DOC WATCHERS PRESENTS: Boy Scouts 100th Anniversary
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The Boy Scouts of Rahway
Dir. Tom Mason, 2009, 10 min.
The Boy Scouts of Rahwa takes a tongue-in-cheek look at a Boy Scouts competition in New Jersey, the Klondike Derby.

759: Boy Scouts of Harlem
Dir. Jake Boritt & Justin Szlasa, 2009, 72 min.
Scout Troop 759 heads from the streets of Harlem to the woods of Camp Keowa. Eleven year old new scout Keith Dozier spends his first week at camp facing the challenges of the woods - the dock test in the deep dark lake, creepy creatures of the night, the daunting climbing tower, the raucous dining hall and the seductive Siberian sirens of the kitchen. With help from his fellow Scouts KC, Devon and Manny and wise Scoutmaster Sowah, young Keith faces the challenges and earns his place as a Scout. 759: Boy Scouts of Harlem is a warm, tender, and funny family documentary about Scouting in an unexpected place.

Followed by a reception.

STRAIGHT OUTTA MEXICO
Curated by Santiago Esteinou

Intimidades de Shakespeare y Victor Hugo (Shakespeare and Victor Hugo’s Intimacies)
Dir. Yulene Olaizola, 2009, 83 min.
The lodging house at the intersection of Shakespeare and Victor Hugo streets in Mexico City has been a shelter for all sorts of magnificent and singular individuals, under the management of its owner, my grandmother Rosa. When I was ten years old I met one of its guests. He used to sing for me and paint my portraits; his name was Jorge Riosse, a charming schizophrenic and virtuous individual who became my grandmother’s close friend. One night in 1993, his room set on fire and Jorge died. My grandmother started to investigate this fatal accident and she soon discovered different clues that connected it with a serial killer who had strangled at least 13 women in different hotels in the popular La Merced district. However, in spite of her doubts and suspicion, my grandmother still remembers Jorge as the talented young man who shared his art, his music and above all, his affection.

Spanish with English subtitles

STRAIGHT OUTTA MEXICO
Curated by Santiago Esteinou

Los Ladrones Viejos: Las Leyendas del Artegio (The Old Thieves)
Dir. Everardo González, 2007, 97 min.
Ladrones Viejos is the story of a generation of thieves who achieved their greatest victories in the sixties; their distinctive code of ethics, the various categories of delinquents inhabiting the city’s streets, their alliances with high ranking police officials that allowed them to operate, the betrayals that followed, and the price they ended up paying.

Spanish with English subtitles

STRAIGHT OUTTA MEXICO
Curated by Santiago Esteinou

DeNADIE (NoONE)
Dir. Tin Dirdamal, 2005, 82 min.
Interviewed in Mexico, immigrants from various Central American countries talk about their reasons for leaving home to undertake the dangerous trip to the United States. These men and women of various ages have chosen to travel through Mexico by train, thus avoiding paying fees to coyotes. In doing so, they face numerous dangers, including encounters with gangs known as maras—organized groups of teenagers and young men who assault, rob, rape, and often kill their victims—and the abuses of Mexican police officers and railroad company employees, who often steal from the stowaways. This well-done documentary offers their testimonies and captures the intensity of their stories. One outstanding sad story is that of Maria, a Honduran mother of four who was forced to go north because of the delicate economy that followed Hurricane Mitch. In a dramatic scene, the film crew visits Maria’s family in Honduras, where the children are still crying because their mother is absent.

