Bear Witness, Take Action

”The Network” connects both past and present – bouldering, sport, and competition climbing – and this cutting-edge film tangles the viewer inside the spider web of connections that makes up the world of the professional rock climber.

THE AMERICAN NURSE is a heart-warming film that explores some of the biggest issues facing America - aging, war, poverty, prisons - through the work and lives of nurses. It is an examination of real people that will change how we think about nurses and how we wrestle with the challenges of healing America. THE AMERICAN NURSE is an important contribution to America's ongoing conversation about what it means to care. The film follows the paths of five nurses in various practice specialties including Jason Short as he drives up a rugged creek to reach a home-bound cancer patient in Appalachia. Tonia Faust, who runs a prison hospice program where inmates serving life sentences care for their fellow inmates as they're dying. Naomi Cross, as she coaches an ovarian cancer survivor through the Caesarean delivery of her son. Sister Stephen, a nun who runs a nursing home filled with goats, sheep, llamas and chickens, where the entire nursing staff comes together to sing for a dying resident. And Brian McMillion, an Army veteran and former medic, rehabilitating wounded soldiers returning from war.

Tucked in the Appalachian mountains of Southern West Virginia, Oceana, is a small, once thriving coal-mining town that has fallen victim to the fast spreading scourge of prescription painkiller Oxycontin. As the coal industry slowly declined and times got tough, a black market for the drug sprung up and along with it a rash of prostitution, theft and murder. Soon its own residents had nicknamed the town Oxyana and it began to live up to its reputation as abuse, addiction and overdoses became commonplace. Oxyana is a harrowing front line account of a community in the grips of an epidemic, told through the voices of the addicts, the dealers and all those affected. It is a haunting glimpse into an American nightmare unfolding before our eyes, a cautionary tale told with raw and unflinching honesty.

In the 80s, Dutchman Frans Afman became the most important banker in Hollywood and one of the most powerful men in the business. Through Italian producer Dino De Laurentiis he was introduced to the world of filmmaking and together they created a system of financing that revolutionized the independent film industry in Hollywood, called pre sales. Over more than a decade, Frans was instrumental in financing films like Platoon, Terminator and Dances with Wolves, as well as the leading independent production companies such as Cannon, Hemdale and Carolco. As the success grew, ambition of others turned into greed. People of dubious character and credentials started to involve themselves in the independent film industry. People like Giancarlo Parretti, an Italian waiter turned investor with more brawn than brains. Immediately, Frans suspected that Parretti wasn't trustworthy, but his boss at Credit Lyonnais bank decided differently. Parretti became a major player and took over MGM with money from Credit Lyonnais. In protest Frans left the bank. It wasn't long before MGM started losing billions and Parretti brought the venerable old studio and bank to bankruptcy. And so it came that the Dutch banker left the stage as swiftly as he had entered, but not without leaving behind a great legacy of independent films and forever changing the way that films are financed. Director Rozemyn Afman tells the story of her father's life and times, and how he not only influenced the world of filmmaking in Hollywood, but also her own life.

Tells the story of five people from the last generation of Soviet children who were brought up behind the Iron Curtain. Just coming of age when the USSR collapsed, they witnessed the world of their childhood crumble and change beyond recognition. Through the lives of these former schoolmates, this intimate film reveals how they have adjusted to their post-Soviet reality in today's Moscow.

"The HOAX" is an examination of abusive power and lack of regulation in the homeowners' association (HOA) industry; a business and quasi-government system whose key selling point is the protection of property values. Under this quasi-government system, the call of homeowners to share, confront, or report civil & criminal violations of HOA board members to legislative authorities often results in little to no action, or even some form of retaliation against the homeowners from the board. In this practice, people overwhelmed by foreclosure, harassment and financial greed are now standing up for themselves against neighbors, board members, HOA attorneys, property management companies, and politicians, who support this industry. This documentary follows an investigative reporter, homeowners, and HOA reform activists as they illustrate shocking evidence of financial and psychological hardships throughout Texas and Nevada. A few of these people, including the filmmaker, are the subject of adverse actions from various players in this quasi-governmental system.