Summary: Portrait photographer Elsa Dorfman found her medium in 1980: the larger-than-life Polaroid Land 20x24 camera. For the next thirty-five years she captured the surfaces of those who visited her Massachusetts studio: families, Beat poets, rock stars, and Harvard notables.
Format: moving image
Publisher / Publication Date: 2017
Copies Available at Woodmere
1 available in Documentary DVDs, Call number: DVD DOC BSummary: With editing completed by filmmaker Ken Kobland after the death of director/producer Marion Cajori, this movie describes the life and work of an artist who has reinvented portraiture. Close photographs his subjects, blows up the image to gigantic proportions, divides it into a detailed grid and then uses a complex set of colors and patterning to reconstruct each face. The artist describes his...
Format: moving image
Publisher / Publication Date: Arthouse Films 2010
Copies Available at Woodmere
1 available in Documentary DVDs, Call number: DVD DOC CHUSummary: Five friends travel 1200 miles from El Paso to the Gulf of Mexico on horses, mountain bikes and canoes to explore the potential impacts of a border wall on the natural environment.
Format: moving image
Publisher / Publication Date: 2019
Copies Available at Woodmere
1 available in Documentary DVDs, Call number: DVD DOC RIVSummary: A portrait of American photographer Tina Barney, who specialises in photographing the rarefied upper echelons of society in the US and Europe.
Format: moving image
Publisher / Publication Date: IndiePix 2009
Copies Available at Woodmere
1 available in Documentary DVDs, Call number: DVD DOC TINSummary: 1804: the hidden history of Haiti is a documentary film about the untold history of the Haitian Revolution. Produced by the creator of the best-selling Hidden Colors film series, 1804 goes in-depth about the four principal players who were instrumental in Haiti's independence: Makandal, Dutty Boukman, Toussaint Louverture, Jean-Jacques Dessalines. This documentary gives a compelling look into...
Format: moving image
Publisher / Publication Date: King Flex Entertainment 2017
Copies Available at Woodmere
1 available in Documentary DVDs, Call number: DVD DOC EIGSummary: Tells the story of Haitian national hero, journalist, and freedom fighter Jean Dominique, whom Demme first met and filmed in 1986. As owner and operator of his nation's oldest and only free radio station, Dominique was frequently at odds with his country's various repressive governments and spent much of the 80's and early 90's in exile in New York, where Demme continued to interview him over...
Format: moving image
Publisher / Publication Date: New Line Home Entertainment [distributor] 2005
Copies Available at Woodmere
1 available in Documentary DVDs, Call number: DVD DOC AGRSummary: A profoundly illuminating exploration of Jean Seberg₂s career from the brilliant filmmaker Mark Rappaport. Mary Beth Hurt portrays JeanSeberg, who reflects on her life as it is illustrated through her work. It follows her as she is plucked from obscurity to star in Otto Preminger's Saint Joan (1957), to the critical drubbing that followed, her resurrection as a star in Godard's Breathless...
Format: moving image
Publisher / Publication Date: 2022
Copies Available at Woodmere
1 available in Documentary DVDs, Call number: DVD DOC FROSummary: National Geographic follows Pete Souza, the President's photographer inside the Obama White House, aboard Air Force One, backstage at the State of the Union, and into the heart of the West Wing. It's a behind-the-scenes look at the everyday grit of the American presidency and a chance to see what it's like to cover the most powerful man in the world, for history. Features intimate interviews...
Format: moving image
Publisher / Publication Date: 2010
Copies Available at Woodmere
1 available in E-TV DVDs, Call number: DVD E-TV PRESummary: Jan and Antonina Zabinski, the keepers of the Warsaw Zoo in Poland, saved nearly 300 Jews during the Second World War. This is a poignant documentary that is an extraordinary true story about the humanitarian spirit, as exemplified by two people who, with enormous personal risk to themselves, faced the most challenging circumstances with bravery and decency. In 1965, Jan and Antonina Zabinski...
Format: moving image
Publisher / Publication Date: 2022
Copies Available at Woodmere
1 available in Documentary DVDs, Call number: DVD DOC OFSummary: Dame Maggie Smith, Dame Judi Dench, Dame Eileen Atkins, and Dame Joan Plowright are among the most celebrated actresses of the time, with scores of iconic performances, decades of wisdom, and innumerable awards between them. They are also longtime friends who invite viewers to join them for a weekend in the country as they catch up with one another, reminisce, and share their candid,...
Format: moving image
Publisher / Publication Date: IFC Films 2019
Copies Available at Peninsula
1 available in Documentary DVDs, Call number: DVD TEACopies Available at Woodmere
6 available in Documentary DVDs, Call number: DVD DOC TEACopies Available at Kingsley
1 available in Digital Video Disc, Call number: DVD TeSummary: Tells the life and love story of Argentina's most famous tango dancers Maria Nieves Rego and Juan Carlos Copes, who met as teenagers and danced together for nearly fifty years until a painful separation tore them apart. Relaying their story to a group of young tango dancers and choreographers from Buenos Aires, their story of love, hatred and passion is transformed into unforgettable...
