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FILM LIBRARY: ART & MUSIC

Al Otro Lado (To the Other Side)
by Natalia Almada

The proud Mexican tradition of corrido music — captured in the performances of Mexican band Los Tigres del Norte and the late Chalino Sanchez — provides both heartbeat and backbone to this rich examination of songs, drugs and dreams along the U.S./Mexico border. "Al Otro Lado" follows Magdiel, an aspiring corrido composer from the drug capital of Mexico, as he faces two difficult choices to better his life: to traffic drugs or to cross the border illegally into the United States. An Official Selection of the Tribeca Film Festival.

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American Aloha
by Lisette Marie Flanary and Evann Siebens

For Hawaiians, the hula is not just a dance, but a way of life. While most Americans know only the stereotypes of grass skirts and coconut bras, the hula is a living tradition that tells of the rich history and spirituality of Hawai'i through music, language, and dance. "American Aloha: Hula Beyond Hawai'i" discovers a renaissance of Hawaiian culture as it continues to grow in California. Following three kumu hula, or master hula teachers, the film celebrates the perpetuation of a culture — from the very traditional to the contemporary — as it evolves on distant shores. Revealing the survival of Hawai'i's indigenous culture from near-destruction, "American Aloha" is a reminder of the power of reclaiming tradition for communities creating a home away from home. An Independent Television Service (ITVS) and Pacific Islanders in Communications (PIC) co-presentation. A Diverse Voices Project Selection.

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Golub
by Jerry Blumenthal, Gordon Quinn

The role of art in America has been debated recently everywhere from the Halls of Congress to the local shopping mall. "Golub" is more than a portrait of the socially committed painter Leon Golub, whose massive canvases are intended to provoke viewers. It is about media and contemporary society, social responsibility and creativity, art and information. "Golub conveys the exhilarating sense that art is inseparable from both the world that engenders it and the world that receives it." - Jonathan Rosenblum, The Chicago Reader

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In The Realms of the Unreal
by Jessica Yu

Reclusive janitor by day, visionary artist by night, outsider artist Henry Darger moved through life virtually unnoticed. But after his death, a treasure trove was discovered in his one-room Chicago apartment: a staggering 15,000-page novel and hundreds of illustrations that continue to inspire artists around the world. With dreamlike animation, poignant narration by Dakota Fanning and a haunting musical score, Academy Award winner Jessica Yu fashions a bold and beautiful film. "In the Realms of the Unreal" immerses us in Darger's startling universe of innocence and pain, showing how he forged magic out of the bleakest of lives. A co-presentation with the Independent Television Service (ITVS).

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Lomax the Songhunter
by Rogier Kappers

Alan Lomax was "the song hunter." He devoted his life to recording the world's folk tunes before they would permanently disappear with the rise of the modern music industry. In "Lomax the Songhunter," filmmaker Rogier Kappers seeks to tell Lomax's story by interviewing friends such as Pete Seeger, combining it with archival recordings of music greats Woody Guthrie and Leadbelly, and gathering footage of the cotton fields, rock quarries and prisons where Alan Lomax captured America’s quintessential music. Finally, Kappers followed the route that Lomax took so many years ago and traveled to remote villages in Spain and Italy, hearing memories and music from the farmers, shepherds and weavers whose songs Lomax recorded decades earlier.

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Maya Lin: A Strong Clear Vision
by Freida Lee Mock

The Vietnam War Memorial was one of the most controversial monuments of its time. Thrust in to the eye of the storm was architect-sculptor Maya Lin, whose design for the memorial was chosen when she was a 21-year-old college student. Withstanding bitter attacks, she held her ground with clarity and grace. In this Academy Award winner, Freida Lee Mock follows a decade in the life of this visionary artist. "Two Thumbs Up" — Siskel and Ebert

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Sierra Leone's Refugee All Stars
by Zach Niles and Banker White

If the refugee is today's tragic icon of a war-ravaged world, then Sierra Leone's Refugee All Stars, a reggae-inflected band born in the camps of West Africa, represents a real-life story of survival and hope. The six-member Refugee All Stars came together in Guinea after civil war forced them from their native Sierra Leone. Traumatized by physical injuries and the brutal loss of family and community, they fight back with the only means they have — music. The result, as shown in "Sierra Leone's Refugee All Stars," is a tableau of tragedy transformed by the band's inspiring determination to sing and be heard. A Diverse Voices Project co-production.

