Accordions Rising

The untold tragedy and scandal of what happened to a vibrant community of immigrants from the Cape Verde Islands in the Fox Point section of Providence, Rhode Island who were forcibly displaced by urban renewal to make way for fancy coffee shops, antique stores and elegantly restored houses. Poignant, heartfelt and warm, in a timeless snapshot SKFPR captures the essence, spirit and heart of a community whose history was erased before it was written.

In this film, Sara Gómez documents the everyday life of the Isla de Pinos, the discussions about the problems of construction, the school and the leisure activities of the youth in 1968 and contextualizes these images with Frantz Fanon's thoughts about the construction of a nation through decolonization.

The December 1, 1977, game between the Minnesota North Stars and Boston Bruins started out as just another typical NHL game in the ’70s — no helmets and lots of brawls. One showdown that never actually happened turned this game into one of hockey legend. Shortly after Boston’s John Wensink and Minnesota’s Alex Pirus got untangled from their fight, Wensink famously skated over to the North Stars bench and motioned for the whole team to take him on. They didn’t. Through Wensink’s own words and anecdotes from die-hard fans, family, and fellow NHL players, this film takes us into the mind-set of the Bruins’ most legendary enforcer — and the journey one takes when that life is left behind.

The story of Christian Gerhartsreiter, an habitual conman, Rockefeller impostor, and convicted murderer. After four decades, America's most notorious con man has been caught - unravelling a shocking and extraordinary story of multiple identities and deception that stretches from a Bavarian village to California, where, in January 2012, he was charged with murder. With exclusive access to many people that knew him at every step of his journey True Stories paints a portrait of the man who started life as Christian Gerhartsreiter, a poor country boy from a tiny mountain village in Upper Bavaria and who pursued the American dream for years in order to reach the upper echelons of society, ending up as Clark Rockefeller - banker, socialite and member of one of America's richest families, married to a successful business woman and living in a $2 million townhouse with a country estate in the grandest part of New Hampshire.

The world of women's sports was kicked upside down on July 10, 1999. Before a sold-out crowd of more than 90,000 at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif., and an estimated 40 million Americans watching on television, the U.S. women's soccer team reached a cultural and athletic pinnacle with its penalty-kick shootout victory against China to win the Women's World Cup.

IN MY FATHER'S HOUSE explores identity and legacy in the African-American family, as Grammy award-winning rapper Che 'Rhymefest' Smith and his long-lost father reconnect and try to build a new future in Chicago's turbulent South Side. Himself a child of a broken home, Che hasn't seen his father, Brian, in over 20 years, and presumes him dead. But after buying his father's childhood home, Che sets out to find him, and learns that his is now a homeless alcoholic living only several blocks away/ The film offers a probing take on memory and identity in a family two generations removed from slavery as it tracks Che and Brian's shared journey to create a new legacy for themselves, their community and the next generation of family.

We know about the swing. We know about the swagger. But what most Americans don't know about Venus Williams is how she changed the course of her sport. In a stunning case that captured the European public beginning in 2005, Williams challenged the long-held practice of paying women tennis players less than their male counterparts at Wimbledon. With a deep sense of obligation to the legacy of Billie Jean King, Williams lobbied British Parliament, UNESCO and Fleet Street for financial parity. And it was her poignant op-ed piece in The London Times that convinced many people that the Wimbledon tournament organizers were "on the wrong side of history." Roland Garros and Wimbledon finally relented in 2007. That year at Wimbledon, Venus became the first women's champion to earn as much as the men's singles winner (Roger Federer). VENUS VS. chronicles Williams' fight for pay equality.

In conversation, in her Paris apartment, Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette, mime, dancer, novelist, wonders whether she should give the green light to a proposed film about the houses in which she lived. “I’m no longer photogenic,” she insists; nearly 80, marriages, affair with a stepson and intermittent lesbianism behind her, refusing now even to mention the arthritis that confines and assaults her, Colette is vivacious. Yannick Bellon’s captivating postmodernist film, as much a study of evanescence as any poem by Dickinson, segues into the film that Colette, a few years before her end, has just said she doesn’t want to do. Giving voice(over) to her own commentary, she goes back, first, to the home in Saint-Sauveur-en-Puisaye, Yonne, where she was born.

