The Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song will honor either a songwriter, interpreter, or singer/songwriter whose career reflects lifetime achievement in promoting the genre of song as a vehicle of artistic expression and cultural understanding. Paul Simon, one of America's most respected songwriters and musicians, was the recipient of the first annual Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song. Named in honor of the legendary George and Ira Gershwin, the award recognizes the profound and positive effect of popular music on the world's culture.
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On July 1st, 2011, Montreux hosted the reunion of two master guitarists, Carlos Santana and John McLaughlin, with their Invitation To Illumination concert. Both musicians have been regulars at Montreux across the years but this was the first time they headlined their own concert together. The show features most of the tracks from their classic 1973 album Love Devotion Surrender mixed in with a wealth of other material. The evening was a showcase of supreme musical virtuosity and spirituality and typified the approach of these two great artists. It is certainly a performance not to be missed.
A comedy/musical utilizing both new songs and parodies from the original (Gilbert and Sullivan's Pirates of Penzance), as well as references to popular films of the time, including Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark. In your typical boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy fights girl with swords plot, the story revolves around Mabel ...
Intertwining stories of inmates and ex-inmates through the complex labyrinths of freedom. Wretched, desolate and doomed men, who try to expiate their sins and piece together the lives they used to lead.
Left to die in the desert by his wife and her lover, a businessman fights to survive and get his revenge.
Zakhar Psaltyrev went through many ordeals in the royal fleet, where massacres and bullying of people became a custom. Only thanks to his natural intelligence and perseverance, the illiterate peasant boy managed to avoid the fate of many of his comrades, who became drunkards and lost their human dignity. Captain 1st Rank Lezvin, commander of the cruiser "Svyatoslav", himself suffocating in the difficult atmosphere of the tsarist autocracy, fatherly fell in love with his messenger for his simple Russian soul, quick-witted mind, love for the homeland and hatred of oppression. Zakhar learned a lot from Lezvin, but soon they had to part. Zakhar becomes an active underground Bolshevik.
Reclusive middle-aged male nurse Mauro may be in over his head when -- to save his hospital job -- he agrees to accompany 10-year-old illegal immigrant Eddi to meet his adoptive parents at the Swiss border. Along for the ride is a laconic small-time mobster named Rollo, and problems soon ensue in the form of car trouble, a Bulgarian hooker and her pimps.
Two years after leaving prison, Cadu sets out to fight corruption and pursue a political career, but dangerous ties to the past haunt him.
In a groundbreaking project developed by MISCELLANEOUS Productions, a group of multi-barriered youth collaborated with a team of professional artists on POWER, an evening of solo performance pieces, ensemble drumming and dance numbers, all of which take a raw, honest look at the things that matter to youth in the community: power, racism, immigration, poverty, violence, sexism, addiction and love, presented at Vancouver’s Rhizome Café. This documentary focuses on four young artists -- Roberto, Natasha, Dakota, and Michael -- showing their struggles and their transformation through performance.
Documentary film about Tony Halme, masculinity and populism. The film follows how Tony Halme created a mythical, highly masculine freestyle wrestling character, The Viking, who gained fame both in the ring and in the public eye and eventually became captivated by it. With his brash speeches, Halme fired the starting shot for the rise of the Finns Party. The voice of a forgotten section of the population, a protest against the ruling elite, were the building blocks of Halme's popularity. Halme's great popularity has served as a good example of a populist figure, admired within the deep ranks of the nation, who comes from outside the political elite and changes the direction of politics. Also, despite - or perhaps because of - his openly racist statements, he was part of changing the political climate in Finland to a more acrimonious one.
An animated film depicting the evolution of the City of Toronto from 1749 to 1978.
In the middle of the urban jungle, Darko, a young and handsome undocumented immigrant meets Alina, a mysterious woman who leads a steady life in Germany. Despite social and cultural differences, they share an immediate erotic connection. They start a passionate affair and very soon Darko finds himself absorbed in magnetic attraction.
He's after a man who married for money. Insurance money.
A man hides from the world by committing a crime, but nature is always a witness to a crime.
Chunauti is an action-packed romantic comedy that tells a story of love, struggle, and justice. Ajaya and his wife Prabha move to Kathmandu, where Ajaya starts working as a teacher. Later, his sister Gita joins them and enrolls in the same college. There, she meets a kind and charming student, but trouble arises when Madhav, a troublesome student, also starts liking her. One day, a fight breaks out in the college, and when Gita tries to stop it, an inspector arrives and brings the situation under control. Angered by this, Madhav and his group cause harm to Prabha and Gita. They also try to escape punishment through legal means. With no strong evidence, Ajaya takes a stand and challenges the court. In the end, he decides to take justice into his own hands, leading to a tragic ending where the inspector, fulfilling his duty, stops Ajaya. Chunauti is a story of love, courage, and sacrifice in the face of injustice.
