Haskell Wexler

A look at the extraordinary achievements and contemporary legacy of Oscar Micheaux, a pioneer of the African-American film industry.

Open details →

Documentary about the impact left by John Sayles’ 1987 film Matewan, about a shooting between company gun thugs and union organizers in Southern West Virginia. Along with a lasting legacy of support for union rights, the film inspired many West Virginians to become filmmakers and introduced the world to many great actors.

Open details →

Hal Ashby's obsessive genius led to an unprecedented string of Oscar®-winning classics, including Harold and Maude, Shampoo and Being There. But as contemporaries Coppola, Scorsese and Spielberg rose to blockbuster stardom in the 1980s, Ashby's uncompromising nature played out as a cautionary tale of art versus commerce.

Open details →

A very special encounter between legendary American cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond and young French director Pierre Filmon. A personal journey with the brightest shadowmaker and his friends.

Open details →

NOTFILM is a feature-length experimental essay on FILM -- its author Samuel Beckett, its star Buster Keaton, its production and its philosophical implications -- utilizing additional outtakes, never before heard audio recordings of the production meetings, and other rare archival elements.

Open details →

What began as a video master class evolved into a film about the political documentaries of Oscar-winning cinematographer Haskell Wexler. Comprised of footage from his films as well as interviews, the film is an intimate portrait of the genius behind the camera.

Open details →

In the video John Hanlon, producer/recording engineer says: "Neil just captures the moment, he gives it his all, he goes for the throat. If he is not feeling it, he ain't gonna pick up the guitar. If he's feeling music, then he is recording, he's playing and I am recording it because that's what art is, capturing the movement, all the human imperfections, that is what it is about always. He is the commensurate artist, we get first takes on everything, that's the idea, cuz that's often times the best stuff. If you have to think about it that's not creating, that's thinking, then it doesn't work, it doesn't have that passion."

Open details →

In the early 1900s, Ellen, an aspiring actress, tries to find her lucky break in a studio where everything goes wrong.

Open details →

Haskell Wexler revisits the themes of his previous work "Medium Cool" on the occasion of the Occupy demonstrations in Chicago in 2012.

Open details →

Pablo blends documentary and animation elements to tell the saga of "famous unknown" Pablo Ferro, a man with a personal journey that spans from Havana, during the pre-Cuban revolution to his current home, in the garage behind his son's house.

Open details →

A worldwide guided tour of the greatest movies ever made and the story of international cinema through the history of cinematic innovation.

Open details →

The Los Angeles Times Critics' Pick Something’s Gonna Live is an intimate portrait of life, death, friendship and the movies, as recalled by some of Hollywood's greatest cinema artists. Academy Award®-nominated director Daniel Raim (The Man on Lincoln’s Nose), captures the late life coming together of renowned art directors Robert Boyle (North by Northwest, The Birds), Henry Bumstead (To Kill a Mockingbird, The Sting) and Albert Nozaki (The War of the Worlds, The Ten Commandments), storyboard illustrator Harold Michelson (The Graduate, Star Trek: The Motion Picture), and master cinematographers Haskell Wexler (Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Medium Cool) and Conrad Hall (In Cold Blood, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid). These prolific artists have worked on a total of 400 films, garnering 25 Academy Award® nominations and 8 wins.

Open details →

Open details →

The artistry, triumph and lifelong friendship of the great cinematographers Laszlo Kovacs and Vilmos Zsigmond. With film school equipment, they shoot the Soviet crackdown of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. As refugees they struggle in Hollywood, finally breaking into the mainstream with their pivotal contribution to the "American New Wave."

Open details →

An intimate portrait and saga of four film pioneers--Harry, Albert, Sam and Jack who rose from immigrant poverty through personal tragedies persevering to create a major studio with a social conscience.

Open details →

Documentary featuring interviews with director Norman Jewison and others providing an in-depth look at the production of the 1967 film IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT.

Open details →

Thousands of activists arrive in Seattle, Washington in masses to protest the WTO Ministerial Conference of 1999 (World Trade Organization). Although it began as a peaceful protest with a goal of stopping the WTO talks, it escalated into a full-scale riot and eventually, a State of Emergency that pitted protesters against the Seattle Police Department and the National Guard.