Spanish with English subtitles

JOCK DOCS at 255
@ 255 Custom Lab, 255 Elizabeth between Houston and Prince St
Brought to you by 255 Custom Lab and The Maysles Institute

The Real: Rucker Park Legends (NoONE)
Dir. Bob McCullough Jr., 2006, 76 min.
More than five decades ago, a New York City Parks employee named Holcombe Rucker encouraged Harlem kids to stay in school with a basketball tournament and league that would develop into an international phenomenon. Upon his death, two of his pupils continued his work by drawing from the league's Pro Division to start the famous "Each One Teach One" program, pairing up basketball's greats with disadvantaged youth. The innovative idea attracted such legends as Julius "Dr. J" Erving and streetball heroes such as Earl "The Goat" Manigault and Joe "The Destroyer" Hammond. Rucker Park's reputation quickly grew, becoming a virtual training ground for the NBA, influencing the playing style of the game and transforming Hip-Hop culture. Told by the legends themselves, this is The Real: the incredible true story behind Rucker Park from its unpolished beginnings through its heyday in the '60s and '70s to its more commercial present-day. But most of all, it's an amazing tale of how one man's dream and his pupils' gratitude explosively transformed an ordinary neighborhood basketball court into the world's most famous streetball arena.

Sugar Pathways
Dir. Johanna Bermudez-Ruiz, 2009
Sugar Pathways tells the riveting story of the unwilling migration by Puerto Rican families from the small Caribbean island of Vieques to the U.S. Virgin Islands. This powerful and vibrant film recounts their will to survive, integrate and contribute to the culture, economy and politics of the Islands through personal interviews, new and archival footage and historic documentation. Sugar Pathways is narrated by actress Lauren Vélez of the Emmy Award-winning Showtime series Dexter.

Curated by Dr. Steeve Coupeau

STRAIGHT OUTTA MEXICO
Curated by Santiago Esteinou

Al Otro Lado (To The Other Side)
Dir. Natalia Almada, 2005, 70 min.
An aspiring corrido composer from the drug capital of Mexico faces two choices to better his life: to traffic drugs or to cross the border illegally into the United States. From Sinaloa, Mexico to the streets of South Central and East L.A., Al Otro Lado explores the world of drug smuggling, illegal immigration and the corrido music that chronicles it all.

Spanish with English subtitles

STRAIGHT OUTTA MEXICO
Curated by Santiago Esteinou

En El Hoyo (In the Pit)
Dir. Juan Carlos Rulfo, 2006, 84 min.
A Mexican legend recounted that for every bridge built the devil would ask for one soul, so that the bridge never falls. This film tells the story of the workers who are participating in the construction of a second deck to Mexico’s City inner Periférico freeway. This second deck is about to transform the city, its landscape and the lives of its inhabitants. It is the story of those whose hands and sweat go into the making of this mammoth work of concrete, steel and asphalt. The workers’ daily lives, their hopes, their emotions and small moments that will culminate in the loss of a soul taken by the devil, a soul that will remain as a memory of the workers who build the second deck.

Spanish with English subtitles

FAUX REAL
Truth Telling in Narrative Film

Nueba Yol
Angel Muniz, 1995, 120 min.
This tragic-comic chronicle of an immigrant's struggle to make a new life in New York City has been considered a cult classic since it first came out. Amiable, big-hearted Balbuena, grieving over the recent demise of his much loved wife, decides he needs a change and so listens to the exciting pie-in-the-sky talk of his buddy Fellito who suggest that Balbuena leave the Dominican Republic and move to Nueba Yol (the Big Apple). The widower goes up and stays with his cousin's family. Instead of finding a better life there he finds himself surrounded by grayness, uncaring bustle and society's grime. The prospect of easy money Fellito raved about is non existent for an illegal alien such as himself. Instead he finds only the most menial, lowest paying jobs available to him. Balbuena finally meets a nice woman, but ironically, she is planning to return to the Dominican Republic.

MASTERCLASS: William Miles
Wednesday, February 17th - Sunday, February 21st

In celebration of Black History Month, a retrospective of the great documentarian William Miles, chronicler of previously untold stories of the African-American experience.

