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What is art and how does it relate to society? Is its value determined by its popularity or originality? Is the goal profit or expressing one’s personal vision? These are some of the questions raised as we follow fiercely independent New York artist Robert Cenedella in his artistic journey through decades of struggling for creative expression. A student, protégé and friend of German artist George Grosz, Cenedella is now passing on the legacy of Grosz’s approach to art, in the very same room where Grosz taught. In portraying Cenedella’s determination to buck the system of what’s popular while critiquing that popularity in his attempt to turn the art world upside down, ART BASTARD is a funny, touching, and insightful look inside the maverick mind of a true original.

There was a time, as recently as the 1980s, when storefronts, murals, banners, barn signs, billboards and even street signs were all hand-lettered with brush and paint. Today, the proliferation of computer-designed, die-cut vinyl lettering and inkjet printers has ushered a creeping sameness into our landscape. Fortunately, there is a growing trend to seek out traditional sign painters and a renaissance in the trade. SIGN PAINTERS is a history of the craft and features the stories of more than two dozen sign painters working in cities throughout the United States.

One of the most frightening of American urban myths is the legend of The Mothman, a red-eyed creature seen by some as a harbinger of doom in 1960s rural West Virginia, where sightings of the winged demonic beast were first documented near an old munitions dump known by locals as TNT. Many believe the Mothman to be a 1960’s phenomenon, an omen only appearing before tragedy, and disappearing after a flap of sightings and the subsequent Silver Bridge collapse in 1967. But what if there’s more? What if the origins of this omen trace back much further and go much deeper than anyone realized? And what if…the sightings never ended?

As the unabashed cradle of Hollywood superficiality and smoggy urban sprawl, Los Angeles has long been condemned as a cultural wasteland. In the richly penetrating documentary odyssey City of Gold, Pulitzer Prize-winning food critic Jonathan Gold shows us another Los Angeles, where ethnic cooking is a kaleidoscopic portal to the mysteries of an unwieldy city and the soul of America.

Orhan Pamuk – Turkey’s Nobel laureate for Literature – opens a museum in Istanbul. A museum that’s a fiction: its objects trace a tale of doomed love in 70’s Istanbul. The film takes a tour of the objects as the starting point for a trip through images, landscapes and the chemistry of the city. A film about Istanbul, love, memory and loss.

What is money? What are debts? What are the consequences of both? And how can images be found for them? In Oeconomia, Carmen Losmann undertakes a journey in the strategic heartlands of neoliberal policy.

Six young black men from Akron, Ohio, enter college, determined to redefine society’s images and low expectations. Despite their confidence, the stark reality of being away from home brings a series of crises. Well trained in critical and metaphorical thinking, and unusually articulate about their inner lives, each of the protagonists guides us to his core. Since sixth grade, they have been part of an innovative mentoring program called ‘Alchemy, Inc.’ that uses mythological stories, drumming and writing. In the twice-yearly reunion workshops everyone speaks of his trials and his triumphs with authenticity, intelligence, honesty and heart. In turns quiet, thoughtful and exuberant, the six protagonists grow before our eyes, whether navigating racial provocations, or seeking support with new friends, estranged fathers and wise grandmothers.

The Man Who Saved the World is feature documentary film about Stanislav Petrov, a former lieutenant colonel of the Soviet Air Defence Forces.

After Dontre Hamilton, a black, unarmed man diagnosed with schizophrenia, was shot 14 times and killed by police in Milwaukee, his family embarks on a quest for answers, justice and reform as the investigation unfolds.

The story of the Black Panthers is often told in a scatter of repackaged parts, often depicting tragic, mythic accounts of violence and criminal activity. Master documentarian Stanley Nelson goes straight to the source, weaving a treasure of rare archival footage with the voices of the people who were there: police, FBI informants, journalists, white supporters and detractors, and Black Panthers who remained loyal to the party and those who left it. An essential history, The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution, is a vibrant, human, living and breathing chronicle of this pivotal movement that birthed a new revolutionary culture in America.