America ReFramed

Building Babel follows a year in the life of Sharif El-Gamal, the developer of Park51, the so-called "Ground Zero Mosque," a Muslim-led community center two blocks from the World Trade Center. With unlimited access to his life at home and in the office, the film paints a portrait of a Muslim-American businessman up against impossible odds.

Legendary radio personality Bob Fass revolutionized late night FM radio by serving as a cultural hub for music, politics and audience participation for nearly 50 years. Long before today's innovations in social media, Fass utilized the airwaves for mobilization encouraging luminaries and ordinary listeners to talk openly and take the program in surprising directions. Fass and his committed group of friends, peers and listeners proved time and time again through massive, planned meetups and other similar events that radio was not a solitary experience but rather a platform to unite communities of like-minded, or even just open-minded, individuals without the dependence on large-scale corporate backing.

The Medicine Game shares the remarkable journey of two brothers from the Onondaga Nation driven by a single goal; to beat the odds and play lacrosse for national powerhouse Syracuse University. The obstacles in their way are both frequent and daunting. In their darkest hour, and with their dreams crumbling around them, the boys must look to their family and to their Native teachings for guidance and stability. It is their search for identity that transitions The Medicine Game from a playful coming of age story, into an important study of modern Native American life. The film follows their story over the next six years as they struggle to rebuild their friendship, rescue a fading childhood dream, and gain a more resolute understanding of their identity and culture, both as athletes and the next generation of the Onondaga people.

The New Public follows the lives of the ambitious educators and lively students of Bed Stuy’s new Brooklyn Community Arts and Media High School (BCAM) over the course of the founding year, with the filmmakers returning three years later to again document the senior year of that first graduating class. Beginning in August 2006, just days before BCAM will open its doors for the first time, Dr. James O’Brien, former D.J. and point guard turned first-time principal, and his faculty of eight, take to the streets in Bed Stuy, Brooklyn to recruit students. Their enthusiasm is infectious and enticing: strong support for the individual student, a rigorous academic curriculum and unconventional arts electives taught by local artists. While at first running smoothly, as months go by, conflicts arise, and by the end of freshman year, the school’s idealistic vision is addressing some issues, but aggravating others.

At a time when the world is rethinking its drug policies large and small, one state rises to the forefront. Once a pioneer in legalizing medical marijuana, the state of Montana may now become the first to repeal its medical marijuana law.

Once known as the "California Riviera," the Salton Sea is now called one of America's worst ecological disasters: a fetid, stagnant, salty lake, that coughs up dead fish and birds by the thousands in frequent die-offs that occur. However, amongst the ruins of this man-made mistake, a few remaining eccentrics (a roadside nudist, a religious folk artist, a Hungarian revolutionary, and real estate speculators) struggle to keep a remodeled version of the original Salton Sea dream alive.

On call 24 hours a day for the past five years, a group of senior citizens has made history by greeting nearly 800,000 American troops at a tiny airport in Bangor, Maine. A deeply moving film about life and how to live it, The Way We Get By offers an intimate look at three of these greeters as they confront the universal losses that come with aging and rediscover their reason for living.

My Brooklyn: As a Brooklyn gentrifier, My Brooklyn director Kelly Anderson journeys to understand the forces reshaping her neighborhood. A bustling African-American and Caribbean commercial district, The Fulton Mall, is the third most profitable shopping area in New York City yet it is maligned for its inability to appeal to the affluent residents who have come to live around it. Fate of a Salesman In its 60th year of business, Men’s Fashion Center in Washington, D.C. is at the brink of closure, up against a difficult economy and rapidly gentrifying neighborhood. Salesman Willie Carswell, a Vietnam veteran and recovering alcoholic, is confronted with the fight of his life as he, owner Jerry and his fellow salesmen attempt to keep the doors of the store open.

In the small lobster village of Prospect Harbor, Maine, the closing of the last remaining Sardine Cannery in the United States was in April 2010. A few months later, Boston-based entrepreneur Antonio Bussone purchased the plant in hopes of re-building a lobster processing facility. He also planned on rehiring the laid-off sardine workers, most of whom are women over 65 years old.

