America the Beautiful

A miners’ strike is brew­ing in Butte, Mon­tana, in the rev­o­lu­tion­ary year of 1917. Tens of thou­sands of men have already lost their lives in the copper mines of the … read more

Detroit’s story has encap­su­lat­ed the iconic nar­ra­tive of Amer­i­ca over the last cen­tu­ry— the Great Migra­tion of African Amer­i­cans escap­ing Jim Crow; the rise of man­u­fac­tur­ing and the middle class; … read more

One region, two lan­guages: Brault’s film ELOGE DU CHIAC takes place in New Brunswick, in the east­ern­most part of Canada, where both French and Eng­lish are spoken. A ded­i­cat­ed young … read more

In some parts of St. Louis, Mis­souri, preg­nant moth­ers hope they will have girls. Half of the boys who grow up here don’t live to cel­e­brate their eigh­teenth birth­day. This … read more

What is this land that promis­es a better future for so many people, luring them to come and settle, to cul­ti­vate it, to live? What is this land whose real­i­ty … read more

In 1979, short­ly before he died, James Bald­win wrote an unfin­ished work in which he reflect­ed on his life as a homo­sex­u­al writer in the con­text of the black Civil … read more

What char­ac­ter­izes public life? What­ev­er it is, it could hardly be more lively than in Jack­son Heights, where 167 dif­fer­ent lan­guages are spoken. There are shops, restau­rants, and places of wor­ship from all pos­si­ble cul­tures, street musi­cians, a large LGBTQ parade, and always some­thing going on some­where. The master of Amer­i­can doc­u­men­tary film focus­es on the ‘insti­tu­tion’ of public life in this movie. He films in the streets and in inte­ri­or loca­tions. He cap­tures groups of people dis­cussing their con­cerns, or simply saying a few words at an event. There are old people in retire­ment homes that don’t get enough atten­tion, and a knit­ting circle of ladies who worry about the preser­va­tion of grave­yards. A trans­gen­der woman com­plains about dis­crim­i­na­tion in a restau­rant. A gay sup­port group wants to con­tin­ue meet­ing in a Jewish Center. Immi­grants need social assis­tance. Wise­man also films sev­er­al dis­cus­sions about the BID (Busi­ness Improve­ment Dis­trict), which wants to slowly but surely get rid of small busi­ness­es in the area. Will this New York neigh­bor­hood be able to stand its ground against gentrification?
This film is built entire­ly around the simple pres­ence of the camera; there is no need for any­thing dec­o­ra­tive to cap­ture the cul­tur­al wealth of public life in this area. Some­times, the police or fire fight­ers rush by with their sirens blaring.

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Fred­er­ick Wise­man geb. 1930 in Boston, USA. Er studierte Jura und war als Recht­san­walt in Paris tätig. 1959 wurde er Pro­fes­sor für Recht und Medi­zin an der Boston Uni­ver­si­ty. Seit 1967 machte er Filme und gilt neben D.A. Pen­nebak­er, Robert Drew und Richard Lea­cock als wichtiger Pio­nier des Direct Cinema. Sein leg­endär­er erster Film TITICUT FOLLIES fiel unter die Zensur und wurde erst 1991 für das Pub­likum freigegeben. Sein Marken­ze­ichen sind aus­führliche Stu­di­en von Insti­tu­tio­nen unter­schiedlich­ster Art. Wise­man erhielt zahlre­iche Ausze­ich­nun­gen u.a. Award of Dis­tinc­tion der Amer­i­can Soci­ety of Cin­e­matog­ra­phers (2006), Gold­en­er Löwe für das Lebenswerk, Venedig 2014, Ehrenoscar 2016. Filme u.a.: TITICUT FOLLIES (1967), LAW AND ORDER (1969), BASIC TRAINING (1971), JUVENILE COURT (1973), PRIMATE (1974), WELFARE (1975), ZOO (1993), HIGH SCHOOL II (1994), STATE LEGISLTURE (2006), LA DANSE (2009), BOXING GYM (2010), NATIONAL GALLERY (2014).

In LONG STORY SHORT, over 100 people at home­less shel­ters, food banks, adult lit­er­a­cy pro­grams, and job train­ing cen­ters in Los Ange­les and the Bay Area in Cal­i­for­nia dis­cuss their … read more

In the early 1980s, Diego Echev­er­ria took a 16mm camera into the streets of the South­side of Williams­burg, then a pri­mar­i­ly Puerto Rican neigh­bor­hood and one of the city’s poor­est, … read more