By: Brian Sebastian and Monteque Pope-Le Beau The documentary “Carl Leammle” is an extraordinary study of a man who was the original father of independent film, the creator of the star system and who would go on to lay the groundwork for Universal Studios. Anything is possible. Carl Leammle Director James L. Friedman’s superb documentary…
By William Engel “The Rebound” takes us through the lives of the Miami Heat Wheels, a wheelchair basketball team on the verge of going to the National Wheelchair Basketball Association (NWBA) National Tournament. The film delves into the genesis of the league, the personal lives of several of the teammates, and what they have to…
By William Engel “Letter from Masanjia” tells the story of Sun Yi, a Chinese man who spent years detained in a prison camp for taking part in Falun Gong, a spiritual practice outlawed by the Chinese government. In the camp, he and the other detainees were forced to make cheap products to export to the…
By William Engel “Surviving Home” takes us through the lives of four different veterans, each of whom fought in a different war – Richard Green, a World War II veteran, Claude Thomas, a Vietnam war veteran, Robert “Bobby” Henline, a Gulf War veteran, and Tracey Cooper Harris, an Iraq War veteran. The film alternates between…
By William Engel The year 2009 saw the release of “The Cove”, a harrowing documentary about the Japanese village of Taiji and their barbaric practice of ritualistic whaling. Nearly ten years later, “A Whale of a Tale” strives to set the record straight. “A Whale of a Tale” documents the journey of Jay Alabaster, an…
By William Engel “3 Years in Pakistan: The Erik Audé Story” documents the story of a Hollywood stuntman who got roped into a drug smuggling operation in Pakistan, leading to him being placed on death row for a crime he wasn’t responsible for. We’re taken though his desperate struggle to survive and prove his…
By William Engel “Virgin Blacktop: A New York Skate Odyssey” is a documentary chronicling the genesis, peak and dissolution of The Wizards, a team of nine New York teenagers united by their passion for skateboarding. The film is comprised of footage, news articles and stories spanning more than thirty years, compiled by Charlie Samuels,…
By William Engel “Transformer” is a documentary following the life of Janae Kroczaleski (née Matt), a world champion weightlifter and bodybuilder who came out as a trans woman in 2015. The film chronicles her life leading up to that point, and her trials and tribulations as a person in the process of transitioning, caught between…
By William Engel “To a More Perfect Union: U.S. v. Windsor” is an hour-long documentary telling the life story of Edith Windsor, the plaintiff in the Supreme Court case that ruled the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) unconstitutional, allowing same-sex unions to receive the same protections as heterosexual unions under federal law. The film…
By William Engel Told with great simplicity and power, “Bridget and Iain” is a heart wrenching story of a mother and son who have a wedge driven between them by the latter’s drug addiction. The film begins with the mother, Bridget, visiting her son, Iain, in rehab. The two of them have a tense conversation…
