Now Showing @ ALA Film Schedule
The Now Showing @ ALA Film Program features films, shorts, trailers and documentaries from the world over from Saturday through Monday.
[ See the full schedule and add films to your calendar ]
Saturday, June 24
Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant
8:00 AM - 8:05 AM
Book Trailer for the upcoming memoir, Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant. From filmmaker and co-founder of the Asian American Writers' Workshop, Curtis Chin's memoir about coming of age and coming out traces the author's journey through 1980's Detroit as he navigated rising xenophobia, the AIDS epidemic, and the Reagan Revolution to find his voice as a writer and activist — all set against the backdrop of his family's popular Chinese restaurant. The book, which features plenty of Chinese food, Motown vibes, and crack cocaine, will be published by Little, Brown in the fall of 2023.
Running Time: 3 minutes
Writer and Director: Curtis Chin
Production Company: Bull and Monkey
Storming Caesars Palace
8:00 AM - 9:30 AM
Storming Caesars Palace chronicles the extraordinary life of Ruby Duncan, an activist who fights the welfare system and becomes a White House advisor. Ruby, along with Mary Wesley, Alversa Beals, and low-income mothers across the country form the National Welfare Rights Organization to fight for an adequate income, dignity, and justice. Together, they introduce a Guaranteed Income campaign in 1969 which, with feminist Gloria Steinem at their side, becomes part of the Democratic platform in 1972.
A real-life superhero, Ruby takes on both the Nevada political establishment and organized crime in a valiant and resolute act of civil disobedience. Based on a groundbreaking book and using lost archival material, "Storming Caears Palace" celebrates the visionary leadership of Ruby Duncan, whose courage, tenacity, and dreams could not be quashed against all odds. While the film focuses on a historical story, its message is current and relevant as it asks viewers to consider that a guaranteed universal income is a human rights issue.
Running Time: 86 minutes
Director: Hazel Gurland-Pooler
Production Company: Gurland Documentaries LLC.
Weston Woods: I Am Ruby Bridges; Our Table; The Little Red Fort; The Little Wooden Robot and the Log Princess
9:30 AM - 10:15 AM
In I Am Ruby Bridges, Ruby Bridges tells her story as never before and shares the events of the momentous day in 1960 when Ruby became the first Black child to integrate the all-white William Franz Elementary as a six year old little girl -- a personal and intimate look through a child’s lens at a landmark moment in our Civil Rights history.
Our Table: Violet longs for the time when her family was connected: before life, distractions, and technology pulled them all away from each other. They used to gather at the table, with food and love, to make memories, share their lives, and revel in time spent together. But now her family has been drifting apart, and with nobody to gather around it, the table grows smaller and smaller.<br><br>Can Violet remind her family of the warmth of time spent together, and gather around the table once more?
The Little Red Fort: Ruby's mind is always full of ideas. One day, she finds some old boards and decides to build something. She invites her brothers to help, but they just laugh and tell her she doesn't know how to build. "Then I'll learn," she says. And she does! When she creates a dazzling fort that they all want to play in, it is Ruby who has the last laugh. This modern spin on the timeless favorite The Little Red Hen celebrates the pluck and ingenuity of young creators everywhere!
The Little Wooden Robot and the Log Princess: For years, the king and queen have tried desperately to have a baby. Their wish was granted twice, when an engineer and a witch gave them a little wooden robot and an enchanted log princess. But there's just one catch: every night when the log princess sleeps, she transforms back into an ordinary log, and can only be woken up with magic words. The princess and her robot brother are inseparable, until the sleeping princess, mistaken for lumber, is accidentally carted off to parts unknown. Now it's up to her devoted brother to find her, and get them safely back home. They need to take turns to get each other home, and on the way, they face a host of adventures involving the Queen of Mushrooms, a magic pudding, a baby in a rosebush, and an old lady in a bottle.
