Documentary Works
SABBATH QUEEN
director: Sandi DuBowski
Simcha Leib Productions
Filmed over 21 years, the film follows Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie’s epic journey as the dynastic heir of thirty-nine generations of Orthodox rabbis who rejects his destiny and becomes a drag-queen rebel, a queer father, and the founder of Lab/Shul: an everybody-friendly, God-optional, artist-driven, pop-up experimental congregation. SABBATH QUEEN joins director Sandi DuBowski and his rabbi, Amichai, on a lifelong and cinematic quest to creatively and radically reinvent religion, ritual, and love for a challenging, rapidly changing twenty-first century.
directors: Amanda McBaine, Jesse Moss
Apple Original Films, Concordia Studios, Mile End Films
Teenage girls from wildly different backgrounds across Missouri navigate a week-long immersive experiment in American democracy, build a government from the ground up, and reimagine what it means to govern. As the girls run for office, including governor and supreme court seats, they also methodically preside over a reproductive rights case while the real-life overturning of Roe v. Wade hangs in the balance. The film reflects current issues in our political landscape through the energetic and tenacious lens of youth.
BLOODLINES OF THE SLAVE TRADE
director: Markie Hancock
Hancock Productions
The film examines the lives of two people whose only connection is a genetic link to notorious slave traders of the 1830s. Rodney (who is Black) and Susanna (who is white) have very different lived experiences as their slave trading ancestors continue to impact their lives.
director: Jeff Reilly
Vivifi Films
The addiction crisis in America has reached a new boiling point, and courageous people – at all levels, from all walks of life – are rising to answer the call. TIPPING THE PAIN SCALE follows individuals grappling with the current systemic failures of how we have dealt with addiction in communities and their journey to develop and employ new, innovative, and often controversial solutions to the problem. It is a quasi-anthology, weaving characters through their own stories as they connect to the issues plaguing all communities and the country in an urgent fight to save lives.
director: Alexandra Shiva
Gidalya Pictures, Blumhouse, EPIX
An intimate portrait of four Syrian refugee families arriving in America and struggling to find their footing. Displaced from their homes and separated from loved ones, they are given eight months of assistance from the International Rescue Committee to become self-sufficient. As they learn to adapt to challenges, including the newly imposed travel ban, their strength and resilience are tested. It is a universal story, highlighted by humor and heartbreak, about what it’s like to start over, no matter the obstacles.
director: Lara Stolman
Woodland Park Productions, Argot Pictures, POV on PBS
In New Jersey, the parents of a boy on the autism spectrum take matters into their own hands. They form a competitive swim team, recruiting diverse teens on the spectrum and training them with high expectations and zero pity. SWIM TEAM chronicles the extraordinary rise of the Jersey Hammerheads, capturing a moving quest for inclusion, independence and a life that feels winning.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU: SURVEYOR OF THE SOUL
director: Huey
Films by Huey, PBS
Made over the course of 13 years, HENRY DAVID THOREAU: SURVEYOR OF THE SOUL tells the story of Thoreau in his time and the story of the impact Thoreau’s writings and lifestyle have in our time. Includes interviews and commentary by: Laura Dassow Walls (author, Henry David Thoreau: A Life), Bill McKibben, Howard Zinn, Richard Primack, Megan Marshall, Rep. John Lewis, Robert Bly, Wai Chee Dimock, Spencer Crew, Darren Ranco (Penobscot), Rochelle Johnson, and more.
director: Annie Goldson
Gravitas Ventures, Decoding Pictures Ltd.
The larger-than-life story of Kim Dotcom, the “most wanted man online”, is extraordinary enough, but the battle between Dotcom and the US Government and entertainment industry being fought in New Zealand is one that goes to the heart of ownership, privacy and piracy in the digital age. Charting the rise of Dotcom, a hacker and content pirate, wannabe politician and infamous underground figure, Annie Goldson’s documentary also details the invasive efforts to bring him and his online empire down that stretches from New Zealand to the White House. Three years in the making, this independent film chronicles a spectacular moment in global online history, dubbed the ‘largest copyright case’ ever and the truth about what happened.
director: Megan Smith Harris
Pyewackitt Productions
A child who connects with a dog, connects to the world. THE BUDDY SYSTEM tells the intimate stories of three families touched by autism, who experience meaningful change when a specially trained assistance dog comes into each of their lives.
