
25 Dec 2003

The Company
Ensemble drama centered around a group of ballet dancers, with a focus on one young dancer who's poised to become a principal performer.
The first film that captures the history of today's dance music, and how it has changed not only the dance-floor, but the world.
The Unusual Suspects: Once Upon a Time in House Music recounts the history and origins of the genre of dance music known as house. The documentary takes a comprehensive look beginning with disco, the mother of house music, to legendary nightclubs such as the Warehouse and The Loft. Lifestyles and the general culture of house fans are also explored. Featured interviewees include Jesse Saunders, Robert Owens, Joe Smooth, Frankie Knuckles, Julius The Mad Thinker, Steve Silk Hurley, Loleatta Holloway, Larry Heard (aka Mr. Fingers), Carl Bias (Master C&J), Jere McCallister and many more.
25 Dec 2003
Ensemble drama centered around a group of ballet dancers, with a focus on one young dancer who's poised to become a principal performer.
06 Oct 2011
Ren MacCormack is transplanted from Boston to the small southern town of Bomont where loud music and dancing are prohibited. Not one to bow to the status quo, Ren challenges the ban, revitalizing the town and falling in love with the minister’s troubled daughter Ariel in the process.
01 Oct 2009
What made more money than the entire American movie industry through the 50s and 60s? Pinball. Special When Lit rediscovers the lure of a lost pop icon. A product of the mechanical and electrical age, the American invention swept the world and defined cool. Now it is relegated to a nostalgic footnote deserving a better fate. Joining the fans, collectors, designers and champion players from across the globe who share a world many of us didn't know still existed.
28 Sep 2024
In September of 2022, with over 41,000 fans in attendance, The Lumineers took fans on an anthemic, foot-stomping journey with the BRIGHTSIDE World Tour, ending their largest worldwide tour to date at Chicago's historic Wrigley Field.
31 Mar 2023
A biopic of 1970s record producer Neil Bogart, co-founder of Casablanca Records.
18 Sep 1998
Less a documentary than a primer on all electronic music. Featuring interviews with nearly every major player past and present, as well as a few energetic live clips, Modulations delves into one of electronica's forgotten facets: the human element. Lee travels the globe from the American Midwest to Europe to Japan to try to express the appeal of music often dismissed as soulless. Modulations shows that behind even the most foreign or alien electronic composition lies a real human being, and Lee lets many of these Frankenstein-like creators express and expound upon their personal philosophies and tech-heavy theories. Lee understands that a cultural movement as massive and diverse as dance music can't be contained.
25 Oct 2017
The life of the magnetic Jamaican musician, actress, model and party queen Grace Jones featuring concert performances and intimate, personal footage.
04 Mar 2011
Set in Montreal during the disco phenomenon some 35 years ago, Funkytown follows the life of a group of colorful characters. We follow their lives and tribulations as everyone converges on a regular basis at Montreal's hot disco spot: Starlight. Along the way, several events take place that change these characters' lives. As these characters' lives unfold, the Parti Québécois takes power changing the cultural landscape in Quebec while the disco craze slowly fades. While we keep up with these various characters - it is Bastien who is a central part of this story. His drug addiction, dreams to become an actor and womanizing - make him the "bigger than life" typical 70s character around which the whole story revolves.
13 Sep 2018
Sex Fashion and Disco is a documentary film concerning Antonio Lopez (1943-1987), the most influential fashion illustrator of 1970s Paris and New York, and his colorful and sometimes outrageous milieu.
31 Jul 2015
A documentary about the legendary series of nationally televised debates in 1968 between two great public intellectuals, the liberal Gore Vidal and the conservative William F. Buckley Jr. Intended as commentary on the issues of their day, these vitriolic and explosive encounters came to define the modern era of public discourse in the media, marking the big bang moment of our contemporary media landscape when spectacle trumped content and argument replaced substance. Best of Enemies delves into the entangled biographies of these two great thinkers, and luxuriates in the language and the theater of their debates, begging the question, "What has television done to the way we discuss politics in our democracy today?"
22 May 1942
A young trumpeter rises through the jazz world and finds love.
30 Sep 1992
Filmmaker David Achkar searches for his father, Marof Achkar, who was sent to the notorious Camp Boiro prison in 1969 for treason.
18 Feb 2011
In Chicago’s Humboldt Park neighborhood, the Vida/Sida Cacica Pageant brings together members of the Puerto Rican community to celebrate its transgender participants. I Am The Queen follows Bianca, Julissa and Jolizza as they prepare for the pageant under the guidance of Ginger Valdez, an experienced transgender from the neighborhood. These trans women share stories of their transition, their relatives’ varying reactions, and how they find support from within the community. Family dynamics, cultural heritage, and personal identity all play a part in how the contestants face the daily struggle that comes from being true to themselves.
15 Jun 2018
Studio 54 was the epicenter of 70s hedonism - a place that not only redefined the nightclub, but also came to symbolize an entire era. Its co-owners, Ian Schrager and Steve Rubell, two friends from Brooklyn, seemed to come out of nowhere to suddenly preside over a new kind of New York society. Now, 39 years after the velvet rope was first slung across the club's hallowed threshold, a feature documentary tells the real story behind the greatest club of all time.
14 Jun 2020
An examination of the 1998 MLB season and the home run race between Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa. The two sluggers' race to hit the most home runs, later overshadowed by the steroid scandal, left a permanent mark on baseball history.
02 Jun 1997
Public Housing is Wiseman’s unflinching portrayal of life at the Ida B. Wells housing project in Chicago, a raw exposition of the daily conflicts between residents and the bureaucratic machinery to which they are continually subjected. With intimate detail and an abiding dedication to his subject, Wiseman unearths the hidden facets of institutions to find humanity and sites of unexpected beauty.
24 Dec 2022
The portrait of a woman who remembers. Sheila tells the story of Sheila, without concessions or evasions. Her childhood, her parents, her beginnings, the rumors, her love affairs, her marriage, her son, her successes, her farewells, her return, her mourning. The journey of an extraordinary popular icon who never stopped fighting. The courage of an artist who never gives up. "Sheila, toutes ces vies-là" is also a journey through time. 60 years of pop music, punctuated by numerous archives, personal films, timeless hits and illustrations by Marc-Antoine Coulon. But also 60 years of fashion, through a legendary wardrobe (her TV show outfits) that Sheila invites us to rediscover.
15 May 1931
An idealistic young man is torn between a sultry Chicago nightclub owner and a Scottish South Dakotan farmgirl.
01 Jan 1970
A portrait of the diverse opinions of Chicagoans as they reflect on the general state of affairs in America, the war in Vietnam, social and racial conflict, freedom and personal liberty, happiness, and social justice. Ratamata was made by future Tom Palazzolo collaborator Kreines when he was 16 years old, and was an award winner at the Young Chicago Filmmakers Festival.
03 May 2022
Defying the state legislature that outlawed abortion, the Catholic Church that condemned it, and the Chicago Mob that was profiting from it, the members of “Jane” risked their personal and professional lives to support women with unwanted pregnancies. In the pre-Roe v. Wade era — a time when abortion was a crime in most states and even circulating information about abortion was a felony in Illinois — the Janes provided low-cost and free abortions to an estimated 11,000 women.