Isaac Stern

Music of the Heart -- MovieMaze.de - Trailer (Quicktime)

The true story of a young teacher who fights against the board of education in her bid to teach underprivileged kids in a Harlem school the beauty of music through the violin.

Every year, Jason, Alex, and newly married Mark and Karen leave New York for a North Carolina beach house to reconnect and relax. But this year is different: Jason has been diagnosed with an aggressive terminal cancer, repurposing their trip as a meaningful yet uncertain farewell. Sharing laughter and camaraderie in even the most quotidian activities, the friends struggle to conceal their grief and use their disillusionment as an affirmative force. Some time later, as Mark and Karen prepare for the birth of their first child, memories of Jason seep into their new phase of life. Inspired by the poetry of Gerald Stern, a onetime poet laureate from New Jersey, Lee Isaac Chung's follow-up to the acclaimed Munyurangabo is a sharply observed, soft-spoken rumination on companionship, memory, life, and loss. Steeping the film in woeful hues leavened in baths of light, through wide angels and even archival footage, cinematographers Jenny Lund and Koji Otsuka poignantly capture the ephemeral quality of a moment in progress, and the life that happens in between.

The trailer for Small Wonders which will make its Toronto Premiere at the 2010 Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival. You know those dusty old shops that sell odd goods and services from another era? The stores that are there forever until suddenly they re not? Step inside the lives of the singular souls who run them. Beautifully photographed on Super 16mm over 10 years, this warm and thoughtful portrait pulls their precarious lives and relentless optimism into gentle focus. Peter is an ex-Casanova watch repairman operating from the corner of a barbershop. He s slowly losing his sight and fears growing old. Norman is a dapper photographer with old world values and free advice who has never touched a digital camera. Jae-Gil is a former motorcycle-riding tomboy, now a small hardware store owner surrounded by 12 big box stores. Each defines themselves through their individual enclaves, defiantly resisting the onslaught of chain-store homogenization and preserving our unique urban cultures for just a little longer.