America

Minnesota's Iron Range built America from sea to shining sea. Steel buildings to enriched bread. Co-produced with the Minnesota Humanities Center.

The history of tap is an ever-evolving panorama of inclusion, adversity, and reinvention. This in-depth documentary is an absorbing narrative about a quintessentially American dance form—from its origins, to the historic and cultural events that shaped it, to its present day rebirth as a vibrant art form.

Biography - Howard Robard Hughes, Jr. did more than dream. Yet behind the glamour, fame and fabulous wealth, there lurked a darker side: a sick, isolated and deeply unhappy man who hid behind his image and ended up a prisoner of his own insanity. This is his story. - Howard Hughes

A kaleidoscopic musical road trip down a million mile highway of poetry, philosophy and life featuring Nashville hit songwriter, Danny Darst.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. comes to life in MARTIN'S BIG WORDS, a biography about beliefs and dreams and following ones heart. A reflective poetic tribute, ELLINGTON WAS NOT A STREET, the author remembers great figures in history that visited her home.

A series of sketches interrogating my transition: the ways I have found peace in my body, gender, and sexuality alongside the uphill battle of self-destruction and reconstruction.

Commencing in 1920 with Charles Sheeler and Paul Strand's creative collaboration on Manhatta, successive generations of experimental filmmakers and artists have worked in collaboration or alone to create a cinema capable of expressing dynamic unspoken concepts in totally abstract visual terms. Flicker Alley and the Blackhawk Films® Collection in cooperation with Filmmakers Showcase are proud to present this premiere collection of 37 films created by some of the most acclaimed names of American Avant-garde experimental filmmaking.

Edited by Sue Wrbican, interviews by Julie Martin

Throughout world history, great civilizations have survived and extended their rule through dependence on great infrastructures. Rome had its roads and aqueducts. The Mayans had their pyramids and palaces. But what happens when society neglects its infrastructure? Right now, the U.S. infrastructure is collapsing and it impacts every single person in this country. In the first half of the 20th century, our bridges, highways, tunnels, dams, levees, ports, water and gas pipelines were built during the greatest age of construction the world had ever seen. But now these steel and concrete achievements are deteriorating. More than 70,000 of our nation's bridges are rated structurally deficient. Massive grid failures have left millions in the dark. 25,000 miles of commercial navigable waterways and locks have exceeded their 50-year design life. Everything from dilapidated levees to pipelines to railroads is past their expiration date.

THE AMERICAN NURSE is a heart-warming film that explores some of the biggest issues facing America - aging, war, poverty, prisons - through the work and lives of nurses. It is an examination of real people that will change how we think about nurses and how we wrestle with the challenges of healing America. THE AMERICAN NURSE is an important contribution to America's ongoing conversation about what it means to care. The film follows the paths of five nurses in various practice specialties including Jason Short as he drives up a rugged creek to reach a home-bound cancer patient in Appalachia. Tonia Faust, who runs a prison hospice program where inmates serving life sentences care for their fellow inmates as they're dying. Naomi Cross, as she coaches an ovarian cancer survivor through the Caesarean delivery of her son. Sister Stephen, a nun who runs a nursing home filled with goats, sheep, llamas and chickens, where the entire nursing staff comes together to sing for a dying resident.

Country lawyer Abel Manning is very passionate about his political party. Through the force of his oratory, he helps elect James Kitwell to the U.S. Senate. Kitwell has promised to reward Manning an important post. No job is forthcoming until a scheme is offered to the unscrupulous Kitwell by Pedro Gonzales. Gonzales plans a revolution in Mexico and needs a corruptible American consul.

After her father dies, Nora is caught up in a world of prostitution and robbery. Who will help her escape the criminal underworld?

Against the background of the escalation of the war in Vietnam, AMERICA documents the development of the anti-war movement on the home front. Conversations with Vietnam veterans, young teenagers, and African American militants contextualizes footage that graphically depicts the heightened incidents of mass protest and police repression.

Produced by Leonard M. Henny in cooperation with the Black Panther Party and American Documentary Films. Camera by Steven Lighthill and Leonard Henny. Editing by Kees Hin. Speech by Stokely Carmichael. Dancing by Uzozi Aroho Dancers and Company, Birth of Soul Dancers. Portrait of the struggle for black liberation, the African heritage of American blacks, the need to form a Black United Front in order to survive the threats of white racism in America and in the world today. The speech by Stokely Carmichael was given at the occasion of the merger between the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the Black Panther Party in Oakland, California, February 1968. The merger took place on the birthday of Huey P. Newton, Minister of Defense of the Black Panther Party, who was jailed for allegedly having killed a policeman. The speech ends with the famous: "Huey Newton will be set free, or else ...."

A documentary film by Peter I. Chang which traces the life of the Japanese musician Hisao Shinagawa through his early years as a folk singer in Tokyo to his current occupation as a street performer in Los Angeles.

White Powder, Black Power is the story of how the illegal drug economy was the first truly significant capital building tool for African Americans.

Documentary - A filmmaker follows the campaign of Daniel Byington, a libertarian going up against Democratic Party House Leader Dick Gephardt in the 2002 Congressional elections. The film explores the question of the value of a two-party system.

The history behind America's most popular foods.

3 Minutes in America is an experimental narrative criss-crossing the continental US. The film presents a romance unfolding amid an array of contemporary phenomena including vaccine production, basketball games, a fracking well explosion and illicit communications on a government server.