Director: Nicholas Mross
Run Time: 96 min.
Call Number: HG1710 .R566 2015
“'The Rise and Rise of Bitcoin' explains what bitcoins are in plain English. It begins with Daniel Mross, a programmer in Pittsburgh who builds computers to 'mine' bitcoins, the virtual currency that was introduced in 2009 and, in theory, provides an alternative to the banking system. . . .[An] entertaining portrait of the unshakable optimism that governs what’s been called a financial Wild West."
—Ben Kenigsberg, New York Times (Full review here)
Director: Guillaume Suon
Run Time: 66 min.
Call Number: HQ281 .S76 2015
"Featuring brutally candid testimony, The Storm Makers is a chilling exposé of Cambodia’s
human trafficking underworld and an eye-opening look at the complex cycle of poverty,
despair and greed that fuels this brutal modern slave trade. More than half a million
Cambodians work abroad and a staggering number of these have been sold as slaves. Most
are young women, held prisoner and forced to work in horrific conditions, sometimes as
prostitutes, in Malaysia, Thailand and Taiwan."
—Publisher’s
description (more here)
Director: Steven Oritt
Run Time: 78 min.
Call Number: E184.R3 A4 2015
"Thirty miles from New York City, tucked away in the Ramapo Mountains of New Jersey, lives a group of indigenous people shrouded in mystery and discrimination, fighting for acceptance as Native Americans…The Ramapough Lenape Indians. American Native exposes this group’s fight for respect as Native Americans, examining their efforts to gain recognition from the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the private interests that may have colluded behind the scenes to prevent them from doing so. Through expert interviews and unbridled access to the community, the film provides an in-depth look at the group’s complex past, volatile present and endangered future."
—Publisher's description
Run Time: 103 min.
Director: Joshua Oppenheimer
Call Number: HV6322.3.I5 .L66 2014
"The film . . . is the companion to 2012’s Oscar-nominated The Act of Killing, which offered a harrowing look at the aging perpetrators of the U.S.-backed genocide in Indonesia. Today, many of those men are still in power. Celebrated as national heroes, they brag openly about the mass murders they committed, reenacting for Oppenheimer in detail how they strangled, tortured, and beheaded people . . . The Look of Silence is an inherently political film, but not one that ends with a lengthy text crawl imploring the audience to do their part and change the world. Like its predecessor, it’s a devastatingly beautiful film about the power of cinema, and its ability to testify to some aspect of human nature with a veracity and elegance that escapes other mediums. Every scene weighs on the audience."
—Lenika Cruz, The Atlantic (Link to Full Review)
Director: Lacey Schwartz
Running Time: 65 min.
"Ms. Schwartz was an only child who grew up in the mostly white town of Woodstock, N.Y. Her parents, Peggy and Robert Schwartz, told her that she favored her father’s swarthy Sicilian grandfather. It was not until she went off to college that she learned the truth. . . . Before starting college, 'I was already questioning my whiteness because of what other people said and because I was aware that I looked different from my family,' she said in a recent interview. Then, based on the photograph accompanying her application, Georgetown University passed her name along to the black student association, which contacted her. . . . The university 'gave me permission' to explore a black identity, Ms. Schwartz said."
—Felicia R. Lee, New York Times (full review here)
Director: Nicholas Mross
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