The life story of Pulitzer Prize winning author John Kennedy Toole as told by friends and colleagues. Legacy format production, representational photography and an original music score combine to bring the author's life into focus. His personal triumphs, his untimely death and the publication of the novel, 'A Confederacy of Dunces,' years after his suicide are all explored in this darkly beautiful first person narrative.
Self (Archive Footage)
Narrator
The life story of Pulitzer Prize winning author John Kennedy Toole as told by friends and colleagues. Legacy format production, representational photography and an original music score combine to bring the author's life into focus. His personal triumphs, his untimely death and the publication of the novel, 'A Confederacy of Dunces,' years after his suicide are all explored in this darkly beautiful first person narrative.
2009-01-01
0
Shot on location in rural Southwestern Louisiana, Zydeco combines cinema verite style footage, interviews and musical performance to present a colorful, joyful portrait of the zydeco musicians in their culture. Featuring Dolon Carriere, Armand Ardoin, and Alphonse "Bois Sec" Ardoin. A film by Nicholas R. Spitzer. Color, 57 minutes.
In this RKO Sportscope short, a naturalist and his wife go to Louisiana bayou country to hunt a particular species of goose.
From the camera of celebrated French documentarians Jean-Pierre Bruneau and Jose Reynes, and in the tradition of The Buena Vista Social Club, comes the exhilarating musical documentary Louisiana Blues. From the backwoods of Baton Rouge to the heart the Big Easy, creole and Cajun music have endured despite years of tumult. This film explores not only the musicians who continue to produce this music, but the climate, culture, and way of life that have shaped them. Innumerable zydeco superstars appear onscreen and deliver legendary performances, including Beau Jocque, D.L. Menard, and Zydeco Joe.
Moment of Impact: Stories of the Pulitzer Prize Photographs, hosted by Sam Waterston, tells the compelling stories behind some of the world's most memorable photographs. Returning to the scene of the action, each photographer describes, in a gripping first-hand account, how they took their prize-winning photographs. The moments they captured forged history and changed lives - including the photographers own. The stories of these unforgettable photographs' own. The stories of these unforgettable photographs - many of them shown here for the first time - are as compelling and long lasting as the images themselves.
From the first movie nickelodeon on Canal Street in New Orleans at the turn of the century to the mega-plex theatres in the suburbs of the city, this film traces their history. With interviews from the people that were working in silent movie theatres to the visionaries that knew that "if you built them they will come", this is fascinating look at a history in a city that is a joy in everyone's memory.
The American writer Stephen King has been one of the world's best-selling authors for decades. How can the overwhelming success of his numerous works be explained? Perhaps by the boundless inventiveness of his literature? And what else is behind the longevity of his astonishing career?
Italian-born Laura Huxley, a teenage violin virtuoso, played for European royalty and made her American debut at Carnegie Hall before leaving the concert stage to become a renowned psychotherapist and author. In 1956 Laura married Aldous Huxley, author of BRAVE NEW WORLD, literary giant and prophet of the 20th century.
For 170 years, a Native American community has occupied Isle de Jean Charles, a tiny island deep in the bayous of Louisiana. They have fished, hunted, and lived off the land. Now the land that has sustained them for generations is vanishing before their eyes. Coastal erosion, sea level rise, and increasing storms are overwhelming the island. Over the last fifty years, Isle de Jean Charles has been gradually shrinking, and it is now almost gone. For these Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw Indians, their land is more than simply a place to live. It is the epicenter of their people and traditions. They now must prepare to say goodbye to the place, where, for eight generations, their ancestors cultivated a unique part of Louisiana culture.
An unparalleled portrait of Arthur Miller (1915-2005), a major writer who left an indelible mark on the world. Miller's life is intimately connected with the great themes that marked the 20th century. Glamour, fame, social criticism and Marilyn Monroe.
The film "Hurricane on the Bayou" is about the wetlands of Louisiana before and after Hurricane Katrina.
In 1953, Horace Carter earned a Pulitzer Prize for Meritorious Public Service for his reporting on the Ku Klux Klan. Carter persevered in the face of death threats, including those against his family, and used the editorial authority of North Carolina's TABOR CITY TRIBUNE to protest the Klan's racist rhetoric and vigilantism. Carter's bold reporting and the unwavering integrity of his editorials helped lead to the first federal intervention in the south during that era and to the arrest and conviction of nearly 100 klansmen.
The Naked Dance is the first documentary about America's legendary legal red-light district that thrived in New Orleans from 1898 until World War I. Storyville got its name when Alderman Sidney Story attempted to clear up the New Orleans waterfront by restricting prostitution to a specific neighborhood. To his chagrin, the area was dubbed "Storyville," and it was so known until the U.S. Navy closed it for good in 1917.
This documentary film includes never-before-seen footage and exclusive interviews to tell the story of Charity Hospital, from its roots to its controversial closing in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. From the firsthand accounts of healthcare providers and hospital employees who withstood the storm inside the hospital, to interviews with key players involved in the closing of Charity and the opening of New Orleans’ newest hospital, “Big Charity” shares the untold, true story around its closure and sheds new light on the sacrifices made for the sake of progress.
Head to southern Louisiana with filmmaker Matthew Wilkinson to soak up one of the country's best-kept musical secrets: Lil' Band o' Gold, a group of seasoned musicians who churn out an eclectic blend of country, R & B and zydeco known as swamp pop. This lively documentary follows blues-rock legend C.C. Adcock as he scours the marshes and prairies of Acadiana to assemble a supergroup of diverse personalities, backgrounds and musical styles.
Humorist Roy Blount Jr. takes viewers on a journey down the Mississippi River, showcasing everything from areas with spectacularly beautiful scenery to ugly and dangerously polluted stretches bordered by industrial development.
Born on Halloween, 1935, Dale Brown's fight for justice began the day his father walked out - two days before he was born. About how an overachiever from tiny Minot, North Dakota relentlessly fought his way to the top.
In the first half of the 19th century, the French ornithologist Jean-Jacques Audubon travelled to America to depict birdlife along the Mississippi River. Audubon was also a gifted painter. His life’s work in the form of the classic book ‘Birds of America’ is an invaluable documentation of both extinct species and an entire world of imagination. During the same period, early industrialisation and the expulsion of indigenous peoples was in full swing. The gorgeous film traces Audubon’s path around the South today. The displaced people’s descendants welcome us and retell history, while the deserted vistas of heavy industry stretch across the horizon. The magnificent, broad images in Jacques Loeuille’s atmospheric, modern adventure reminds us at the same time how little - and yet how much - is left of the nature that Audubon travelled around in. His paintings of the colourful birdlife of the South still belong to the most beautiful things you can imagine.
Mainly through the voice of family patriarch Joe Judice, Sugar in Their Blood follows a family of 7th generation Louisiana sugarcane farmers as they struggle with all of the challenges inherit in staying in business. It's a story of pride and resilience in the face of constantly changing conditions, both in terms of business and climate.
Everyone thinks that Bob Kane created Batman, but that’s not the whole truth. One author makes it his crusade to make it known that Bill Finger, a struggling writer, actually helped invent the iconic superhero, from concept to costume to the very character we all know and love. Bruce Wayne may be Batman’s secret identity, but his creator was always a true mystery.
Harmful chemicals are disproportionately affecting Black communities in Southern Louisiana along the Mississippi River. I am One of the People is an experimental short film exposing the environmental racism of “Cancer Alley.”