An effervescent facilitator and mother figure, Multicultural Liaison Officer Rosemary is undoubtedly a force of nature. Isolation in Auburn’s migrant community is a huge obstacle, and cultural norms mean that women are often tied to the house or a limited locale. Rosemary, with her larger-than-life spirit and generosity, works tirelessly to draw the women out of their homes and into society. She hosts a lively African Women’s Dinner Dance and takes them on a trip to the Blue Mountains and the NSW South Coast – introducing them to an Australia they’ve never seen before.

Water – a living substance, the most common and least understood. It defies the basic laws of physics, yet holds the keys to life. Known to ancients as a transmitter to and from the higher realms, water retains memory and conveys information to DNA. However, water can die if treated poorly. Influences such as sound, thoughts, intention, as well as toxins such as chlorine, structure water’s molecular arrangement– affecting all it comes in contact with. Prominent scientists help reveal the secret of water, allowing us to use this amazing element to heal ourselves and our planet. The movie features Nassim Haramein, Patrick Flanagan, Dr. Masaru Emoto, Konstantin Korotkov, Lynne McTaggart, and Larry Dossey.

Chai Jing's documentary about the massive smog problem in China. Chai Jing started making the documentary when her as yet unborn daughter developed a tumour in the womb, which had to be removed very soon after her birth. Chai blames air pollution for the tumour. The film, which combines footage of a lecture with interviews and factory visits, has been compared with Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth in both its style and likely impact. The film openly criticises state-owned energy companies, steel producers and coal factories, as well as showing the inability of the Ministry of Environmental Protection to act against the big polluters.

Money talks. Teens in Los Angeles discuss money: getting it, spending it, and learning to live without it.

Through experimentation, direct observational filmmaking, and performative play, filmmaker Amy Reid rides and films with women truckers who have fled domestic violence, the stigmas of being formerly incarcerated, and mental health issues. The three subjects -- Sandi, Lori, and Tracy -- each share how they started trucking and what keeps them trucking.

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Why is healthcare so expensive? A hapless patient journeys through the of labyrinth of United States healthcare and is left with a headache and sticker-shock. The twenty-first film in the WE THE ECONOMY series.

Suffering from scoliosis as a teenager, Audrey Mestre found freedom in the ocean. Years later, she discovered another reason to love the water: the elusive, often raucous free diver Pipin Ferreras. As Mestre follows Ferreras's almost spiritual quest to push his limits underwater, she moves from supporter to ardent free diver to world-class competitor. Then a challenge from a rival pushes the couple to the brink of what is possible, both above and below the surface.

Sheryl Swoopes famously has been labeled as the female Michael Jordan, but that's only part of the story. On the court, she was nearly as dominant as Jordan, winning a national championship with Texas Tech, three Olympic gold medals, three MVP awards and four consecutive championships with the Houston Comets of the WNBA, the league she helped start. She even had a Nike shoe named after her, the Air Swoopes. Off the court, she has had a life full of transitions. She gave birth to her son, Jordan, during the inaugural season of the WNBA. Later, she divorced her high school sweetheart and became the highest-profile athlete in her sport to acknowledge she was gay. She has struggled with love, money and personal identity, but has never lost her spirit. In this portrait, you will meet someone who is not your everyday superstar, but a woman who has defied a multitude of labels.

Sports is supposed to be the ultimate level playing field, but in the media and on Madison Avenue, sometimes looks matter more than accomplishments. This film explores the double standard placed on female athletes to be the best players on the field and the sexiest off of it. Through stories of the women who have faced and tackled this question including Mary Lou Retton, Chris Evert, Lolo Jones, and Gabby Reece, "Branded" explores the question: can women's sports ever gain an equal footing with their male counterparts or will sex appeal always override achievement?

The Mayan Calendar is ending on December 21st 2012. What will happen to us between now and then? Are there other prophecies that also predict the closing of this world age and the start of a new beginning? Join author Sharron Rose on an adventure into the future. In this exciting and thought provoking feature documentary she travels across the entire United States speaking to the many experts on this fast approaching prophecy. They help her to reveal the secrets that will unfold before our eyes and will shape our future.

Impersonal and beautiful images of Akerman's life in New York are combined with letters from her loving but manipulative mother, read by Akerman herself.