director: Alexandra Shiva
Gidalya Pictures
A portrait of an extraordinary woman living on the autism spectrum. Sondra Williams was misdiagnosed as schizophrenic and mentally retarded for much of her life and institutionalized for many years. She has a unique way of processing the world that can be hard for others to understand, yet she has been married for 28 years, and has raised 4 children who have also been diagnosed with autism. Her rare ability to clearly articulate her experience of autism has made her a sought-after national speaker and tireless advocate for the rights of others on the spectrum, even as she continues to battle her own personal obstacles
director: Elissa Brown
Artvision
WINDSHIELD: A VANISHED VISION lands us in the 1930s to reveal an intimate portrait of a patrician couple, a leading modern architect, and the story of the ill-fated house that they create. John Nicholas Brown’s fascination with modernism, innovation and the rapidly-evolving American building scene spurs him to commission what he hopes will be a “distinguished monument in the history of architecture.” Brown and his wife Anne, herself a daring and eccentric figure, select the young and ambitious Richard Neutra to build them a house that they name “Windshield.” Through an enormously detailed correspondence, patron and architect discuss every detail of the house’s design and together pursue cutting-edge technology, much of which has only previously been used in commercial architecture. Then, just weeks after the Browns move in, tragedy strikes.
THE WOMEN OF CHARLESTON: HATE WILL NOT WIN
director: Marta Cunningham
Glamour Women of the Year, 25th Anniversary Edition, Condé Nast
For the 25th anniversary of Glamour’s Women of the Year Awards, Glamour asked eight award-winning filmmakers to trail the honorees and create short films that answer the question: what makes this woman a Woman of the Year? From Marta Cunningham: When I first heard about the Charleston shooting I think, like all of us, we were deeply saddened by the depth of the tragedy. But as we heard more information about the shooter, the anger grew, and the disbelief lessened. We all watched our black churches burn across our nation again—the Confederate flag wave in support of the hatred that was fueling the fire. It was deeply painful to witness. But then something happened that upstaged all the noise: Five women—Nadine Collier, Felicia Sanders, Polly Sheppard, Bethane Middleton Brown, and Alana Simpson—spoke out against the hatred and carried the torch that has been passed down to us from the legacy of African American Theology and our experience. They spoke words of forgiveness.
director: Alexandra Shiva
Gidalya Pictures, Blumhouse, HBO
A first kiss, a first dance. These are the rites of passage of American youth that hold the promise of magic, romance and initiation into adulthood. For kids from all walks of life, these first steps toward intimacy are at once exciting and terrifying. For some teenagers and young adults on the autism spectrum, the transition can be nothing less than paralyzing. In Columbus, Ohio, a group of young people with an array of developmental challenges prepares for an iconic event – a spring formal dance. HOW TO DANCE IN OHIO is a story of the universal human need to grow, connect and belong as uniquely dramatized by individuals facing the deepest struggle toward social survival.
IN GOOD TIME: THE PIANO JAZZ OF MARIAN MCPARTLAND
director: Huey
Films by Huey, PBS
IN GOOD TIME: THE PIANO JAZZ OF MARIAN MCPARTLAND documents the life and career of jazz legend Marian McPartland as a musician, composer, and host of National Public Radio’s Marian McPartland’s Piano Jazz. A native of England, McPartland arrived in America in 1948 with her husband Jimmy McPartland and established herself as a leading musician in the male dominated jazz world. McPartland tells her own story through interviews filmed over 4 years. The film features McPartland’s own musical compositions and piano improvisations. She is seen performing and regaling audiences with her wit and stories in clubs, concerts, and Piano Jazz recording sessions with Dr. Billy Taylor, Elvis Costello, Dave Brubeck, Diana Krall, Bill Frisell, Nnenna Freelon, Renee Rosnes, Dick Hyman, and others.
cinematographer
director: Richard Rutkowski
ARTÉ
From stillness, motion – and from moving apart, a coming together. In this documentary we examine the artistry of Suzushi Hanayagi, a revered dancer and creative partner to one of the great modern innovators in the performing arts, Robert Wilson. This film also examines the creative drive, the nature and arc of collaboration, and ultimately loss: the loss of an artist’s faculties, memory, and working life. As we watch Wilson create a living, vibrant new dance piece in tribute to Hanayagi, we also bear witness to the process of letting go and the transition of an artist’s life from vibrancy to legacy; a process that is painful, touching, and universal.
