Documentary of the life and music of Leon “Bix” Beiderbecke, considered to be the greatest jazz cornet player. Dead at 28 and still a legend. He and Louis Armstrong pioneered the playing of jazz solos. When it was made in 1981 there was no known video of Bix playing. But the documentary surmounted that limitation with the skillful use of music recordings, period stills and movies, Hopper paintings, and extensive interviews with musicians that played with him (e.g., Louis Armstrong, Artie Shaw, Hoagy Carmichael, and many others).
Tag: CANADA
A woman is overwhelmed with having to deal with her emotionally unstable daughter, mentally-challenged brother and two suitors while simultaneously trying to run her small firewood business.
Bonnie and Hillary are two young lost souls who meet one day and discover that they get along. They talk about their lives and run around and and keep getting really excited. Their day escalates into an eruption of violence and rage that can only be understood by the two girls.
In 1963, Barnie Margruder is a teenager dealing with school bullies, fighting parents, conflicting feelings about sex, and a bad relationship with his girlfriend. His life changes when he befriends with Winona, an African-American girl from the other side of the tracks who gives him a new perspective on his hometown and the world.
As the years go by, a woman finds herself trapped in her marriage, and asks for a divorce from her husband. Twelve years later, she discovers that her ex-husband is her best friend.
HARVEST OF DESPAIR is the first documentary to be made about “the forgotten holocaust,” the 1932-33 famine in the Ukraine. Archival film footage and the riveting testimonies of survivors now living in the U.S. and Canada point to the appalling cause of the famine – a deliberate genocide plan decreed by the Soviet central government for political and economic gain. While their wheat-fields produced abundant grain for export, 25,000 Ukrainians starved to death daily, totalling 5 to 10 million by the end of 1933. Called “one of the greatest cover-ups in history,” the grisly horrors described are still denied by the government today. The film indicts not only the Soviet Union, but a world that permits such things to exist, even today.
Popular idols of the rock music scene – The Rolling Stones, The Stampeders, Whiskey Howl, Alice Cooper, Muddy Waters – are seen and heard in this film. It is a penetrating look at the whole pop music sub-culture and what keeps it alive, filmed in Canada, on and off-stage, and behind the scenes at record companies, radio broadcasting studios, and board rooms where hucksters plan the sales campaigns. The film includes personal interviews in which some of the stars explain what it’s all about and features Alice Cooper hacking a doll to pieces on stage.
After narrowly escaping death in a violent confrontation, a traumatized young woman flees to the mountains, where she wanders aimlessly for days. She is discovered by a man who helps her regain her strength, and who eventually earns her confidence. Amid this idyllic setting they soon fall in love, but their happiness does not last for long- the police are hunting a young woman accused of murder.