October 7, 2014

STILL DREAMING

WORLD PREMIERE Located just outside of Manhattan, the Lillian Booth Actors Home provides a most resonant setting for the staging of a classic play in which nothing is what it seems. Seeking ways to engage their residents, administrators bring in young professional Broadway directors to shepherd the charismatic retired performers through A Midsummer Night’s Dream. […]

October 7, 2014

THE LAST IMPRESARIO

NYC PREMIERE From Oh! Calcutta! and The Rocky Horror Picture Show to Monty Python and the Holy Grail, producer Michael White has helped bring enduring cultural touchstones to Broadway, London’s West End and the silver screen over the last four decades, but the bon vivant may be the most famous person you’ve never heard of. […]

October 7, 2014

CAPTURING GRACE

NYC PREMIERE Recognizing that music and rhythmic activity can help those suffering from Parkinson’s disease achieve greater control of their mobility, two dancers from New York’s Mark Morris Dance Group lead a workshop teaching dance and movement to a group of Parkinsonians. As the tenacious participants joyously regain a sense of bodily freedom, they rehearse […]

October 7, 2014

WHEN PEOPLE DIE THEY SING SONGS

NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE  Olga Lvoff’s film is a sensitive examination of family, memory and mortality. Under the watchful eyes of her dutiful daughter Sonia, Regina recalls the Yiddish and French songs of her youth through music therapy sessions following a stroke. But the 93-year-old Holocaust survivor is starting to succumb to dementia. Fearful that their […]

October 7, 2014

THE RETURN

How does one claim an identity in a vacuum? Living in Poland, the four young women in Adam Zucker’s engaging film learned of their Jewish roots after growing up Catholic. Defining themselves through their difference, they feel like pioneers in a country that was once the epicenter of the Jewish world. But as life takes […]

October 7, 2014

SEX AND BROADCASTING

WORLD PREMIERE New Jersey’s WFMU has occupied a unique position as an independent, commercial-free, listener-supported radio station since its inception in the late 1950s. At its heart is the dedicated station manager Ken Freedman, committed to an unstructured, free- form broadcasting model which has won WFMU acclaim as the best—and perhaps weirdest— radio station in […]

October 7, 2014

GRAZERS: A COOPERATIVE STORY

WORLD PREMIERE With interest in a farm-to-table food on the rise, a small band of upstate New York farmers sees an opportunity to hold on to their endangered farms by raising and selling grass-fed beef. Forming a cooperative, they soon discover that the marketplace surprisingly can’t support their simple ambitions. Jackson and Teale follow their […]

October 7, 2014

TOUGH LOVE

NYC PREMIERE What makes a good parent? How do you prove you are one, after you’ve been deemed unfit? Having lost custody of their children to Child Protective Services, two parents in New York City and Seattle fight to win back the trust of the courts and reunite their families in Stephanie Wang-Breal’s moving film. […]

October 7, 2014

STOP

WORLD PREMIERE After David Ourlicht was stopped and searched by the NYPD for no discernible reason, he filed a class-action suit against the City of New York, alleging racial profiling in the police department’s stop-and-frisk policy. Following the charismatic young man over three years as he awaits the trial, Spencer Wolff reveals how David has […]

October 7, 2014

SOME KIND OF SPARK

WORLD PREMIERE Illustrating the transformative power not only of music, but of mentorship, Ben Niles’s film is an uplifting look at Juilliard’s Music Advancement Program for inner- city youth. Several diverse and inviting kids are followed for two years as they devote their weekends to developing their musical proficiency, receiving hands-on instruction typically impossible in […]