Open details →

Reveals the courageous lives of pioneer camerawomen from Hollywood to Bollywood, from war zones to children’s laughter, in a way that has never been seen before. Based on a book by Alexis Krasilovsky, the film tells the stories of camerawomen surviving the odds in Afghanistan, Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Iran, Mexico, the U.S. and other countries, as well as exploring their individual visions.

Open details →

Cinematographer John A. Alonzo was one of the driving creative forces in the resurgence of expressionistic American movies of the late 1960s and '70s. Director Axel Schill's documentary explores Alonzo's work on key films of that era and beyond. Clips from Chinatown, Scarface, Internal Affairs and other movies accompany interviews with stars such as Richard Dreyfuss, Sally Field and contemporary cinematographer Haskell Wexler.

Open details →

A documentary that highlights the deadly combination of sleep deprivation and long days of work, focusing on the American film industry.

Open details →

A young woman consults multiple doctors for a persistent internal pain, eventually leading to the discovery of a vast, frozen tundra within her body. The condition draws scientific and media attention, reducing her identity to the anomaly. As others attempt to explore the phenomenon, she remains emotionally and physically affected by the experience.

Open details →

Friends, family, co-stars and admirers of actor Steve McQueen talk about his life and his movie career.

Open details →

A Biography of George Lucas.

Open details →

The son of acclaimed cinematographer Haskell Wexler confronts his complex father by turning the camera on him. What results is a portrait of a difficult genius and a son's path out of the shadow of a famous father.

Open details →

A documentary feature that reveals the creative process of Chicago moviemakers. Using the city's famous river as a location, directors are placed in a variety of boats and share stories of how Chicago has influenced their careers.

Open details →

Rosy-Fingered Dawn is a film on Terrence Malick. It is about the making of BADLANDS, DAYS OF HEAVEN, THE THIN RED LINE and the personal involvement of some of the most representative figures of the American culture itself. This medley of voices has given origin to a journey throughout the whole United States, from California to Colorado, from Virginia to Minnesota, passing by New York and Los Angeles. Every stop represents an ideal set in which all the characters of the films come to life once again giving place to a growing flow of memories. The narrative dimension of Malick's cinema resounds and opens a new horizon on the visible contradictions of the American culture; no easy judgement but a critical consciousness is what emerges from this coral speech, together with a definite need: the necessity of art. A need that Terrence Malick was able to satisfy.

Open details →

“Look out Haskell, it’s real!” details the production of Haskell Wexler‘s 1969 feature Medium Cool. It features interviews with members of the film’s cast and crew alongside critics, commentators and historical figures, and includes outtakes of Medium Cool. A 55-minute version premiered at the 2001 Edinburgh Film Festival alongside a new theatrical print of Medium Cool and with Wexler in attendance, and was broadcast on the BBC, PBS and the Sundance Channel. A version of the film appears on the 2013 Criterion Collection DVD release of Medium Cool. The documentary, which has become more an educational project than anything else and remains a work-in-progress, was expanded in 2015 and now runs approximately six and half hours (in six parts).

Open details →

Documentary that features many interviews and other footage of the cast and crew for the film American Graffiti (1973)

Open details →

A group portrait of filmmakers attend the 1995 Sundance Film Festival. Featuring Matthew Harrison, Richard Linklater, Ethan Hawke, Todd Haynes, Greg Araki, Abel Ferrara, Atom Egoyan, James Gray, Robert Redford, Haskell Wexler, among many others. Co-directed by Amy Hobby. [Filmed in Pixelvision and blown-up to evocatively grainy 16mm.]

Open details →

Cameramen and women discuss the craft and art of cinematography and of the "DP" (the director of photography), illustrating their points with clips from 100 films, from Birth of a Nation to Do the Right Thing. Themes: the DP tells people where to look; changes in movies (the arrival of sound, color, and wide screens) required creative responses from DPs; and, these artisans constantly invent new equipment and try new things, with wonderful results. The narration takes us through the identifiable studio styles of the 30s, the emergence of noir, the New York look, and the impact of Europeans. Citizen Kane, The Conformist, and Gordon Willis get special attention.