director: Megan Smith Harris
Pyewackitt Productions, PBS International
With heart and grace, TRIAL BY FIRE: LIVES REFORGED honors the courage and strength of burn survivors as they reclaim their lives — and dreams — after the devastation of fire. The film follows the journeys of ordinary people who rise above their injuries and discover unexpected insights along the way — a transformed worldview, deeper interpersonal connections and a strong commitment to make a difference. In a culture that prizes physical beauty over strength of character, TRIAL BY FIRE: LIVES REFORGED challenges us to go beyond the superficial and redefine our concept of true beauty. This film is a celebration of courage, a campaign to help save lives and a movement to make the world a more respectful and welcoming place.
director: Judd Ehrlich
Flatbush Pictures
No campfires. No sing-alongs. Just magic. Welcome to the real Hogwarts. To escape the pressures of growing up, magic-obsessed kids congregate at the one place they can be themselves: Tannen’s Magic Camp, the oldest and most prestigious training ground for young magicians. They want to prove their worth on the same stage where superstars like Blaine and Copperfield once performed. But to get there, they need to learn more than sleight of hand and tricks of the trade. They have to find the magic inside.
FDR FOUR FREEDOMS PARK
director: Eddie Rosenstein
Eyepop Productions, PBS
The FDR Four Freedoms Park is New York City’s newest landmark public space. Set on Roosevelt Island, this is the last creation of famed architect Louis Kahn. The film documents the entire three years of the construction process.
additional cinematography
director: Susan Saladoff
The Group Entertainment, HBO
For many Americans, the famous McDonald’s coffee case has become emblematic of the frivolous lawsuits that clog our courts and stall our justice system. Or is that exactly what McDonald’s wants us to think? Using the now-infamous legal battle over a spilled cup of coffee as a springboard into investigating our civil-justice system, filmmaker Susan Saladoff exposes the way corporations have spent millions distorting this case to promote tort reform. Big business has brewed an insidious concoction of manipulation and lies to protect its interests, and media lapdogs have stirred the cup. Following four people whose lives have been devastated by their inability to access the courts, this searing documentary unearths the sad truth that most of our beliefs about the civil-justice system have been shaped or bought by corporate America. Informative, entertaining, and a stirring call to action, HOT COFFEE will make your blood boil.
director: Nanette Burstein
A&E IndieFilms, Firehouse Films, 57th & Irving, QuasiWorld Entertainment, Paramount Vantage
AMERICAN TEEN intimately follows the lives of four teenagers in one small town in Indiana through their senior year of high school. Using cinema vérité footage, interviews, and animation, it presents a candid portrait of being 17 and all that goes with it. We see the insecurities, the cliques, the jealousies, the first loves and heartbreaks, the experimentation with sex and alcohol, the parental pressures, and the struggle to make profound decisions about the future. In AMERICAN TEEN the stories coalesce into a narrative so engrossing that it resembles fiction more than documentary. The end result is a film that goes beyond the stereotypes of high school—the nerd and the jock, the homecoming queen and the arty misfit—to capture the complexity of young people trying to make their way into adulthood.
director: Cheryl Furjanic
Synchromovie Productions
A splashy look at a marginal sport: U.S.A.’s top synchronized swimmers endure rigorous training and overcome unthinkable obstacles to compete for Olympic glory.
directors: Eric Chaikin & Julian Petrillo
Seventh Art Releasing, Discovery Times
J-o-c-u-n-d, a six-letter word for “fun,” is an apt description of Eric Chaikin and Julian Petrillo’s feisty documentary about the National Scrabble Tournament. WORD WARS follows the lives of four of the top-rated Scrabble players in the country as they crisscross the United States in heated competitions culminating in their ultimate quest—the twenty-five-thousand-dollar top prize awarded at the national tournament in San Diego. Warning: this is not your grandmother’s game of Scrabble. With its tongue firmly planted in its cheek, WORD WARS uncovers the fiercely competitive, highly idiosyncratic world of professional Scrabble.
