DVD - Documentaries & How-To Films
Newly arrived at the library!
Ice Age footprints
Author(s):
Description:
Thousands of prehistoric footprints left by Ice Age humans and animals stretch for miles across the blinding white surfaces of New Mexico's White Sands National Park. The phenomenal collection of prints preserves a unique series of snapshots of life and behavior, capturing moments when humans crossed paths with extinct Ice Age beasts, including enormous ground sloths and mammoths.
Format:
DVD
Call Number:
560 Ice
The U.S. and the Holocaust
Author(s):
Ken Burns
Lynn Novick
Sarah Botstein
Description:
Ken Burns, Lynn Novick, and Sarah Botstein's three-part, six-hour documentary series examines how the American people and leaders responded to one of the greatest humanitarian disasters of the twentieth century, and how this catastrophe challenged America's identity as a nation of immigrants and the very ideals of democracy.
Format:
DVD
Call Number:
940.5318 U.S.
I am here : an unwavering spirit
Author(s):
Jordy Sank
Ella Blumenthal
Description:
A life-affirming documentary that celebrates the remarkable life of Ella Blumenthal, whose magnetic personality and spirit have remained undimmed despite living through one of history's darkest chapters. One of the oldest living survivors of the Holocaust, she celebrates her 98th birthday when she reveals to her loved ones profound memories of her incredible survival like never before.
Format:
DVD
Call Number:
The automat
Author(s):
Description:
The Automat recounts the lost history of the iconic restaurant chain Horn & Hardart, which served affordable food to millions of New Yorkers and Philadelphians for more than a century. Founded by Joseph Horn and Frank Hardart in 1888, it revolutionized the nation's restaurant scene with technology that captured the public's imagination like nothing else the customer put nickels into slots, and little windows opened to reveal the customer's pick, be it a slice of pie, macaroni, and cheese, or a Salisbury steak. The chain welcomed those who had been ignored, including immigrants, the working class, Blacks, and women, all of whom were often not welcome in restaurants. Featuring interviews with Mel Brooks, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Colin Powell, and Elliott Gould, The Automat illustrates how the company both served the public with great food and at the same time treated its employees with fairness and integrity.
Format:
DVD
Call Number:
647.95 Aut
Universe revealed : where everything begins and ends
Author(s):
Talithia Williams, narrator
Description:
In distant realms far beyond the familiar solar system, an epic drama is playing out, with a cast list featuring rogue planets, colliding galaxies, and black holes more massive than a billion suns, and each character has its own extraordinary story to tell.
Format:
DVD
Call Number:
500.5 Uni
Young Plato
Author(s):
Neasa Ní Chianáin
Declan McGrath
Description:
A maverick Elvis-loving headmaster in a rough Belfast housing estate sends his young pupils home with the philosophy to challenge violence. He uses critical thinking and a big dollop of humor to restore hope in a community, plagued by poverty and drugs.
Format:
DVD
Call Number:
306.09416 You
Bergman Island : Ingmar Bergman on Fårö Island, cinema and life
Author(s):
Marie Nyreröd
Ingmar Bergman
Description:
Filmed over several weeks, "Bergman Island" is an impressively intimate look at the waning hours of one of cinema's true legends. Granted unprecedented access to the man himself, Marie Nyreröd captures stories from Bergman that cover his entire life to that point. Bergman is remarkably candid, whether he's discussing his abusive father or his last directorial effort, Saraband. Even those not particularly interested in Bergman's cinema will find something interesting in a man who has lived so long, triumphed in as a director in radio, television and on stage, whilst completely mastered the medium of film, leaving a legacy for the ages.
Format:
DVD
Call Number:
B Ber
Becoming Frederick Douglass
Author(s):
Stanley Nelson
Nicole London
Wendell Pierce
Description:
Becoming Frederick Douglass is the inspiring story of how a man born into slavery became one of the most prominent statesmen and influential voices for democracy in American history. Born in 1818 on Maryland's Eastern Shore, he escaped from slavery in 1838 and went on to become the most well-known leader of the abolitionist movement.