It began as a housing marvel. Two decades later, it ended in rubble. But what happened to those caught in between? The Pruitt-Igoe Myth tells the story of the transformation of the American city in the decades after World War II, through the lens of the infamous Pruitt-Igoe housing development and the St. Louis residents who called it home.

Growing up in the ghettos of Philadelphia, filmmaker André Robert Lee's mother struggled to support him and his sister by putting strings in the waistbands of track pants and swimsuits in a local factory. When André turned 14 years old, he received what his family believed to be the golden ticket, a full scholarship to attend one of the most prestigious prep schools in the country. Elite education was André's way up and out, but at what price? The tuition was covered but this new world cost him and his family much more than anyone could have anticipated.

Taking the viewer into the taxi seat to experience accidents, blizzards, and the late night streets of New York City, Drivers Wanted reveals the impossibly eclectic community inhabiting a taxi garage in Queens, New York. Each day, a million New Yorkers depend on the anonymous faces behind the wheels, the men who tirelessly drive the city that doesn't sleep.

LuLu is unlike anyone you’ve ever met: A hard-living, chain-smoking rebel with a tender heart. A former cheerleader and current poet with a potty mouth. And a world-class cancer researcher and beloved professor. Dr. Louise Nutter, or LuLu, has just discovered a new anti-cancer drug when she finds out that she is dying of breast cancer at the age of 42. Filmed during the final 15 months of her life, The LuLu Sessions is a raw yet humorous story about filmmaker S. Casper Wong showing up for her best friend (and ex-something) while testing the limits of their bond and taking on life’s ultimate adventure.

Eighty percent of women in US prisons today are mothers of school-age children. Many a parent would find it difficult to be away from their child for a day, or even a week. But imagine being separated for ten to twenty years? Filmed over four years at the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility, Jenifer McShane's Mothers of Bedford explores the effects of a long-term prison sentence on the relationship between a mother and child.

Casting an unflinching eye at two Tea Party activists, Town Hall follows Katy and John from the battleground state of Pennsylvania who believe America's salvation lies in a return to true conservative values. The film is more than a political treatise but a tone poem that immerses the viewer in Katy and John’s world, painting a portrait of the fears of those who believe they will be left behind by a nation's transition.

On November 8, 2008 in a Long Island town, Ecuadorian immigrant Marcelo Lucero was fatally stabbed by a group of teenagers cruising the streets “beaner–hopping” (a term used to describe the ritual of attacking Latinos for sport). Jeffery Conroy, a popular high school athlete, is sentenced to 25 years for a hate crime while the others get 5-to-8 years. The local government, press and community agree that the problem is solved and justice has been served. All is well again...or so it seems.

Descendants of emancipated slaves who settled on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, the residents of Turkey Creek have been stewards of the creek's rich wetland habitat for generations. Today, the town is surrounded by an airport, big-box stores, highways and an industrial canal which threatens both the community and its wetlands. When the graves of Derrick Evans's ancestors are bulldozed for the sprawling city of Gulfport, the Boston teacher returns home to stand up to powerful corporate interests and politicians alongside his neighbors over the course of a decade.

Rachel is mysterious, funny, difficult and full of contradictions but she wants what most people her age want -- to move out of her mother's house. This dream of independence seems impossible. Rachel, who is developmentally disabled, can't be left alone and the social services needed for her to live an "adult life" are unavailable.

The story of a year's time at Dignity Harbor; one of three homeless encampments along the Mississippi River in the downtown area of St. Louis, north of the Arch. They must survive living in the cold of the harsh winter, but as temperatures drop and tempers rise, the camp members are challenged with living together. All of this while the city looms over, waiting for a chance to move them out.

In May 2003, Fox Company of Marine Reserve Unit 2/23 returned home from combat on the front line in Iraq. Reserved To Fight follows four Marines of Fox Company through their post-war minefield of social and psychological reintegration into civilian life. The return home and into their communities proves as formidable a battle as the more literal firefights of previous months.

On an early autumn afternoon, gay teen Zack Harrington killed himself with a gunshot to the head in his parent’s ranch in Norman, Oklahoma. One week earlier, Zack allegedly attended a local city council meeting in support of a proposal for LGBTQ History Month. When the floor opened up for public comment, some community members made highly controversial statements equating being gay with the spread of diseases such as HIV and AIDS.