cinematographer
director: Kelly Anderson
PBS World
A documentary about director Kelly Anderson’s personal journey, as a Brooklyn “gentrifier,” to understand the forces reshaping her neighborhood along lines of race and class. She watches as an explosion of luxury housing and chain store development spurs bitter conflict over who has a right to live in the city and to determine its future. While some people view these development patterns as ultimately revitalizing the city, to others, they are erasing the eclectic urban fabric, economic and racial diversity, creative alternative culture, and unique local economies that drew them to Brooklyn in the first place. Only when Anderson meets Brooklyn-born and raised scholar Craig Wilder, who explains his family’s experiences of neighborhood change over generations, does Anderson come to understand that what is happening in her neighborhoods today is actually a new chapter in an old American story. The film’s ultimate questions become how to heal the deep racial wounds embedded in our urban development patterns, and how citizens can become active in fixing a broken planning process.
additional cinematography
director: Madeleine Sackler
Great Curve Films
While she was working as an editor in New York City in 2008, Madeleine Sackler saw a local news segment about one of the city’s annual school lotteries. Several thousand parents were lined up around the city block, hoping that their child’s name would be called. Madeleine felt that this long line of hopeful parents was a visual metaphor for a massive, systemic problem in public education, which was not serving all children equally, and she set out to tell the story of the parents and children hoping to win a spot in a good school. Over the course of making the film, the school she was featuring became a central part of the political debate that was raging over the future of public education, especially as President Obama instituted his Race to the Top program, and protests grew over this and other public charter schools around New York City. The film developed to include not just portraits of families, but also a unique snapshot of how the public debate surrounding public education has become so divisive, with the families and children caught in the middle.
ARTISTS AND THEIR MOTHERS: VALERIE
director: Markie Hancock
Hancock Productions
Each artist conjures their mother through their art which ranges from writing (Janice), photography (Mark), painting (Rosario), performance (Valerie), filmmaking (Markie).
THE STRANGEST TOWN IN ALASKA
director: Bari Pearlman
Cypress Films
Whittier, Alaska is nestled on the shore of Prince William Sound, one hour south of Anchorage. But the beautiful natural setting is no match for its strangeness. The only way in and out of Whittier is a single lane, one-way tunnel that changes direction every half hour. The tunnel closes at 10pm each night, 5pm in the winter, locking everyone in for the night. No exceptions. Of the 200 people who live in Whittier year-round, 180 of them live in a single 14-story apartment building. Winter starts in early October and rages on for 7 months of near-total darkness and an average 9 feet of snow at -20 F and wind gusts of up to 80 MPH. Most residents of the tower don’t venture out unless they have to, or until the 2-story high snow drifts melt away in May and the cruise ships arrive. The 30 schoolchildren who were born there have no choice, but most of its residents voluntarily live in this strange community and call it home.
producer: Megan Smith-Harris
Pyewackitt Productions, WeTV
No longer do individuals or couples have to resign themselves to being childless. The intense drive to become a parent is understandable, but what motivates a woman to carry another person’s child in her womb, endure the rigors of pregnancy and the intense pain of childbirth only to hand the baby over to people she may never see again? SURROGATE STORIES explores the realities of one the most intimate relationships: that between a surrogate mother and her intended parents.
executive producers: Eddie Rosenstein, Eddie Barbini, Craig Piligian
Eyepop Productions, Pilgrim Films & TV, History Channel
Working in extremely hazardous conditions and facing a long history of death, Sandhogs toil underneath the streets just as they have for the past 150 years. Having built nearly every underground project in New York, they are an instrumental part of the development of NYC.
director: Eddie Rosenstein
Eyepop Productions, Cineflix, TruTV
NICK KROLL: THANK YOU VERY COOL
second unit director of photography
director: Ryan Polito
Theatrical Resources, Outlaw Laboratories, Comedy Central
second unit director of photography
director: Ryan Polito
Todd Cassetty Welding Service, NBC
director/producer: Victoria McGinnis
K2 Productions, TV One
TURNING POINT
additional cinematography
director: Vika Evdokimenko
Mosaic Films
GIVE IT UP FOR TRUTH
directors: Jonathan Knight & Terrell Tangonan
Kilowatt Productions
TEN DAYS THAT UNEXPECTEDLY CHANGED AMERICA: THE HOMESTEAD STRIKE – BEHIND THE SCENES
producer: Saevar Halldorsson
A&E Television Networks, History
FOOD FOR THOUGHT: GOOD TASTE IN ART (THE PASTA PAINTINGS)
additional cinematography
director: Jonathan Judge
Judge-Belshaw Entertainment