First Run Features

This essential new documentary pays tribute to the legacy of the late, legendary casting director Marion Dougherty and shines a light on one of the most overlooked and least understood crafts in filmmaking.

Ranjeet Thadani is a bored and arrogant music producer who along with his friends hosts a party every Friday where they invite an 'idiot' to ridicule them and have fun at their expense. One day, he invites Bharat Bhushan, a kind hearted yet annoying Income Tax inspector, who ends up messing things for people when he tries to help them who makes Ranjeet regret inviting him.

When Nicole, a young copy-shop employee, is hired to translate an ancient Chinese manuscript, she soon finds that the document has strange powers that little by little begin to exert an eerie influence over her life.

Brothers Joel, Dennis and Sonny work together as dancers at a low-rent gay bar in downtown Manila, in the Philippines. Despite his mother's pleas, Sonny decides to quit college to work full-time at the bar, while Dennis has moved beyond dancing into prostitution at the urging of the manipulative club manager. Joel, the eldest, tries to balance his secret gay life with his socially respectable role as a husband and father.

Peppino is an aging taxidermist constantly ridiculed for being short and somewhat creepy. He meets Valerio, a handsome young man fascinated by Peppino's work. Peppino, in turn, becomes entranced by Valerio and offers him a large salary to come work as his assistant. But when Valerio meets Deborah, their fledgling romance is threatened by an insanely jealous third wheel.

Once upon a time in the village of Kromer lived two beautiful young wolves. Cocksure Gabriel takes newcomer Seth under his paw and helps reconcile him to the vilification associated with being a wolf. They fall head-over-heels in puppy love, playing together around picturesque waterfalls, secluded woodlands, and moonlit lakes. One day a wicked old crone and her goofy sidekick kill their mistress, frame the wolves, and incite a torch-bearing mob of religious zealots to seek vengeance on the hapless pair. But who will live happily ever after?

A busload of women become stranded in an isolated part of the Canadian countryside. As they await rescue, they reflect on their lives through a mostly ad-libbed script.

In a triumphant career that lasted forty years Erroll Garner pushed the playability of the piano to its limits, developed an international reputation, and made an indelible mark on the jazz world. And yet, his story has never been told. Until now. The film explores Erroll's childhood in Pittsburgh; his meteoric rise in popularity while playing on 52nd street, New York's famed jazz epicenter; the origins of his most famous album (Concert By The Sea) and his most famous composition (Misty); his singular, virtuosic piano style; and his dynamic personality, both on and off the stage.

This sequel to "Before Stonewall" documents the history of gay and lesbian life from the riots at Stonewall in 1969 to the present. Narrated by Melissa Etheridge, the film explains the work, struggles, victories, and defeats the gay community has weathered to become a vibrant and integral part of North American society.

These sexy and surreal shorts from innovative gay filmmakers feature party-loving plastic dolls, domineering moms, mad scientists, stuttering sidekicks and adorable break-dancing foreign exchange students! "Jeffrey's Hollywood Screen Trick," "Shame No More," "Pyongyang Robogirl, Soda Pop," "The Trey Billings Show" and the bonus film "Dirty Baby Does Fire Island" are among the funny, provocative, award-winning films in this collection.

Ross McElwee sets out to make a documentary about the lingering effects of General Sherman's march of destruction through the South during the Civil War, but is continually sidetracked by women who come and go in his life, his recurring dreams of nuclear holocaust, and Burt Reynolds.

A film about modern Japanese architecture, its roots in the Japanese tradition and its impact on the Nordic building-tradition. Winding its way through visions of the future, traditions, nature, concrete, gardens and high-tech, KOCHUU tells us how contemporary Japanese architects strive to unite the ways of modern man with the old philosophies in astounding constructions. Interviews with, and works by, Japanese architects Tadad Ando, Kisho Kurokawa, Toyo Ito and Kazuo Shinohara and Scandinavian architects Sverre Fehn, Kristian Gullichsen and Juhani Pallasmaa.

Since its inception, performance art provided a forum for those artists whose work challenges the dominant aesthetic and cultural status quo. In "Sphinxes Without Secrets", performers, curators and critics unravel the mysteries of performance art and ponder the world women confront today.

In 1986, Ross McElwee (Sherman's March) and Marilyn Levine were making a film about the 25th anniversary of the Berlin Wall, when the imposing structure was still very much intact as the world’s most visible symbol of hardline Communism and Cold War lore. They thought they were making a documentary on the community of tourists, soldiers, and West Berliners who lived in the seemingly eternal presence of the graffiti emblazoned eyesore. But in 1989, as the original film neared completion, the Wall came down, and McElwee and Levine returned to Berlin, this time to capture the radically different atmosphere of the reunified city.

Tens of thousands of dogs are transported every year from areas with high euthanasia rates to parts of the country with fewer unwanted dogs and a surplus of adopters. Knowing the happy ending for these lucky dogs is only the beginning of the story, FREE PUPPIES. takes a closer look at where they come from. By following dog rescuers throughout rural counties in the Georgia-Alabama-Tennessee tristate area, we see the challenges that lead to dog overpopulation in the first place and the work being done in these communities to overcome them.

For 40 years, the community-organizing group ACORN advocated for America’s poorest communities, while its detractors accused it of promoting the worst of liberal policies. Riding high on the momentum of Barack Obama’s presidential victory in 2008, ACORN was at its political zenith when a hidden-camera video sparked a national scandal and brought it crashing down. The story involves voter fraud, a fake prostitute, and the rise of Breitbart.com.

Colleagues and relatives reflect on the dynamic life of Irish writer Brendan Behan, beginning with his adolescent years as an activist and his affiliation with the IRA youth group, Fianna Éireann. Behan rises to fame as a poet and playwright and achieves international success in the wake of his successful autobiography, "Borstal Boy." But in his later years, Behan's prominence wanes as alcoholism, egotistical tendencies and a growing obsession with celebrity begin to overtake him.

Following Germany's transformation as a society from the Holocaust to becoming the moral leader of Europe as the country embraces hundreds of thousands of refugees.

Twenty years after a beloved local fisherman, Richie Madeiras, goes missing off the shores of Martha's Vineyard, a distant cousin locates Richie's kind, indelible spirit in the stories of family, friends, and the sweeping sea which has defined their lives. A stirring, lyrical journey beneath the brusque, reticent surface of a New England fishing community.

Daredevil mountain climbers on their attempt to break yet another speed climbing record.