Format:
DVD
Call Number:
B Dou
Harriet Tubman : visions of freedom
Author(s):
Stanley Nelson
Nicole London
Alfre Woodard
Description:
Harriet Tubman: Visions of Freedom is a rich and nuanced portrait of the woman known as a conductor of the Underground Railroad, who repeatedly risked her life and freedom to liberate others from slavery.
Format:
DVD
Call Number:
B Tub
Saving Venice
Author(s):
Description:
Rising sea levels and sinking land threaten to destroy Venice. Leading scientists and engineers are racing against the clock and battling the forces of nature to try to save this historic city for future generations.
Format:
DVD
Call Number:
945.31$aSav
Groucho & Cavett
Author(s):
Robert S. Bader
Dick Cavett
Groucho Marx
Description:
Writer-turned-comedian Dick Cavett looks back at his relationship with Groucho Marx, sharing footage from his appearances on Cavett's talk show and other rare recordings.
Format:
DVD
Call Number:
792.7028 Gro
Marian Anderson : the whole world in her hands
Author(s):
Description:
Documentary on Marian Anderson, an African American woman and international singing star in the twentieth century, who succeeded over racial prejudice and became an inspiration for America's civil rights movement.
Format:
DVD
Call Number:
B And
The last bookshop of the world
Author(s):
Rax Rinnekangas
Nacho Angulo
Kaisa Kukkola
Hannu-Pekka Bjorkman
Description:
Four Europeans from different cultures and fields of art set off in a minibus with a quality trove of world literature. They go in search, across a vast desert-like landscape, to find a place as remote as possible where they will establish the world's last bookshop. An isolated location is just perfect for their purpose, as there, the printed books of the world will be much safer from big city termites and the ups and downs of the internet. During the journey, the four discuss the unique gift of reading and also certain works of world literature that have decisively changed each of them. They also ponder why Westerners are consuming more and more violent literature and at the same time harboring fears of increasing physical violence in all countries. Bringing the almost-lost purpose of books to the fore, this creative documentary poses important questions not yet discussed in the film about whether we're reading what's worthwhile and if the timeless qualities once praised in literature have been replaced by sheer entertainment.
Format:
DVD
Call Number:
381.45002 Las
Riotsville, U.S.A.
Author(s):
Description:
Focusing on unearthed military training footage of Army-built model towns called "Riotsvilles," where military and police were trained to respond to civil disorder, director Sierra Pettengill reconstructs the formation of a national consciousness obsessed with maintaining law and order by any means necessary. Drawing insight from a time similar to our own, the film pulls focus on American institutional control; how it's constructed and how it manages to rumble on.
Format:
DVD
Call Number:
973.0496 Rio
We need to talk about Cosby
Author(s):
Description:
A revealing four-part documentary series from writer/director W. Kamau Bell offering a deeply personal exploration of Bill Cosby's descent from "America's Dad" to an alleged sexual predator. Exploring the complex story of Cosby's life and work, Bell invites comedians, educators, journalists, and Cosby survivors to have a refreshingly candid, first-of-its-kind conversation about the man, his career, and his crimes. Bell takes an unfiltered look at his legacy and the unexpected ramifications for an industry that enabled him.
Format:
DVD
Call Number:
791.45028 We n
The velvet queen
Author(s):
Marie Amiguet
Vincent Munier
Sylvain Tesson
Description:
Nature photographer Vincent Munier and writer Sylvain Tesson go on a quest to document the elusive snow leopard in the Tibetan highlands.
Format:
DVD
Call Number:
599.7555 Vel
Canada : surviving the wild north
Author(s):
Description:
Our film begins in high summer in Hudson Bay in Canada's Far North, where polar bears have learned to ambush beluga whales, which visit warm river estuaries to breed. It's a crucial time window, at a difficult time of year. In the vast swathes of tundra, a pair of Arctic foxes gather and bury snow geese eggs, and hunt the chicks, for their fast-growing pups. And in Canada's Bay of Fundy, which has the most extreme tides on Earth, vast flocks of semi-palmated sandpipers arrive on their journey from the Arctic to South America, to feed on mating mud shrimps. But they must beware of hunting peregrine falcons.
