A Drop in the Bucket (23 min), Sun. Sept 26, Short Program, 1:30, Firehouse Center
Director: Lauren Shaw
http://adropinthebucketfilm.com/
This film is a timely, hopeful and lyrical tale about people reaching across international boundaries to help provide clean water in rural Cambodia. Over the course of two years the filmmaker helped build fifteen wells and her film explores the effects on the community as well as some of the complexities and challenges involved in giving.
Calling My Children (36 min), Sun. Sept 26, Short Program, 1:30, Firehouse Center
Director: David Binder
http://www.callingmychildren.com/
Calling My Children documents the impact of the life and loss of Gail Farrow, a young wife and mother. Gail’s children and husband speak about their lives in the wake of her death, as photographs taken throughout the past 20 years weave through their narrative.
Club Native (78 min), Sat. Sept. 25, 3:45pm, Screening Room
Director: Tracey Deer
http://hotdocsaudience.bside.com/2008/films/clubnative_hotdocs2008
In Kahnawake, hometown of Mohawk director Tracey Deer, there are two unspoken rules: Don’t marry a non-Native, and never, ever have a child with a non-Native. In a community where tribal membership rests on the equivocal measurement of blood quantum (literally the measurement of blood “purity”), following one’s heart requires risking one’s Mohawk status, as well as one’s family and community. With warmth, intelligence and humor, Deer turns her camera on her own family and the lives of four proud Mohawk women deeply impacted by racism and prejudice rooted in Canada’s highly discriminatory 1876 Indian Act, and exacerbated by lingering preconceptions about blood quantum that have left a divisive legacy in her community.
Do It Again, Sat. Night, Sept. 25, 7:30pm, Firehouse Center
Director: Robert Patton-Spruill
Producer: Geoff Edgers
Geoff Edgers is a reporter for the Boston Globe. Facing a mid-life crisis, he decides to embark on a quest to reunite his favorite band, The Kinks. Founded in 1964 by oft-feuding brothers Ray and Dave Davies, the group split in 1996 due to creative tension and poor record sales. Edgers travels around America, interviewing and gaining the support of several personalities, including Sting, Paul Weller, Peter Buck, Zooey Deschanel, Clive Davis, Warren Zanes, and Robyn Hitchcock.
Everyday Sunshine: The Story of Fishbone (103 min), Sunday, Sept. 26,12:15pm, Screening Room
Directors: Chris Metzler and Lev Anderson
http://www.fishbonedocumentary.com/trailer.html
From the shifting faultlines of Hollywood fantasies and the economic and racial tensions of Reagan’s America, Fishbone rose to become one of the most original bands of the last 25 years. With a blistering combination of punk and funk they demolished the walls of genre and challenged the racial stereotypes and political order of the music industry and the nation. Telling it like it is, the iconic Laurence Fishburne narrates Everyday Sunshine, a story about music, history, fear, courage and funking on the one.
Family Affair (80 min), Sun. Sept. 26, 5:00pm, Firehouse Center
Director: Chico Colvard
http://silverdocs.bside.com/2010/films/familyaffair_silverdocs2010
At 10 years old, filmmaker Chico Colvard accidentally shot his sister in the leg. This random act detonated a chain reaction that exposed unspeakable realities that shattered his family. Thirty years later, Colvard ruptures veils of secrecy and silence again. As he bravely visits his relatives, what unfolds is a personal film that’s as uncompromising, raw, and cathartic as any in the history of the medium. A story that yields piercing insights about the legacy of abuse and attempts to understand one’s capacity to accommodate a parent’s past crimes in order to satisfy an eternal longing for family.
Hyman Bloom: The Beauty of all Things (57 min), Sun. Sept. 26, 11:45am, Firehouse Center
Director: Angelica Brisk
http://www.youtube.com/v/AJZ9NtMFaLs?fs=1&hl=en_US
Painter Hyman Bloom is one of the forefathers of abstract art in America, but he’s been forgotten. In the 1940s and 50s, his career flourished with high praise from both art and popular press. But his decision to continue exploring figurative work when the art world was celebrating total abstraction and his disdain for the public eye brought him from being one of the infamous Bad Boys from Boston to a man little known in the mainstream. Perhaps his day has come again.
