Filmakers - Literature

Literature

23 film(s) found

	A Bridge of Books This engaging, often funny documentary film chronicles the adventures of an enterprising 23-year-old named Aaron Lansky, who rallied together an international network of volunteers and set out to rescue the world¹s Yiddish books. more »
	Cheating the Stillness: The World of Julia Peterkin This film chronicles the life of a remarkable woman who rebelled against what was expected of a Southern woman in the early part of the 20th century. At age 40, she began writing starting tales about the struggling black families who worked on her family's large plantation in South Carolina. Her third novel Scarlet Sister Mary won the 1929 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and became a bestseller at a time when American readers -- white or black -- were ostensibly not interested in rural African American life. more »
	Daughters of de Beauvoir Seen through the eyes of the women she influenced, including Kate Millet and Marge Piercy, this is an in depth look at one of the leaders in the international women's movement more »
	East Wind, West Wind: Pearl Buck The extraordinary life of Pearl Buck (1892-1973), the child of missionaries who was raised in China and developed a deep affection for the Chinese people. She became one of the most popular American writers of the 20th Century, especially for her best-selling novel, The Good Earth. Archival footage and interviews provide unique insight into China in the first half of the 20th century more »
	Indies Under Fire This gripping documentary chronicles the devastating effect of giant book chains on the country's independent bookstores. During the golden years of the independents, there were 5,200 members of the American Booksellers Association -- today there are fewer than 3,000. more »
	Isabel Allende The world-famous Chilean author reveals her passionate engagement with life and politics. The author of nearly twenty novels, her books have been translated in over thirty languages. In this film, she reveals how events in her life impacted on her writing. more »
	The Library in Crisis Dense with the informed commentary of notable scholars, this documentary in effect traces the history of civilization through the phenomenon of the library. From ancient China, India, Islam, and the Graeco Roman world, we see how the library radiated knowledge and spiritual values, and facilitated the cross fertilization of ideas from one culture to another. more »
	The Machine That Made Us Gutenberg's development of the printing press, one of the most important machines ever invented, ignited a cultural revolution. Stephen Fry, writer and actor, travels to the birthplace of the 15th Century machine and commissions a modern day craftsman to build a working replica that demonstrates the brilliance of Gutenberg's invention. more »
	The Man Who Wanted to Classify the World In 1934, a Belgian visionary named Paul Otlet conceived of a library with no physical books whose contents could be viewed on a screen. His obsession was to classify, encode and unify books and documents published all over the world. His classification system is regarded today as similar to hypertext, which enables us to navigate the Internet. more »
	Mississippi: Power of Place Mississippi, known for its rich literary and musical heritage, was the home of William Faulkner, Eudora Welty and Tennessee Williams. In this film, we see how the spirit of place inspires creativity among a new generation of artists. more »
	Orhan Pamuk: Facing Up to Turkey’s Past Orhan Pamuk, Turkey’s best-known modern novelist and winner of the Nobel prize in 2006, became a pariah in his country overnight for speaking out about the Turkish role in the Armenian genocide. He insists the nation should know the truth about its history, and that there must be freedom of speech. more »
	Palestinian Writers Two important women writers from the West Bank speak out for full participation of women in the Arab world. more »
	Poet of Poverty This is a film about one man’s words. These are the words of an Irish priest who came to Camden, New Jersey, forty years ago and never left. Father Doyle’s words bear witness to a horrendous crime: the total neglect of America’s poorest city, Camden, New Jersey. more »
	The Poet's View This unique film series presents intimate portraits of five major American poets: John Ashbery, Louise Gluck, Anthony Hecht, Kay Ryan and W.S, Merwin. It takes viewers inside their homes and lives as they reminisce about their formative years, reveal their poetic processes, and read some of their best-known poems. more »
	Poet's View: C.K. Williams This addition to the popular Poet's View series focuses on Pulitzer Prize winning poet C.K. Williams. more »
	Portrait of A Muckraker: The Stories of Jessica Mitford This award-winning program is a wise and witty portrait of the outspoken Jessica Mitford. From her acid pen came such books as The American Way of Death, The Trial of Dr. Spock, and Kind and Unusual Punishment. more »
	Salman Rushdie: Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea This eloquent film brings into sharp focus the conflict between freedom of expression and religious conservatism. It focuses on the protests that Satanic Verses provoked throughout Muslim communities all over the world. more »
	Save and Burn Save and Burn puts the institution of the library within a startling political context. Although generally considered preservers of culture, libraries are subject to the ideologies and violence of their time and place. The film addresses the commercialization of libraries, the irresponsible closing of libraries, and their cultural debt to the Orient. more »
	Something Wonderful May Happen: This film surveys the New York School of Poets: its poets, poetry and important influence on the next generation of American poets. It includes a reading of the poem "Twin Towers" by David Lehman written after the 1993 bombing of the WTC as well as poetry by Kenneth Koch, John Ashbery and Hettie Jones. more »
	Staceyann Chin - A Poetry Slammer Staceyann Chin, twenty-nine years old, is a lesbian, multiracial, and one of the major American slam poets. This film is a portrait of her, her poetry and the world of poetry slam. more »
	Talking Canadian This film takes an amusing look how the English language developed differently in two neighboring countries, the U.S. and Canada. It shows how our speech patterns reflect our history. more »
	What If…? Portrait of the daringly inventive woman science fiction writer whose visionary writing gained her a loyal following. more »
	Wild Swans - Jung Chang Chinese author Jung Chang's grandmother was born into a still feudal society, and became a warlord's concubine. Her mother, became a high ranking Communist Party official. This film brings to life the memories Chang recorded in her best-selling autobiography, Wild Swans. more »