United States
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Diego sells cars, sleeps on a mattress on the floor, and still wears his wedding ring, although his wife left him three years ago. He has pressed "pause" on life. Simon works with their father making shoes. He lives for the night, always for the moment, never slowing down. Gabriel vanished into thin air when he left for a trip and never returned. Every time the phone rings, his mother thinks it's he. Three brothers...every which way but here...until tonight...when somewhere in the night, on route 5, there might be a light, or at least the possibility of a new day.
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For years, Linda's ideal man has been one who respects her career and independence and considers everything equal in the relationship. Convenience over love has been her motto. The daughter of Cuban immigrants, she has spent her life denying her Latin heritage. Refusing to salsa dance and date Latin men, she collects American folk art, eats frozen meals, and has just moved in with her gringo boyfriend, Steve. Linda has her life all planned out, that is, until the day a freak accident at work introduces a dashing young Cuban firefighter, Jose, into her life.
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Director Gregory Nava is one of the most prolific and fascinating Latino artists working in film today. His films, El Norte, Mi Familia, Selena, and Why Do Fools Fall In Love, have received critical acclaim from around the world and have entranced audiences with stories of warmth and spirit. Gregory Nava's The American Tapestry is an uplifting and challenging journey through the memoirs of five immigrant families, each one culturally diverse and on a quest for its own American Dream.
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Academy Award nominated director/producer, Lorena Parlee, offers a rich and insightful journey into the magnificence and power that is the country of Mexico--"a country ancient and new, eternally called upon by the past and the future, the traditional and the modern, but capable in exceptional moment of [its] history of facing both." Using texts from Mexican novelist, Carlos Fuentes, and ancient Aztec and Mayan poetry and accompanied by an exhilarating musical score by Daniel Valdez, Mexico's culture and history are marvelously brought to life with visual testimonies of the past and current ce
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Before Dirk Diggler, John Holmes was "the star." It is no secret that P.T. Anderson (Boogie Nights) based Diggler's wide-eyed rise to porn superstardom and subsequent descent into drug addiction and crime on the life of Holmes. What is surprising is that Holmes' life is a far more wild and fascinating ride than any fiction could ever depict. As Johnny Wadd, P.I., Holmes became the first real star of a porn series.
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It cashed in on the power of the Internet as a marketing tool, as well as spawned a cottage industry in "location crashing"--where fans visit particular Vancouver locations that have been on the show and appear on sets just before daily filming begins. It is The X-Files, the Chris Carter phenomenon that has added new urgency to all conspiracy theories and given its stars a truly cult-like following.
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In 1997, Roger Nygard investigated the mania that turned a television show into an institution--Trekkies. As producer of Six Days in Roswell, Nygard examines another popular American subculture with the clever direction of Timothy B. Johnson. They go to Roswell, New Mexico. The outset of Six Days in Roswell is the 50th anniversary of a UFO crash that may or may not have happened outside Roswell in 1947. Our tour guide, Richard Kronfeld, lives in his mother's basement. He spends his time researching kook wisdom or building oddities from discarded electronics.
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What happens when we die? Does consciousness survive, and, if so, can the dead contact the living? Scientific principles say no, but recent surveys report that over fifty million Americans have had some sort of after death communication or have witnessed apparitions. Top mediums receive over sixty calls a day from people who seek contact with their deceased loved ones. Is it religious desire, or mass madness, or a sign of our incremental evolution as a culture? As we begin the new millennium, science and faith are attempting to meet halfway.
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Hip hop is at a crossroads. For the women in Rachel Raimist's Nobody Knows My Name, hip hop today is mainly a barrier to women who want to get recognized on skill alone. For today's female artist, the industry and male artists will judge her not on her abilities but on what she looks like. Sex is what sells, not her message. Nobody Knows My Name is a history of women in hip hop and the personal story of several women. DJs, rappers, and b-girls all include their desire to make positive feminist messages marketable in rap and hip hop. Urban poetry has a new voice, and it's here to stay.
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Bay Area's own Pam Walton (Family Values) returns to Cinequest with the powerful, inspiring, and controversial Call to Witness, a look at the current battle regarding gays and lesbians in the pulpit. Walton's film explores the life of several members of the gay and lesbian Lutheran clergy who have either been defrocked or are currently under persecution by their own church.