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The Flute Player
by Jocelyn Glatzer

Arn Chorn-Pond was only a boy when the brutal Khmer Rouge regime overran Cambodia and turned his country into a ghastly land of "killing fields." While most of Arn's family, and 90% of the country's musicians, were killed, Arn was kept alive to play propaganda songs on the flute for his captors. Now, after living in the U.S. for 20 years, "The Flute Player" follows Arn's journey back to Cambodia as he seeks out surviving "master musicians" and faces the dark shadows of his war-torn past. An extraordinary story of survival, the film is a testament to one man's ability to transcend tragedy. An Independent Television Service (ITVS) and a National Asian American Telecommunications Association (NAATA) co-presentation.

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Tintin and I
by Anders Østergaard

Why does the comic strip The Adventures of Tintin, about an intrepid boy reporter, continue to fascinate us decades after their publication? "Tintin and I" highlights the potent social and political underpinnings that give Tintin's world such depth, and delve into the mind of Hergé, Tintin’s work-obsessed Belgian creator, to reveal the creation and development of Tintin.

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Wattstax
by Mel Stuart

P.O.V. brings back the cult favorite "Wattstax," the 1973 documentary directed by Mel Stuart. In August 1972, seven years after the Watts riots, the legendary Stax recording label staged a benefit concert in Los Angeles for 90,000 people. As time went by, it became known as the Black Woodstock. Hosted by Rev. Jesse Jackson, it was a veritable "who's who" of gospel, soul and R&B and was a mirror of various aspects of African-American culture. The newly restored concert film features trenchant commentary from Richard Pryor, performances by Rufus Thomas, the Staple Singers, the Emotions and the Bar-Kays, and includes the grand finale (not seen in the original film) — Isaac Hayes' electrifying "Theme From Shaft." A DVD of Wattstax with bonus features is scheduled to hit stores September 7. In late August, Fantasy/Stax Records will release a new CD featuring 75 minutes of musical highlights from the film. A P.O.V. Classics presentation.

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What I Want My Words To Do To You
by Madeleine Gavin, Judith Katz and Gary Sunshine

"What I Want My Words to Do To You" offers an unprecedented look into the minds and hearts of the women inmates of New York's Bedford Hills Correctional Facility. The film goes inside a writing workshop led by playwright Eve Ensler, consisting of fifteen women, most of whom were convicted of murder. Through a series of exercises and discussions, the women, including former Weather Underground Members Kathy Boudin and Judith Clark, delve into and expose the most terrifying places in themselves, as they grapple with the nature of their crimes and their own culpability. The film culminates in an emotionally charged prison performance of the women's writing by acclaimed actresses Glenn Close, Marisa Tomei, Rosie Perez, Hazelle Goodman, and Mary Alice.

This film is not currently available in our free lending library.

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Who is Henry Jaglom?
by Alex Rubin, Jeremy Workman

You may have heard of Martin Scorsese or Woody Allen, but who is Henry Jaglom? Hailed by some as the last true maverick of American cinema, this writer-director has been dubbed everything from cinematic genius to the world's worst director. Obsessively confusing and abusing the lines between life and art, Jaglom challenges the boundaries of filmmaking and viewer endurance. Alex Rubin and Jeremy Workman pay an off-beat tribute to the man and his vision with a snappy spectrum of opinions from friends, family and Hollywood notables.

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Wrestling With Angels: Playwright Tony Kushner
by Freida Lee Mock

Tony Kushner, whose epochal Angels in America won a Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award, has emerged as one of the country's leading playwrights and one of its fiercest moral critics. In the film "Wrestling With Angels: Playwright Tony Kushner," Oscar-winning director Freida Lee Mock (P.O.V.'s "Maya Lin: A Strong Clear Vision") followed Kushner for three tumultuous years, from September 11, 2001 to the 2004 presidential election, to delve into the passions that keep him reaching for the great American play. Actresses Marcia Gay Harden, Meryl Streep, Tonya Pinkins and Emma Thompson, directors Mike Nichols and George C. Wolfe, and writer/artist Maurice Sendak are seen collaborating with Kushner on such landmark works as Angels in America; Caroline, or Change and Homebody/Kabul.

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Downloadable materials:
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