Nam June Paik: Moon Is the Oldest TV
The quixotic journey of Nam June Paik, one of the most famous Asian artists of the 20th century, who revolutionized the use of technology as an artistic canvas and prophesied…
Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese
Part documentary, part concert film, part fever dream, this film captures the troubled spirit of America in 1975 and the joyous music that Dylan performed during the fall of that…
The B-Side: Elsa Dorfman’s Portrait Photography
Portrait photographer Elsa Dorfman found her medium in 1980: the larger-than-life Polaroid Land 20×24 camera. For the next thirty-five years, she captured the “surfaces” of those who visited her studio:…
Burroughs: The Movie
An exploration of Burroughs’ life story, as told by Burroughs himself along with many of his contemporaries, including Allen Ginsberg, Brion Gysin, Francis Bacon, Herbert Huncke, Patti Smith, Terry Southern,…
Ferlinghetti: A Rebirth of Wonder
The poet and painter, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, is among the world’s living monuments to arts and letters. For well over a half century, Ferlinghetti helped shape the currents of poetry and…
Wild Combination: A Portrait of Arthur Russell
Wild Combination is a visually absorbing portrait of the seminal avant-garde composer, singer-songwriter, cellist, and disco producer Arthur Russell. Before his death in 1992, Arthur prolifically created music that spanned…
No Direction Home: Bob Dylan
A chronicle of Bob Dylan’s strange evolution between 1961 and 1966 from folk singer to protest singer to “voice of a generation” to rock star.
As I Was Moving Ahead, Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty
A compilation of over 30 years of private home movie footage shot by Lithuanian-American avant-garde director Jonas Mekas, assembled by Mekas “purely by chance”, without concern for chronological order.
Lost, Lost, Lost
Jonas Mekas adjusts to a life in exile in New York in his autobiographical film, shot between 1949 and 1963.
The Source
Traces the Beats from Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac’s meeting in 1944 at Columbia University to the deaths of Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs in 1997. Three actors provide dramatic…
Berkeley in the Sixties
A documentary about militant student political activity at the University of California, Berkeley in the 1960s.
Heavy Petting
Celebrities and creatives — including musician David Byrne, performance artist Spalding Gray, comedian Sandra Bernhard, radical activist Abbie Hoffman, and poet Allen Ginsberg– recall their earliest sexual experiences.
Growing Up in America
Filmmaker Morley Markson shows Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, Allen Ginsberg, Timothy Leary, and other ’60s rebels, then and now in a follow up to his 1971 film “Breathing Together: Revolution…
Poetry in Motion
More than 20 contemporary North American poets recite, sing, and perform their work. Early in the film, Charles Bukowski talks about the energy of poets and of a poem. These…
Herostratus
When a young poet hires a marketing company to turn his suicide into a mass-media spectacle, he finds that his subversive intentions are quickly diluted into a reactionary gesture.
Don’t Look Back
In this wildly entertaining vision of one of the twentieth century’s greatest artists, Bob Dylan is surrounded by teen fans, gets into heated philosophical jousts with journalists, and kicks back…