MASTERCLASS: William Miles

Men of Bronze
Dir. William Miles, 1995, 60 min.
Men of Bronze is the definitive story of black American soldiers of the 369th U.S. combat regiment, the 15th Infantry from New York, know as the "Harlem Hellfighters," who served with the French army in World War I. The film uses photographs, interviews with veterans, and film from the French and American national Archives to recount the saga of the "Harlem Hellfighters," offering an inspiring tribute to these unsung heroes and an unforgettable look at World War I.
Film trailer>

Discussion with filmmaker William Miles to follow screening.

MASTERCLASS: William Miles

Liberators
Dir. William Miles, 1992, 90 min.
The unknown story of African-American battalions, focusing on the heroic actions of the 761st, which spearheaded General Patton's third Army and helped liberate concentration camps in the second World War. This powerful film vividly records the experiences of the soldiers, who were utterly unprepared for the atrocities they witnessed, as well as the astonishment of the camp inmates - some of whom had never seen a black person before. Liberators bears witness to the courage of Holocaust survivors and the heroism of men who were forced to fight on two fronts - battling racism at home as they fought for their country overseas.

Discussion with filmmaker William Miles to follow screening.

MASTERCLASS: William Miles

I Remember Harlem
Dir. William Miles, 1980, 60 min.
[Full four-hour version to screen Sunday, Feb. 21]
A 60 minute, condensed version of this seminal four-hour series tracing Harlem's 350-year history, evoking one of America's most vibrant and volatile communities. As a visual counterpart to the oral histories in the film, Miles unearthed old photographs and motion picture films and newsreel footage, much of it rare and never before seen on television. In early 1982, one year after it was broadcast, I Remember Harlem won an Alfred I. Dupont-Columbia University Citation and an American Film Festival Award.

Discussion with filmmaker William Miles to follow screenings.

Sponsored by Sugar Hill Beer

MASTERCLASS: William Miles

Black Stars in Orbit
Dir. William Miles, 1990, 90 min.
This film takes a look at Black astronauts and black Americans' contributions to America's space program. Includes personal interviews with archival footage, family photographs, and news headlines to profile such individuals as Edward Dwight, Jr., Guion Bluford, Jr., Ronald McNair, Frederick Gregory, Patricia Cowings-Johnson and Robert Shurney.

The Black West
Dir. William Miles, 1993, 90 min..
The Black West, narrated by Danny Glover presents the story of African Americans in the U.S. west in the late nineteenth century.

Discussion with filmmaker William Miles to follow screenings.

MASTERCLASS: William Miles

I Remember Harlem
Dir. William Miles, 1980, 240 min.
This seminal four-hour series traces Harlem's 350-year history, evoking one of America's most vibrant and volatile communities. As a visual counterpart to the oral histories in the film, Miles unearthed old photographs and motion picture films and newsreel footage, much of it rare and never before seen on television. In early 1982, one year after it was broadcast, I Remember Harlem won an Alfred I. Dupont-Columbia University Citation and an American Film Festival Award.

Screening Includes:
Part 1: The Early Years (1658-1930)
Part 2: The Depression Years
Part 3: Toward Freedom
Part 4: Toward a New Day

Discussion with filmmaker William Miles to follow screenings.

KEELING'S CARIBBEAN SHOWCASE
Curated by Keeling Beckford of Keeling's Reggae Music and Videos>

Heartland Reggae: Bob Marley Peace Concert
1981, 60 min.
In Jamaica, 1978, Bob Marley organized a concert in the midst of intense political violence, of which he himself was victim. Following performances including Jacob Miller Dennis Brown, Bob Marley takes the stage and makes history by bringing political foes Norman Manley and Edward Seaga together on the stage. With exclusive interviews.