Open details →

This is a documentary about an unfinished movie. Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention try to film the sci-fi epic "Uncle Meat."

Open details →

In 1968 California, a Marine officer's wife falls in love with a former high school classmate who suffered a paralyzing combat injury in the war.

Open details →

A documentary about the Weathermen, founded as a militant faction of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), who fought to overthrow the U.S. government during the 1960s and 1970s. The film consists of interviews with members of the group after they went underground and footage of the anti-war and civil rights protests of the time. It was directed by Emile de Antonio, Haskell Wexler and Mary Lampson, later subpoenaed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in an attempt to confiscate the film footage in order to gain information that would help them arrest the Weathermen.

Open details →

Laymen as well as celebrities in the sciences and creative arts give their views and values regarding their creative efforts and technological society. Their answers add up to the view that science is an indispensable part of mankind's hope for the future. Interviewees include Haskell Wexler, Joan Baez, Ann Halprin, Benny Bufano, Art Hoppe, Zubin Mehta, Phil Ochs, George Pimentel, Ben Maddow.

Open details →

John Cassellis is the toughest TV news reporter around. After extensively reporting about violence and racial tensions in poor communities, he discovers that his network is helping the FBI by granting them access to his footage to find suspects.

Open details →

An annual American awards ceremony honoring cinematic achievements in the film industry. The various category winners are awarded a copy of a statuette, officially the Academy Award of Merit, that is better known by its nickname Oscar.

Open details →

A rookie NPR reporter on his first assignment, covering the armed occupation of Wounded Knee in South Dakota in 1973, is treated as the enemy and ultimately arrested by the FBI for defying a government news blackout to embed with militant Indians.

Open details →

This is the story of one of the most extraordinary men in history, who ignited the American Revolution, defined the French and championed the use of Reason, all with his pen.

Open details →

In the video John Hanlon, producer/recording engineer says: "Neil just captures the moment, he gives it his all, he goes for the throat. If he is not feeling it, he ain't gonna pick up the guitar. If he's feeling music, then he is recording, he's playing and I am recording it because that's what art is, capturing the movement, all the human imperfections, that is what it is about always. He is the commensurate artist, we get first takes on everything, that's the idea, cuz that's often times the best stuff. If you have to think about it that's not creating, that's thinking, then it doesn't work, it doesn't have that passion."

Open details →

Oscar-winning filmmaker Haskell Wexler returns to his hometown of Chicago to document the Occupy Movement's demonstrations against the 2012 NATO Summit.

Open details →

Haskell Wexler revisits the themes of his previous work "Medium Cool" on the occasion of the Occupy demonstrations in Chicago in 2012.

Open details →

Eagles Live At The Capital Centre - March 1977, featuring never-before-released performances from the Eagles’ two-night stand at Washington, D.C.’s Capital Center during the legendary Hotel California tour.

Open details →

Bringing King to China is a father's "love letter" to his adult daughter, a young American woman struggling to bring Martin Luther King, Jr.'s dream of nonviolence to China, and then back to the United States.

Open details →

This documentary chronicles half a century of hostile U.S.-Cuba relations. The film highlights decades of assassinations and sabotage at first backed by Washington, then ignored by the very government that launched a "war against terrorism."

Open details →

The Los Angeles Times Critics' Pick Something’s Gonna Live is an intimate portrait of life, death, friendship and the movies, as recalled by some of Hollywood's greatest cinema artists. Academy Award®-nominated director Daniel Raim (The Man on Lincoln’s Nose), captures the late life coming together of renowned art directors Robert Boyle (North by Northwest, The Birds), Henry Bumstead (To Kill a Mockingbird, The Sting) and Albert Nozaki (The War of the Worlds, The Ten Commandments), storyboard illustrator Harold Michelson (The Graduate, Star Trek: The Motion Picture), and master cinematographers Haskell Wexler (Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Medium Cool) and Conrad Hall (In Cold Blood, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid). These prolific artists have worked on a total of 400 films, garnering 25 Academy Award® nominations and 8 wins.