Format:
DVD
Call Number:
591.5 Can
Children of the mist
Author(s):
Description:
In a village hidden in the mist-shrouded Northwest Vietnamese mountains resides an indigenous Hmong community, home to 12-year-old Di, part of the first generation of her people with access to formal education. A free spirit Di happily recounts her experiences to Vietnamese filmmaker Hà Lệ Diễm, who planted herself within Di's family over the course of three years to document this unique coming of age. As Di grows older, her carefree childhood gives way to an impulsive and sensitive adolescence, a dangerous temperament for what will happen next; in this insular community, girls must still endure the controversial but accepted tradition of "bride kidnapping." One night, when the young girl's parents return home from celebrating the Lunar New Year, they are shocked to find their house is silent: Di has disappeared.
Format:
DVD
Call Number:
305.89597 Chi
American ocelot
Author(s):
Description:
Chronicles the sad history, precarious present, and optimistic future for one of the United States' most endangered wild cats. Wildlife filmmaker Ben Masters documents these rare and elusive animals in South Texas while meeting with the biologists, the ranchers, and the cats themselves.
Format:
DVD
Call Number:
599.752 Ame
Ending HIV in America
Author(s):
Description:
Almost 40 years after the discovery of HIV, could we be on the verge of ending the AIDS epidemic in America? As of 2019, in the US, there were only 34,000 new cases of the disease, a feat that once seemed near-impossible to achieve.
Format:
DVD
Call Number:
362.1969 End
Nazca desert mystery
Author(s):
Description:
One of the world's greatest ancient enigmas, the Nazca lines are a dense network of criss-crossinglines, geometric shapes, and animal figures etched across 200 square miles of Peruvian desert. Who created them and why?
Format:
DVD
Call Number:
985.27 Naz
Can psychedelics cure?
Author(s):
Description:
Hallucinogenic drugs, popularly called psychedelics, have been used by human societies for thousands of years. Today, scientists are taking a second look at many of these mind-altering substances, both natural and synthetic, and discovering that they can have profoundly positive clinical impacts, helping patients struggling with a range of afflictions from addiction to depression and PTSD.
Format:
DVD
Call Number:
615.7883 Can
Woodpeckers : the hole story
Author(s):
Description:
Go deep into the woods to explore the lives of a unique avian family. Woodpeckers come in 239 species, each one a colorful character with a story of its own. But all woodpeckers share some very special gifts - they are acutely adapted to life in the trees and are experts at working with wood.
Format:
DVD
Call Number:
598.72 Woo
Jazz fest : a New Orleans story
Author(s):
Frank Marshall
Ryan Suffern
Bruce Springsteen
Jimmy Buffett
Katy Perry
Description:
The New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival presented by Shell, aka "Jazz Fest," is the signature annual music and cultural event of the city and has been called America's greatest festival. Celebrating the music, food, and arts and crafts of all of Louisiana since 1970, Jazz Fest is an essential showcase of the rich heritage of the region, and hundreds of thousands attend the event each year. Local music heroes are joined on fourteen stages by some of the most prominent figures in entertainment, highlighting the connections between Louisiana culture and the world. This documentary weaves together live performances and interviews from the 50th anniversary of the iconic festival, featuring some of the biggest names in the music industry. This film not only captures the Festival in all of its beauty and glory, but also delves deep into the rich culture of The Big Easy.
Format:
DVD
Call Number:
781.65 Jaz
Soul of the ocean
Author(s):
Description:
Howard Hall, one of the world's foremost underwater filmmakers, brings a lifetime of insights into how life in the ocean really works - in surprisingly cooperative communities built on age-old partnerships.
Format:
DVD
Call Number:
577.7 Sou
