First Run Features

This essential new documentary pays tribute to the legacy of the late, legendary casting director Marion Dougherty and shines a light on one of the most overlooked and least understood crafts in filmmaking.

This sequel to "Before Stonewall" documents the history of gay and lesbian life from the riots at Stonewall in 1969 to the present. Narrated by Melissa Etheridge, the film explains the work, struggles, victories, and defeats the gay community has weathered to become a vibrant and integral part of North American society.

When Nicole, a young copy-shop employee, is hired to translate an ancient Chinese manuscript, she soon finds that the document has strange powers that little by little begin to exert an eerie influence over her life.

Once upon a time in the village of Kromer lived two beautiful young wolves. Cocksure Gabriel takes newcomer Seth under his paw and helps reconcile him to the vilification associated with being a wolf. They fall head-over-heels in puppy love, playing together around picturesque waterfalls, secluded woodlands, and moonlit lakes. One day a wicked old crone and her goofy sidekick kill their mistress, frame the wolves, and incite a torch-bearing mob of religious zealots to seek vengeance on the hapless pair. But who will live happily ever after?

Brothers Joel, Dennis and Sonny work together as dancers at a low-rent gay bar in downtown Manila, in the Philippines. Despite his mother's pleas, Sonny decides to quit college to work full-time at the bar, while Dennis has moved beyond dancing into prostitution at the urging of the manipulative club manager. Joel, the eldest, tries to balance his secret gay life with his socially respectable role as a husband and father.

For 40 years, the community-organizing group ACORN advocated for America’s poorest communities, while its detractors accused it of promoting the worst of liberal policies. Riding high on the momentum of Barack Obama’s presidential victory in 2008, ACORN was at its political zenith when a hidden-camera video sparked a national scandal and brought it crashing down. The story involves voter fraud, a fake prostitute, and the rise of Breitbart.com.

A late-night cable access show goes to hell!

In a triumphant career that lasted forty years Erroll Garner pushed the playability of the piano to its limits, developed an international reputation, and made an indelible mark on the jazz world. And yet, his story has never been told. Until now. The film explores Erroll's childhood in Pittsburgh; his meteoric rise in popularity while playing on 52nd street, New York's famed jazz epicenter; the origins of his most famous album (Concert By The Sea) and his most famous composition (Misty); his singular, virtuosic piano style; and his dynamic personality, both on and off the stage.

Since its inception, performance art provided a forum for those artists whose work challenges the dominant aesthetic and cultural status quo. In "Sphinxes Without Secrets", performers, curators and critics unravel the mysteries of performance art and ponder the world women confront today.

The true story of a young teenage girl whose mother is incarcerated for murder. Living in a Catholic Children's home run by an order of nuns, she provides poignant commentary about her mother, her own situation and her outlook for the future.

Twenty years after a beloved local fisherman, Richie Madeiras, goes missing off the shores of Martha's Vineyard, a distant cousin locates Richie's kind, indelible spirit in the stories of family, friends, and the sweeping sea which has defined their lives. A stirring, lyrical journey beneath the brusque, reticent surface of a New England fishing community.

One of Mark Rappaport's later narratives (which won the Gold Hugo for Best First Feature at the Chicago International Film Festival in 1979), Impostors is an off-kilter comedy/mystery focused on two magicians trying to find Egyptian jewels, their promiscuous assistant, and a man who loves the assistant.

In January 1961, a new generation in the guise of John F. Kennedy moved into the White House. All of a sudden politics were youthful, dynamic and sexy. During the brief period in which he was in office, the first pop star of politics accompanied America through the darkest days of the Cold War. At the same time, his signal to embark in new directions was eagerly welcomed by younger generations all around the world. Later on, Jackie Kennedy was to compare his presidency with Camelot - the legendary court of King Arthur. Yet, there were also dark sides to this popular president's life.

A film about modern Japanese architecture, its roots in the Japanese tradition and its impact on the Nordic building-tradition. Winding its way through visions of the future, traditions, nature, concrete, gardens and high-tech, KOCHUU tells us how contemporary Japanese architects strive to unite the ways of modern man with the old philosophies in astounding constructions. Interviews with, and works by, Japanese architects Tadad Ando, Kisho Kurokawa, Toyo Ito and Kazuo Shinohara and Scandinavian architects Sverre Fehn, Kristian Gullichsen and Juhani Pallasmaa.

Ranjeet Thadani is a bored and arrogant music producer who along with his friends hosts a party every Friday where they invite an 'idiot' to ridicule them and have fun at their expense. One day, he invites Bharat Bhushan, a kind hearted yet annoying Income Tax inspector, who ends up messing things for people when he tries to help them who makes Ranjeet regret inviting him.

Ross McElwee sets out to make a documentary about the lingering effects of General Sherman's march of destruction through the South during the Civil War, but is continually sidetracked by women who come and go in his life, his recurring dreams of nuclear holocaust, and Burt Reynolds.

Documentary about the influence that master cello player Paul Katz has on four gifted cello players over the space of several years. It explores how music can influence and enhance the lives of both the teacher and his students.

A biographical portrait of Daniel Patrick Moynihan, twentieth century colossus: public intellectual, policy specialist, ambassador, and NY senator.

In a rapidly changing America where mass inequality and dwindling opportunity have devastated the black working class, three Detroit men must fight to build something lasting for themselves and future generations.

New York in the Fifties is the story of a unique time and place, when New York was the hotbed of new artistic expressions, free love, drinking, hot jazz, and radical politics. The film combines stunning archival footage of New York with interviews and footage of icons of the day-Kerouac, Ginsberg, Baldwin, Mailer, Basie, etc. Offering modern day perspective and reminiscences are writers, actors, and artists such as Joan Didion, Robert Redford, Nat Hentoff, Gay and Nan Talese, John Gregory Dunne, William F. Buckley, and Calvin Trillin-all part of the rich cultural and artistic scene of the time. Based on the best-selling book by Dan Wakefield, the film also traces Wakefield's restless rebellion in conformist Indianapolis, and his escape to New York with dreams of writin ga novel, falling in love, meeting like-minded souls and questioning the meaning of life.