Open details →

The first officer in the United States Army to refuse deployment to Iraq on moral grounds, and attempts to clarify the issues that prompted Lt. Watada to choose the course he did in order to protest an immoral and, to him, unconstitutional war.

Open details →

Biography based on Rachel Carson's book, "The Silent Spring."

Open details →

Marvel at the all-star musical cast of Jackson Browne, Arlo Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Sarah Lee Guthrie, many other musicians as well as an audience of one-thousand longshore workers. Bridges was an immigrant working stiff who loved Karl Marx and Jack London, and who fought government persecution for 21 years to become an American citizen. He had a profound effect on the American labor movement, at the same time counting Charlie Chaplin, Orson Welles and Paul Robeson among his friends, He was revered by some, hated by others --a hero or the devil incarnate--but he faced it all with a twinkle in his eye. As Harry Bridges, Ian Ruskin takes you on a captivating journey through some of America's most exciting and turbulent years.

Open details →

A documentary that highlights the deadly combination of sleep deprivation and long days of work, focusing on the American film industry.

Open details →

Surrounded by death and the brutal lifestyle that feeds it, a Los Angeles gangbanger explores the history of Southern California street gangs from the 1950s through the 1990s in an attempt to fully understand his existence. Bastards of the Party humanizes the staggering casualties of the LA gang wars.

Open details →

The discovery of a corpse and the ensuing probe by an idealistic journalist threatens to unravel a bumbling local politician's campaign for governor of Colorado.

Open details →

The video kicks off from a 1978 performance of 'Rosalita' with a 29 year old Bruce wailing away with chicks jumpin' on the stage grabbing him! Lucky guy! The other songs featured include all the popular tunes like 'Born To Run', 'Born In The USA', 'I'm On Fire' and 'Glory Days'. Even some lesser known songs such as 'Spare Parts' (from 'Tunnel Of Love' album) and 'Tougher than the rest' from 'Tunnel Of Love' also which are both live. I like Bruce Springsteen a lot. He has the edge as a showman and musical innovator without losing the plot onstage. Fans will love this video for it's authentic live performances, music videos and classic Springsteen songs. Great

Open details →

In 1961, Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle played for the New York Yankees. One, Mantle, was universally loved, while the other, Maris, was universally hated. Both men started off with a bang, and both were nearing Babe Ruth's 60 home run record. Which man would reach it?

Open details →

Set design has been one of the most overlooked jobs in film, receiving little critical attention until recently. In this Oscar-nominated documentary short, director Daniel Raim puts the spotlight on one of the best in the field, creating a witty, informative inside view of the filmmaking process.

Open details →

A 1998 editorial in Time magazine made the claim that the city of Los Angeles "might just have the most inept public-transport system on the planet earth. . . . The neglected bus system, which still handles 91% of all transit riders,is now roughly as efficient as travel by burro." Academy Award–winning cinematographer and director Haskell Wexler (Medium Cool, Latino) has now fashioned a new documentary tracing three years in the life of a group of bus-rider activists passionately engaged in the struggle to bring affordable, safe, and adequate mass transit back to their city. What might at first sound like a well-intentioned but rather parochial subject for a film has resulted in a truly inspiring lesson in how working-class, predominantly minority citizens forge an effective social movement and how, like Rosa Parks and the Montgomery, Alabama, bus boycotters of the 1950s, a group of committed individuals can successfully challenge the powers that seek to control their lives.

Open details →

Journalist Kevin McKiernan's powerful film takes a close look at the Kurds, compelling and controversial subjects whose identities seem to shift depending on the loyalties of those viewing them. To some, they are heroes fighting to rebuild war-torn Iraq; to others, they are terrorists to be feared and loathed. What is the truth, and where do the answers lie? This provocative study earned Best Documentary honors at numerous film festivals.

Open details →

Traumatized by a fishing boat accident many years before, Joe Gastineau has given up his hopes for a life beyond the odd jobs he takes to support himself. That quickly changes when nomadic club singer Donna de Angelo and her troubled teen-age daughter enter Joe’s life. Both mother and daughter fall for Joe, increasing the friction between them. The tension continues to build when Joe invites them on a pleasure cruise up the Alaskan coast, discovering too late that the trip may cost them their lives.

