, Philadelphia Police Department Lt. Frank Powell proceeded to drop two one-pound bombs (which the police referred to as "entry devices") made of FBI-supplied water gel explosive, a dynamite substitute, targeting a fortified, bunker-like cubicle on the roof of the house.
The resulting explosions ignited a fire that eventually destroyed approximately 65 nearby houses. The firefighters, who had earlier deluge-hosed the MOVE members in a failed attempt to evict them from the building, stood by as the fire caused by the bomb engulfed the first house and spread to others, having been given orders to let the fire burn. Despite the earlier drenching of the building by firefighters, officials said that they feared that MOVE would shoot at the firefighters. Eleven people (John Africa, five other adults and five children aged 7 to 13) died in the resulting fire and more than 250 people were left homeless. Ramona Africa, one of the two survivors, stated that police fired at those trying to escape.
Fallout
Mayor Goode soon appointed an investigative commission called the PSIC (aka MOVE Commission), chaired by William H. Brown, III. Police commissioner Sambor resigned in November 1985, reporting that he felt that he was being made a "surrogate" by Goode. The MOVE Commission issued its report on March 6, 1986. The report denounced the actions of the city government, stating that "Dropping a bomb on an occupied row house was unconscionable." Following the release of the report, mayor Goode made a formal public apology. No one from the city government was charged criminally.
In 1996 a federal jury ordered the city to pay a US$1.5 million civil suit judgement to survivor Ramona Africa and relatives of two people killed in the bombing. The jury had found that the city used excessive force and violated the members' constitutional protections against unreasonable search and seizure. Philadelphia was given the sobriquet "The City that Bombed Itself."
Dallas Buyers Club - 2013 - Jean-Marc Vallée
Released in 2013
Directed by Jean-Marc Vallée
Directed by Jean-Marc Vallée
Storyline - In 1985 Dallas, electrician and hustler Ron Woodroof works around the
system to help AIDS patients get the medication they need after he is diagnosed with
the disease.
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