Fired from his band and hard up for cash, guitarist and vocalist Dewey Finn finagles his way into a job as a fifth-grade substitute teacher at a private school, where he secretly begins teaching his students the finer points of rock 'n' roll. The school's hard-nosed principal is rightly suspicious of Finn's activities. But Finn's roommate remains in the dark about what he's doing.
A documentary on the once promising American rock bands The Brian Jonestown Massacre and The Dandy Warhols. The friendship between respective founders, Anton Newcombe and Courtney Taylor, escalated into bitter rivalry as the Dandy Warhols garnered major international success while the Brian Jonestown Massacre imploded in a haze of drugs.
In the Realms of the Unreal is a documentary about the reclusive Chicago-based artist Henry Darger. Henry Darger was so reclusive that when he died his neighbors were surprised to find a 15,145-page manuscript along with hundreds of paintings depicting The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What is Known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glodeco-Angelinnian War Storm, Cased by the Child Slave Rebellion.
"My Own Breathing" is the final documentary of the trilogy, The Murmuring about comfort women during the World War II directed by BYUN Young-joo. This is the completion of her seven years work. BYUN's first and second documentaries spoke of grandmothers' everyday life through the origin of their torment, while My Own Breathing goes back to their past from their everyday life. Deleting any device of narration or music, the camera lets grandmothers talk about themselves. Finally, the film revives their deep voices trampled by harsh history.
The last day of Patrizia Cavalli’s home. Before it’s all gone.
Tells the true story of one woman's quest to help two elephant landmine survivors-Motala and Baby Mosha-walk on their own four legs.
Learn the origins and rise of modern day hula-hooping through eight extraordinary stories of hoop devotees who have embraced it as an art form, a teaching aid, and even an instrument of redemption. From the streets, to intimate clubs, to giant arenas, we alternate between self-filmed video diaries, verité documentary footage, and spectacularly filmed performances in an attempt to celebrate the healing power of movement and the spirit of human inventiveness.
Six blind Tibetan teenagers climb the Lhakpa-Ri peak of Mount Everest, led by seven-summit blind mountain-climber Erik Weihenmayer.
Set in the North Carolina Appalachians, Sprout Wings and Fly honors the fiddle playing of 82-year-old Tommy Jarrell of Toast, NC. Tommy was quirky, gregarious and generous, and this film shows him at his best, in fine fiddling form.
Creative and competitive, members of the Evil Geniuses Starcraft 2 team must prove themselves to make the cut in professional video gaming. Good Game follows the team as they discover that one wrong move could end their dreams.
Shut Up and Sing is a documentary about the country band from Texas called the Dixie Chicks and how one tiny comment against President Bush dropped their number one hit off the charts and caused fans to hate them, destroy their CD’s, and protest at their concerts. A film about freedom of speech gone out of control and the three girls lives that were forever changed by a small anti-Bush comment
This short documentary is the portrait of an 88-year-old woman who lives alone in a log cabin without running water or electricity in the Williams Lake area of British Columbia. The daughter of a Shuswap chief, Augusta lost her Indian status as the result of a marriage to a white man. She recalls past times, but lives very much in the present. Self-sufficient, dedicated to her people, she spreads warmth wherever she moves, with her songs and her harmonica.
Documentary that highlights 18 women and covers a period of time from the 50's to the 90's. The women chosen were selected because they represent the real diversity within both feminism and independent film and video. They range in age from 65 to 25. They are black, white, Puerto Rican, Yugoslavian, Asian American, biracial. They are straight, gay and bisexual. What they share is a need to express their own interpretations of what American culture is and could be and a belief that this work is made particularly powerful through the media.
Russian Poet Boris Ryzhy was handsome, talented and famous. So why did he end his own life at the age of 26? A quest to find the answer takes the filmmaker to the notorious neighbourhood in the cold industrial city of Yekaterinenburg where Boris grew up...
When a Mongolian nomadic family's newest camel colt is rejected by its mother, a musician is needed for a ritual to change her mind.
Experience an inside look at David Bowie's incredible influence on music, art and culture via interviews with some of the people who knew him best.
Eleven major film makers from Europe, America and Asia talk about Akira Kurosawa and discover surprising influences on their own work.
A feature-length documentary on Yvonne Bezerra de Mello, award-winning artist and human-rights activist who has gained international recognition for her work with street children in Rio. The film recounts how a woman turned her back on a wealthy lifestyle, driven into action by the execution of 8 streetkids by military police in 1993. In subsequent years Yvonne's struggle to better the lives of endangered and abandoned children has led her to found "Projeto Uere" ("Children of Light") a radical project committed to protection and education of kids who live in the streets and slums of Rio which has brought her into conflict with Brazil's wealthy elite.