It’s More Expensive To Do Nothing (55 min), Sun. Sept. 26, 2:00pm, Screening Room
Director: Alan Swyer
http://www.its-more-expensive.com
The film brings together a compelling range of voices—including experts in the field of criminology, treatment providers, and ex-offenders who’ve turned their lives around—to take a penetrating look at America’s struggling justice system.
Lessons from the Night (9 min), Sun. Sept. 26, Shorts Program, 1:30pm, Firehouse Center
Director: Adrian Francis
http://www.featherfilms.com.au/lessons-from-the-nig
In Lessons From The Night we spend a night with Maia, who reflects on life, work and toilet bowls as we follow her nightly cleaning round through silent empty spaces. As she works, she reveals some of the secrets of the city – the traces of human presence that we leave behind each day – and of her former life in Bulgaria. Lessons From The Night is both a homage to the menial worker and an existential film about cleaning.
Loving Lampposts (83 min), Sat. Sept. 25, 3:00pm, Firehouse Center
Director: Todd Drezner
http://www.lovinglamppostsmovie.com/#press
What would you call a four year old who caresses all the lampposts in the park? Quirky? Unusual? Or sick? Such labels are at the center of the debate about autism. Is it a disease or a different way of being – or both? After his son’s diagnosis, filmmaker Todd Drezner visits the front lines of the autism wars.
Mother of Normandy: The Story of Simone Renaud (68 min)
Director: Doug Stebleton
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGiEomBHKGc
The story of one remarkable woman, whose devotion to a generation of heroes transcended all boundaries. Madame Simone Renaud witnessed the liberation of France on June 6, 1944 from a very unique point- the small town of St Mere Eglise—the first town liberated in the D Day invasion. It was here that so many American soldiers, who gave their lives to protect freedom and democracy, found their final resting place. Madame Renaud spent a lifetime tending to the graves of those American soldiers and corresponding with their loved ones back home.
My Kidnapper (83 min)
Director: Mark Henderson
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSlV-Ex7N7s
In 2003 Mark Henderson was one of eight backpackers taken hostage while trekking in the Columbian jungle. What had started as an innocent tourist adventure, ended up as 101 terrifying days of captivity and uncertainty about his future. Eleven months after his release Mark received an email from Antonio, one of his kidnappers. What followed was a five year correspondence and the start of a complicated relationship that eventually drew Mark back to the one part of the world he thought he’d never see again.
Orgasm Inc
Director: Liz Canner
http://orgasminc.org/about-film-credits.php
In the shocking and hilarious documentary., filmmaker Liz Canner takes a job editing erotic videos for a drug trial for a pharmaceutical company. Her employer is developing what they hope will be the first Viagra drug for women that wins FDA approval to treat a new disease: Female Sexual Dysfunction (FSD). Liz gains permission to film the company for her own documentary. Initially, she plans to create a movie about science and pleasure but she soon begins to suspect that her employer, along with a cadre of other medical companies, might be trying to take advantage of women (and potentially endanger their health) in pursuit of billion dollar profits.
Streetball
Director: Demetrius Wren
http://www.streetballfilm.com/
In Cape Town, there are two realities. Sixteen years after the end of apartheid, South Africa prepares to host the FIFA World Cup and the country is ripe with celebration. However, there remains a generation that lives in extreme poverty. Streetball is a fast-paced documentary that tells the stories of South Africa’s 2008 Homeless World Cup team. The Homeless World Cup is an annual soccer tournament that draws teams from over 56 countries—comprised entirely of street people. It is the story of hope and of the resilience that dwells within the human spirit.
The Topp Twins: Untouchable Girls (84 min)
Director: Leanne Pooley
http://topptwins.com/tv-and-film/untouchable-girls
“The Topp Twins: Untouchable Girls” is the first time that the irrepressible Kiwi entertainment double act, Jools and Lynda Topp’s extraordinary personal story has been told. The film offers a revealing look into the lives of the World’s only comedic, country singing, dancing, and yodeling lesbian twin sisters.
Toyland (68 min)
Director: Ken Sons
Toyland takes you inside the high stakes world of the 2.2 billion dollar toy industry, where fun and fortune awaits those who know how to get inside the mind of a child. Meet the people behind the biggest playthings in history as we follow the ups and downs of a game designer.
