Directors: Richard Berge, Nicole Newnman, and Bonni Cohen
Run Time: 116 min.
"On the surface, this dense, dynamic documentary, based on the book by Lynn H. Nicholas, takes on the high drama and difficult moral quandaries of Adolf Hitler's campaign to plunder the great artworks of Europe and the Allied effort to preserve and return them in the heat of World War II. But the story of Nazi Germany's industrialized pillage goes much deeper and the filmmakers expose a chilling facet of Hitler's final solution: the attempt to systematically eradicate Jewish and Slavic culture from top to bottom, as if to sweep away all vestiges of the races Hitler deemed inferior."
—Sean Axmaker, Seattle Post Intellgencer
Call Number: K3791 .R37 2007
Director: Nancy Kelly
Run Time: 74 min.
"The film, in entertaining, brisk fashion, takes us through decades of patchwork agreements that made (and still makes) the San Francisco Bay Area the environmental envy of the world: a teeming urban area that co-exists with its magnificent scenery. . . . With the help of engaging interviews, excellent graphic maps and Lou Weinert's cinematography - his Bay Area landscape shots are beautiful - filmmakers Nancy Kelly and Kenji Yamamoto are able to translate what was essentially an incremental bureaucratic fight into cinematic terms."
—David Lewis, San Francisco Chronicle
Director: Mary McDonagh Murphy
Run Time: 82 min.
"It gives the fascinating history of how the book came to be, which
involved Truman Capote, a perceptive editor and an act of generosity
that helped give Ms. Lee, the novel’s author, the time she needed to
write. The reclusive Ms. Lee is conjured through old film clips,
published interviews and reminiscences of friends and relatives. . . .
The film’s best moments come from other authors—Wally Lamb and Allan Gurganus are particularly eloquent—who read
passages from the novel and talk about the book’s impact on them and
their writing."
—Neil Genzlinger
Director: Fredrik Gertten
Run Time: 88 min.
"Anyone not rebuffed by the Vegas-revue title should find 'Big Boys Gone Bananas!'
a provocative look at what can happen when corporate power takes aim at
independent film. Documenting the vigorous strategies employed by the
Dole Food Company to block the release of his 2009 film 'Bananas!'
— about a lawsuit brought by Nicaraguan workers who suspected the
company’s use of dangerous pesticides — the Swedish filmmaker Fredrik
Gertten gains traction by taking the high road. More fist pump for freedom of speech than anticorporate tirade, 'Big
Boys' follows the rocky fortunes of the original film, from Dole’s
initial cease-and-desist letter to the 2010 victory of Mr. Gertten’s countersuit."
—Jeannette Catsoulis, New York Times
Director: Vanessa Roth
Run Time: 80 min.
"What makes the film more than just a cheerleading countermove is
the towering amount of research it contains: historical data tracing the
profession from being the domain of men to largely that of women, and
the cynical economic ploy behind the shift; terrifying figures on the
rates of those fleeing the profession as well as the looming crisis of a
mass retirement of elderly teachers; the sobering numbers of teachers
living at the poverty level and/or holding down a second job. Putting a
human face on the data are teachers of all races and backgrounds who
gave Roth complete access to both their professional and personal lives,
showing how the two are so deeply intertwined."
—Ernest Hardy, The Village Voice