Open details →

Pregnant legendary controversial comedian Sandra Bernhard performs her Off-Broadway show that combines stand up, storytelling and musical performance. She also talks about the female musicians who paved the way for female artists today.

Open details →

A rich man's wife finds she has a bad prenuptial agreement with an even worse husband. Over drinks with a stranger, she fantasizes about doing her husband in to void the prenup — but much to her surprise, the stranger decides to turn her imagination into reality.

Open details →

In 1950s Los Angeles, a special crime squad of the LAPD investigates the murder of a young woman.

Open details →

Using text from Mexican novelist Carlos Fuentes and ancient Aztec and Mayan poetry, viewers are lead on a visual journey through this country's rich and varied past and present. Stunning images and a dramatic musical score by Daniel Valdez create a vivid, insightful portrait of the Mexican people and their culture

Open details →

The U.S. President, low in the opinion polls, gets talked into raising his popularity by trying to start a cold war with Canada.

Open details →

"Just before dawn on New Year's Day 1994, armed Mayan Indians declared war on the government. They immediately seized eight towns in Chiapas and set in motion events that ripped away a facade of prosperity and stability to reveal 'the other Mexico'. They demanded land, public services and Indian autonomy - the right to communally own and farm land. They called themselves the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN). This documentary features in-depth interviews with people from the EZLN, among them Subcommandante Marcos. THE SIXTH SUN portrays an epic confrontation pitting impoverished peasants against large landowners and government forces in Mexico poorest state, Chiapas. The film raises important questions as to what is to be judged expendable in the rush to global economic integration - whether the destruction of whole peoples and cultures that have survived over centuries is simply to be accepted as the price of 'progress'.

Open details →

Ten-year-old Fiona is sent to live with her grandparents in a small fishing village in Donegal, Ireland. She soon learns the local legend that an ancestor of hers married a Selkie – a seal who can turn into a human. Years earlier, her baby brother was washed out to sea and never seen again, so when Fiona spies a naked little boy on the abandoned Isle of Roan Inish, she is compelled to investigate.

Open details →

A chronicle of Babe Ruth's phenomenal story--from his hard knock beginnings at a Baltimore orphanage, to his meteoric rise to baseball superstardom and his poignant retirement from the game. His amazing career included seven American League pennants, four World Series championships, two tempestuous marriages and a wild lifestyle that earned him numerous suspensions.

Open details →

A unique story of a small urban community of Native Hawaiians and the women who championed for their rights to their land against all odds.

Open details →

When a corporate raider threatens a hostile takeover of a 'mom and pop' company, the patriarch of the company enlists the help of his wife's attractive daughter—who is a lawyer—to stop the takeover. However, the raider soon becomes infatuated with her, and enjoys the legal manoeuvring as he tries to win her heart.

Open details →

A middle-aged Louisiana governor falls in love with a young stripper, which jeopardizes his political career and the radical policies which have made him a controversial figure.

Open details →

On his first day after being released from jail for 14 armed bank robberies, Lucas finds himself caught up in someone else's robbery. Perry has decided to hold up the local bank to raise money so that he can keep his daughter, Meg, and get her the treatment she needs. Dugan, a detective, assumes Lucas helped plan the robbery, and hence Lucas, Perry and Meg become three fugitives.

Open details →

A confident young cop is shown the ropes by a veteran partner in the dangerous gang-controlled barrios of Los Angeles, where the gang culture is enforced by the colors the members wear.

Open details →

Filmed in the coal country of West Virginia, "Matewan" celebrates labor organizing in the context of a 1920s work stoppage. Union organizer, Joe Kenehan, a scab named "Few Clothes" Johnson and a sympathetic mayor and police chief heroically fight the power represented by a coal company and Matewan's vested interests so that justice and workers' rights need not take a back seat to squalid working conditions, exploitation and the bottom line.

Open details →

This is a documentary about an unfinished movie. Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention try to film the sci-fi epic "Uncle Meat."

Open details →