A look back at the last fifty years in African American art, Colored Frames is an unflinching exploration of influences, inspirations and experiences of black artists. Beginning at the height of the Civil Rights Era and leading up to the present, it is a naked and truthful look at often ignored artists and their progenies.
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The film explores the role of photography, since its rudimentary beginnings in the 1840s, in shaping the identity, aspirations, and social emergence of African Americans from slavery to the present. The dramatic arch is developed as a visual narrative that flows through the past 160 years to reveal black photography as an instrument for social change, an African American point-of-view on American history, and a particularized aesthetic vision.
Under the Trump administration, USA is a deeply divided country. One side feeds populism and religious rectitude in a monochromatic landscape, painted white, lamenting for a past that never will return. The other side fuels diversity and multiculturalism, a biased vision of a progressive future, quite unlikely. Both sides are constantly confronted, without listening to each other. Only a few reasonable people gather to change this potentially dangerous situation.
This documentary presents clips from black films from 1929 through 1957.
Husband and wife music producers Ray Chew and Vivian Scott Chew embark on an ambitious two week journey to Cuba to create a collaboration of sounds which originated from Afro-Caribbean roots that has evolved into what we now consider modern day Salsa music. Bringing together multiple artists from the U.S. and Cuba, the film shines a light on Cuban culture and takes the viewer through the creative process and challenges of producing an album while providing an auditory sensation that touches the soul. Featuring Eric Benét, Louie Vega and Sergio George-who has produced albums for Jennifer Lopez, Marc Anthony and more. Audiences will walk away feeling the passion, positive energy, triumph and love that keeps this musical marriage strong.
Don Letts's hilarious and colourful profile of the godfather of funk, whose 50-year career has defined the genre. From his 1950s days running a doo-wop group out of the back of his barber store, through the madness of the monster Parliament/Funkadelic machine of the 70s to his late 90s hip-hop collaborations with Dre and Snoop, George Clinton has inspired generations of imitators. Contributors include Outkast's Andre 3000 and Macy Gray.
The life and work of New York artist Jean-Michel Basquiat have been marked by a long quest for identity, by his Haitian and Puerto Rican family origins and by a founding trip to Africa. To portray this major painter of the 20th century, who died in 1988 at only 27 years old, is also to evoke the place of black American artists in the conservative and racist America of the Reagan years.
This documentary film is a celebration of Washington DC, Maryland, and Virginia (DMV) and the Black artists driving music culture forward.
Zakarya Diouf, winner of the San Francisco Foundation 2005 Community Leadership Awards (Helen Crocker Russell Award) - for his vision in unifying the African cultural arts community, for serving as a mentor and educator of young artists, and for his artistic contributions to the development of African-based performing arts.
Documentary about Gil Scott-Heron.
Count Basie does a little rhyming rapping before going into this Benny Goodman instrumental composition. While he's playing, plenty of couples are jitterbugging constantly until, one by one, they get tired and start to fall down on the floor.
Loud, fearless and (un)typical girls: Gina Birch (The Raincoats) and Helen Reddington (The Chefs), musicians and punk icons turned directors, serve up a fascinating documentary built on new interviews with the women who played instruments in punk bands in the 1970s. In accounts laced with wit, honesty and insight, pioneering players including the Adverts’ Gaye Black (bass), Palmolive from The Slits (drums), Shanne Bradley from The Nips (bass), Jane Munro from The Au Pairs (bass), Hester Smith and Rachel Bor from Dolly Mixture (drums and guitar), bassist Gina and guitarist Ana Da Silva from The Raincoats, as well as many others, we hear about acquiring instruments, learning to play, forming bands and getting gigs.
„Sookee - Von Seepferdchen und Schränken“ is an intimate portrait of Sookee, a queer-feminist rapper and activist, who has been fighting sexism, homophobia and racism in German hip hop culture.
Expressionist painter meets existentialist surfer as legendary documentary filmmaker Jack Bond follows the journey of the brilliant young British painter, Chris Moon, as he navigates the perilous art world and a demanding, often excruciating, relationship with his work.
Dorival Caymmi was one of the inventors of the Bahian imagination. In his 94 years of life, Caymmi composed, sang, wrote, illustrated and thought about his Bahia, even far from it. His family, partners, friends and fans remember his history, which made him one of the pillars of Brazilian culture.
Filmmaker Maxine Trump turns the camera on herself and her close circle of family and friends as she confronts the idea of not having kids. While exploring the cultural pressures and harsh criticism child-free women regularly experience, as well as the personal impact this decision may have on her own relationship, Maxine meets other women reckoning with their choice: Megan, who struggles to get medical permission to undergo elective sterilization, and Victoria, who lives with the backlash of publicly acknowledging that she made a mistake when she had a child.
The search for The Lost City of the Monkey God follows explorer Steve Elkins and a team of archaeologists, anthropologists, scientists and filmmakers in this true-life adventure as they overcome torrential rains, dense jungles, poisonous reptiles and deadly disease carrying flies to search one of the last unexplored places on Earth for a lost Maya city. Using cutting edge laser technology, they can "see" the city hidden in the impenetrable jungle and with the support of the president of Honduras and his army they are able to save the found city from certain destruction and looting and properly excavate and preserve their discovery and begin to solve the mysteries of the lost city.
The final hours/days, events and people leading up to the end of WWI.
A group of people are standing along the platform of a railway station in La Ciotat, waiting for a train. One is seen coming, at some distance, and eventually stops at the platform. Doors of the railway-cars open and attendants help passengers off and on. Popular legend has it that, when this film was shown, the first-night audience fled the café in terror, fearing being run over by the "approaching" train. This legend has since been identified as promotional embellishment, though there is evidence to suggest that people were astounded at the capabilities of the Lumières' cinématographe.
A German Documentary about the “village of friendship” that was created by American Veteran George Mizo to help the Vietnamese kids suffering from the Vietnam War.