HN206 - Creating Documentary - Onuora: Examples

Chronicles the story of the Joffrey Ballet, from its founding in 1956 to the present. The film describes how the company repeatedly resurrected itself after devastating financial and artistic setbacks and how the company introduced cutting-edge choreographers such as Twyla Tharp, Laura Dean, and Margo Sappington to a larger audience. Featuring excerpts from Joffrey's seminal works Astarte, Trinity and Billboards and their breakthrough collaborations. (DVD)

An eccentric French shopkeeper turned documentary maker attempted to locate and befriend Banksy, only to have the artist turn the camera back on its owner with spectacular results. Banksy is a graffiti artist with a global reputation whose work can be seen on walls from post-hurricane New Orleans to the Palestinian segregation wall in the West Bank. (DVD)

Teri Horton, a 73-year-old former truck driver with an 8th grade education, buys a painting in a thrift shop for five dollars, but unbeknownst to her, the artist is Jackson Pollock. This adventure documents a 15-year war with the art world's inner circle, lifts the veil on how art is bought and sold in America and introduces audiences to the funny, profane and utterly unforgettable Teri Horton. (DVD)

Enter the world of Ohad Naharin and the Batsheva Dance Company. A man with an extraordinary vision, Naharin is regarded as one of the most important choreographers in the world today. He is known for developing "Gaga"--a movement language that resists labels, highlights somatic experience, emphasizes improvisation, and pushes dancers to use their body in ways that are ignored or overlooked by other dance techniques. ... Mr. Gaga explores how Naharin's movement has not only shaped contemporary Israeli dance, but has redefined the modern dance world at large ... viewers meet Naharin at a critical turning point in his personal life; filmed over eight years, it mixes intimate rehearsal footage with previously unseen archive ... dance sequences

Director Eric Steel and his crew spent an entire year looking very carefully at the Golden Gate Bridge. Running cameras for almost every daylight minute, he documented nearly two dozen fatal moments as well as others where suicide was avoided. (DVD)

Looks at the progress of an international group of scientists who are looking for clues to the baffling disorder by examining the amazingly diverse and powerful microbial ecosystem that's an essential part of the human gastrointestinal tract, and the extraordinary efforts of parents who have been relentlessly pushing science forward in hopes of finding answers for their children's condition. (DVD)

In the United States, more than 2.5 million people lost their jobs last year. Along with losing their livelihood, they lost their health insurance. As the economy continues to spiral downward, the new administration promises to deliver comprehensive health care reform. Investigates the failures and future of the private insurance industry, examining the best and worst of U.S. healthcare by telling the gripping and sometimes tragic stories of ordinary Americans. (DVD)

This explores the extraordinary story of what happens when a freedom-loving nation outlaws the sale of intoxicating liquor, and the disastrous unintended consequences that follow. (DVD)

Imagine the world without our masterpieces. Interviews with eyewitnesses and historians and newsreel footage show how during World War II the Nazis systematically took or destroyed the art of Europe. It follows the heroic Europeans who first hid, and then set out to find and return what had been taken, with the help of the Allied forces "Monuments Men." (DVD)

From the bombing of Axis Europe to the assaults on Japanese strongholds, women worked around-the-clock six days a week, creating ballistics tables that proved crucial to Allied success. Rosie made the weapons, but the female computers made them accurate. (DVD)

In an immersive 360-degree narrative, Burns and Novick tell the epic story of the Vietnam War as it has never before been told on film. The Vietnam War features testimony from nearly 80 witnesses, including many Americans who fought in the war and others who opposed it, as well as Vietnamese combatants and civilians from both the winning and losing sides. Six years in the making, the series brings the war and the chaotic epoch it encompassed viscerally to life.

The United States is obsessed with virginity from the media to schools to government agencies. The Purity Myth is an important and timely critique of about why this is so, and why it's problematic for girls and women. Analyzing cultural stereotypes and media messages, Jessica Valenti reveals the overt and hidden ways our society links a woman's worth to her sexuality rather than to values like honesty, kindness, and altruism. With intelligence and wit, this film exposes the legal and social punishments that women who dare to have sex endure, while presenting a powerful argument that evaluating girls and women on their sexuality needs to stop.

Filmmaker Thomas Keith takes aim at the forces in male culture that condition boys and men to dehumanize and disrespect women. Keith breaks down a range of contemporary media forms, zeroing in on movies and music videos that glamorize womanizing, pornography that trades in the brutalization of women, comedians who make fun of sexual assault, and a groundswell of men's magazines and cable TV shows that revel in old-school myths of American manhood. Even as epidemic levels of men's violence against women persist in the real world, the message Keith uncovers in virtually every corner of our entertainment culture is clear: It's not only normal -- but cool -- for boys and men to control and humiliate women.