Format: moving image
Publisher / Publication Date: 2016
Copies Available at Woodmere
1 available in Documentary DVDs, Call number: DVD DOC OURSummary: It's true, Joan Jett became mega-famous from the number-one hit "I Love Rock n Roll," but that's only part of the story. This documentary gives a wild ride as Jett and her close friends tell you how it really was in the burgeoning's 70s punk scene and the rocky road to rock stardom decades on. Their interviews are laced with amazing archival footage.
Format: moving image
Publisher / Publication Date: 2018
Copies Available at Woodmere
1 available in Documentary DVDs, Call number: DVD DOC BADSummary: Sex, drugs, rock 'n' roll, Iranian style! A personal journey through the history of Iranian popular cinema before the revolution and the world of "filmfarsi", a term referring to the rowdy and melodramatic genre films made from the early 1950s to 1979. This documentary uncovers a cinema of titillation, action and big emotions, which presented a troubling mirror for the country, as Iran...
Format: moving image
Publisher / Publication Date: 2021
Copies Available at Woodmere
1 available in Documentary DVDs, Call number: DVD DOC FILSummary: Wise, brilliant, and funny, Fran Lebowitz hit the New York literary scene in the early '70s when Andy Warhol hired the unknown scribe to write a column for Interview magazine. Today, she's an acclaimed author with legions of fans who adore her acerbic wit. Public speaking captures the author in conversation at New York's Waverly Inn, in an onstage discussion with longtime friend and celebrated...
Format: moving image
Publisher / Publication Date: Distributed by Warner Home Video 2011
Copies Available at Woodmere
1 available in Documentary DVDs, Call number: DVD DOC PUBSummary: The Grande Chartreuse, considered one of the world's most ascetic monasteries is based in the French Alps. In 1984, German filmmaker Philip Gröning wrote to the Carthusian order for permission to make a documentary about them. They said they would get back with him. Sixteen years later, they were ready. Gröning, sans crew or artificial lighting, lived in the monks' quarters for six months -...
Format: moving image
Publisher / Publication Date: Zeitgeist Films 2007
Copies Available at Woodmere
1 available in TC Film Fest DVDs, Call number: DVD TCFF INTSummary: Aryana Farshad's quest in her native Iran to explore the religious rituals and traditions that have fascinated the Western world for centuries. Includes rare glimpses of the women's chamber at the Great Mosque, the fire rituals in Zarathustra, and the dance of the Dervishes in Kurdistan.
Format: moving image
Publisher / Publication Date: Questar, Inc. 2008
Copies Available at Woodmere
1 available in Adult Non-fiction, Call number: 200 MYS1 available in Documentary DVDs, Call number: DVD DOC MYS
Summary: Documentary about the role of gang members in silencing any political resistance during Jean-Bertrand Aristide's final days of power in Haiti.
Format: moving image
Publisher / Publication Date: ThinkFilm 2007
Copies Available at Woodmere
1 available in Documentary DVDs, Call number: DVD DOC GHOSummary: Ten years after the passing of his wife and creative partner, Jeanne-Claude, Christo sets out to realize 'The Floating Piers,' a project they conceived together many years before.
Format: moving image
Publisher / Publication Date: 2019
Copies Available at Woodmere
1 available in Documentary DVDs, Call number: DVD DOC WALSummary: "One of the preeminent figures of Iranian cinema, Mohsen Makhmalbaf has written and directed an impressive array of acclaimed films, winning accolades at international film festivals and admiration of world cinema audiences. This collection presents three of his most lyrical works which the director has termed his Poetic Trilogy. Gabbeh tells of an elderly couple who stop by a stream to wash...
Format: moving image
Publisher / Publication Date: 2018
Copies Available at Woodmere
1 available in Foreign DVDs, Call number: BLU-RAY FOREIGN MOHSummary: In his short career, Jean-Michel Basquiat was a phenomenon. He became notorious for his graffiti art under the moniker Samo in the late 1970s on the Lower East Side scene, sold his first painting to Deborah Harry for $200, and became best friends with Andy Warhol. Appreciated by both the art cognoscenti and the public, Basquiat was launched into international stardom.
Format: moving image
Publisher / Publication Date: Distributed by New Video 2010
Copies Available at Woodmere
1 available in Documentary DVDs, Call number: DVD DOC JEASummary: Writer and director Faraut revisits the rich bounty of footage of the left-handed tennis star John McEnroe as he competes in the French Open at Paris's Roland Garros Stadium in 1984. Far from a traditional documentary, Faraut probes the archival film to unpack both McEnroe's attention to the sport and the footage itself, creating a lively and immersive look at a driven athlete, a study on the...
Format: moving image
Publisher / Publication Date: 2018
Copies Available at Woodmere
1 available in Documentary DVDs, Call number: DVD DOC JOHSummary: Celebrate 50 years of female excellence in sports through the eyes of athletes who changed the system. Hosted by tennis legend and activist Billie Jean King, the film weaves together stories of eight icons to discuss how their own struggles and achievements shaped women's sports.
Format: moving image
Publisher / Publication Date: 2023