Plus at 8pm:
Babylon
Dir. Franco Rosso, 1980, 91 min.
"Criminally Underrated!"
Babylon is set in South London at the start of the ’80s, a time when reggae music was at its peak, along with a distinctively British brand of xenophobia and racism that saw American boxer Marvin Hagler pelted with bottles at Wembley after beating Alan ‘I’ll never lose to a black man’ Minter. The plot concerns Blue, lead chanter for Ital Lion Sound (played by Aswad singer and former Double Decker Brinsley Forde), in the run-up to a competition with a rival crew led by Jah Shaka (who appears as himself). Over the course of the film Blue socialises with his friends and clashes with his family, employer, and a local clan of racists, before going on a spiritual and physical journey through small hours London where he encounters a series of trials and temptations that set up the film’s violent climax.

Keeping the Peace
Dir. JJ Garvine and Tai Parquet, 2009, 90 min.
Keeping the Peace follows the journey of Michael Berg who was thrust into the media spotlight in May 2004, when his son, Nick, was abducted and beheaded by terrorists in Iraq, reportedly in retaliation for the torture of Iraqis in the Abu Ghraib prison. The video of Nick's murder was released on the internet and broadcast all over the cable news networks. As a life-long peace activist, Michael publicly blamed "the sins of George W Bush and Donald Rumsfeld" for his son's death. Saddened by the war and disgusted with the actions of the government, Michael decided to run for congress in 2006 to end the war in Iraq. With very limited funds to run a successful campaign against his more organized and wealthier opponents, Berg's grassroots campaign was in for an uphill battle.
Film trailer>

Q&A with directors JJ Garvine and Tai Parquett to follow screening.

UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF EGO TRIP
Curated with Andreas Vingaard

Electric Boogie
Dir. Tana Ross, 1983, 30 min.
This film intimately follows four African-American and Latino young people coming up in the early ’80s South Bronx, and their unflagging devotion to the art b-boy-ing and breaking.

Beat This!: A Hip Hop History
Dick Fontaine, 1984, 60 min.
This tremendous, highly stylized BBC production features dynamic appearances by a veritable who’s who of original school luminaries: Kool Herc (in what are perhaps his most revealing and personal public interviews), Afrika Bambaataa and the Soulsonic Force, the Cold Crush Brothers, Lisa Lee, Sha-Rock, graffiti writer Brim of Tats Cru, and Officer Kevin Hickey of the NYPD’s infamous Vandal Squad. Rhymed narration provided by NYC broadcasting legend Gary Byrd.

Q&A with Electric Boogie Dir. Tana Ross and Freke Vuijst and special guest.

Sponsored by Sugar Hill Beer

REMEMBER THE MOVEMENT
Presented by 360 Media

365 Days of Marching - The Amadou Diallo Story
Dir. Veronica Keitt , 2008, 90 min.
“365 Days of Marching” - The Amadou Diallo Story recounts the bitter and yet compelling part of New York City history—documenting the series of marches and protests that was set into motion after the death of Amadou Diallo. It’s a story that’s told through the eyes of the marchers (the protesters) exploring the history of New York City Police Department, police - community relations and how Diallo’s death galvanized a city to fight for justice—not only for Diallo, but for all injustices plaguing New Yorker’s during that time. SPECIAL APPEARANCES by Rev Al Sharpton, Seiko & Kadiatou Diallo— the parents of Amadou Diallo, David N. Dinkins—former NYC Mayor, US Congressmen Charles Rangel, Gov. David Paterson, Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr., Assemblyman Keith Wright, Councilman Charles Barron, Chairman Percy Sutton—Inner City Broadcasting, Norman Siegel—ACLU, family members of victims of police brutality, community activists, and others.

Democracies in Chinatown: 1974-1994
Dir. Susan L. Young, 1994, 60 min.
This documentary portrays two women's roles in an immigrant community as activists and how mainstream society views its Asian community. Two women of Chinese descent discuss and reminisce in 1994 their growth in NYC's Chinatown after the Civil Rights movement in 1974.

Panel with Nellie Hester Bailey, Director of the Harlem Tenants Council and Susan L. Yung, artisit and member of Chinese Americans Against Asian Violence (CAAAV).