A history of the anti-lynching protest song made famous by Billie Holiday. Includes footage of Billie Holiday performing the song. (DVD)

They are the voices behind the greatest rock, pop and R&B hits of all time, but no one knows their names. Now, in this award-winning documentary, director Morgan Neville shines the spotlight on the untold stories of such legendary background (backup) singers as Darlene Love, Merry Clayton, Lisa Fischer, Judith Hill, and more. Includes behind-the-scenes footage, vintage live performances, and interviews with Bruce Springsteen, Sting, Mick Jagger, Stevie Wonder, and Bette Midler.

The story of the American civil rights movement through its music, the freedom songs protesters sang on picket lines, in mass meetings, and more, as they fought for justice and equality. Includes new performances of the freedom songs by top artists, archival footage, and interviews with civil rights foot soldiers and leaders. Freedom songs evolved from slave chants, from the labor movement, and even from the black church.

The incredible story of six-time Grammy winner Amy Winehouse - in her own words. Featuring extensive unseen archival footage and previously unheard tracks, this strikingly modern, moving, and vital film shines a light on our culture and the world we live in today.

For three years, director Kyzza Terrazas followed over thirty men and women from all over Mexico to explore the underground hip-hop movement that was growing across Latin America. Using rhythm and creative language, rappers such as Serko Fu, Rabia Rivera, Menuda Coincidencia, C-Kan, Ximbo, Tino El Pingu·ino, Aczino and Mike Diþaz have been finding ways to express themselves with transformative words that help them survive in a country with so little opportunity.

Provided is an analysis of the global financial crisis of 2008, which at a cost over $20 trillion, caused millions of people to lose their jobs and homes in the worst recession since the Great Depression, and nearly resulted in a global financial collapse. Through exhaustive research, and extensive interviews with key financial insiders, politicians, journalists, and academics, traces the rise of a rogue industry which has corrupted politics, regulation, and academia. (DVD)

Documentary about a group of brave and visionary women who demanded peace for Liberia, a nation torn to shreds by a bloody civil war, violent warlords and a corrupt Charles Taylor regime. (DVD)

Provides an engaging and inspiring look at public education in the United States. [This documentary] has helped launch a movement to achieve a real and lasting change through the compelling stories of five unforgettable students such as Emily, a Silicon Valley eighth-grader who is afraid of being labeled as unfit for college, and Francisco, a Bronx first-grader whose mom will do anything to give him a shot at a better life. (DVD)

Corporate giants, private investors, and corrupt governments vie for control of our dwindling fresh water supply, prompting protests, lawsuits, and revolutions from citizens fighting for the right to survive. Past civilizations have collapsed from poor water management. Will ours too? (DVD)

Follows Tim DeChristopher, the University of Utah student who foiled President Bush's 2008 fraudulent oil and gas auction, bidding $1,800,000 to save 22,000 pristine acres surrounding Utah's National Parks with intention to pay or drill. (DVD)

This documentary series explores the history of science and how we found our place in the cosmos.

In the early twentieth century, the average American medicine cabinet was a would-be poisoner's treasure chest. There was radioactive radium in health tonics, thallium in depilatory creams, and morphine in teething medicine and potassium cyanide in cleaning supplies. While the tools of the murderer's trade multiplied as the pace of industrial innovation increased, the scientific knowledge (and the political will) to detect and prevent the crimes lagged behind.

Presents the story of the eugenics movement in the U.S., tracing its evolution from a force for human progress through the study of genetics to an anti-humanistic campaign for state-sponsored sterilization and the closing of the country's borders to peoples believed by some to be genetically inferior.

It is an epic overflowing with heroes and hopefuls, scoundrels and screwballs. It is a saga spanning the quest for racial justice, the clash of labor and management, the transformation of popular culture, and the unfolding of the national pastime. Here is the story of a nation at work and play. Experience it in ten thrilling "innings" from master storyteller and award-winning filmmaker Ken Burns.

Presents information about the history of Chief Illiniwek, sports team mascot at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, including photographs and performance film clips of all 34 Chief Illiniwek portrayers, and interviews with 15 former Chief Illiniwek portrayers and with university alumni and staff. (DVD)

A multibillion-dollar commercial juggernaut presides over America's indisputable national pastime. But the NFL is under assault as thousands of former players claim the league has covered up football's connection to long-term brain injuries. In a special two-hour investigation, Frontline and prize-winning journalists Steve Fainaru and Mark Fainaru-Wada of ESPN reveal the hidden story of the NFL and brain injuries.