Writers:
I Am Ruby Bridges: Based on the book by Ruby Bridges, illustrated by Nikkolas Smith
Our Table: Based on the book by Peter H. Reynolds
The Little Red Fort: Based on the book by Brenda Maier, illustrated by Sonia Sanchez
The Little Wooden Robot and the Log Princess: Tom Gauld
Directors:
I Am Ruby Bridges: Melissa Ellard, Tara Duffy
Our Table: Peter H. Reynolds, Gary Goldberger, Peter Stidwill, Melissa R. Ellard, Paul R. Gagne
The Little Red Fort: Tara Duffy
The Little Wooden Robot and the Log Princess: Tara Duffy
Production Company:
I Am Ruby Bridges, The Little Red Fort, The Little Wooden Robot and the Log Princess: Weston Woods Studios
Our Table: Weston Woods Studios & FableVision
Running Time:
I Am Ruby Bridges: 12 minutes, 50 seconds
Our Table: 6 minutes, 40 seconds
The Little Red Fort: 9 minutes
The Little Wooden Robot and the Log Princess: 14 minutes, 50 seconds
Tiktok, Boom
10:30 AM - 12:00 PM
With this new work, Kantayya, a Sundance Fellow, continues her engagement in the space where technology meets, amplifies, and opposes our humanity. Her incisive, current look at the power and complexity of tech continues to advance a conversation that is bettered by her careful stewardship.
Running Time: 87 minutes
Director: Shalini Kantayya
Production Company: Campfire Studios
Community Engagement Around 3 PBS Programs: The U.S. and the Holocaust | Iconic America: Our Symbols and Stories with David Rubenstein | The American Buffalo
1:00 PM - 3:00 PM
Iconic America: Our Symbols and Stories with David Rubenstein, explores America’s 400-year history through a close examination of iconic national symbols: indelible artifacts, places, and archetypes. Each episode tells the story of an American symbol to reveal its origins, significance and the arc of its resonance. Episode subjects include the Hollywood Sign, Fenway Park, American cowboys, Gadsden Flag (“Don’t Tread On Me”), American Bald Eagle, Stone Mountain, Statue of Liberty, and the Golden Gate Bridge. Rubenstein invites historical experts and community members to examine myriad ways the American public engages with these subjects.
The U.S. and the Holocaust, a film by Ken Burns, Lynn Novick and Sarah Botstein, explores America’s response to one of the greatest humanitarian crises of the 20th century. Inspired in part by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s “Americans and the Holocaust” exhibition and supported by its historical resources, the film tackles a range of questions that remain essential to our society today.
The American Buffalo, directed by Ken Burns, tells the dramatic story of how America’s national mammal, once numbering in the tens of millions and sustaining the Native people of the Great Plains for untold generations, was driven to the brink of extinction. The film recounts the collision––and tragic consequences––of two opposing views of the natural world.
Writers:
Iconic America: Our Symbols and Stories with David Rubenstein: per episodes
The U.S. and the Holocaust: Geoffrey Ward
The American Buffalo: Dayton Duncan
Directors:
Iconic America: Our Symbols and Stories with David Rubenstein: per episode
The U.S. and the Holocaust: Ken Burns – Co-director and Producer, Lynn Novick – Co-director and Producer, Sarah Botstein – Co-director and Producer
The American Buffalo: Ken Burns - Executive Producer/Producer/Director, Julie Dunfey – Producer, Julianna Brannum – Consulting Producer
Production Company:
Iconic America: Our Symbols and Stories with David Rubenstein is a production of Show of Force, DMR Productions, and WETA Washington, D.C.
The U.S. and the Holocaust is a production of Florentine Films and WETA Washington, D.C.
The American Buffalo is a production of Florentine Films and WETA Washington, D.C.
Running Time:
Iconic America: Our Symbols and Stories with David Rubenstein: 20-minute clip
The U.S. and the Holocaust: 30-minute clip
The American Buffalo: 8-minute clip
My Garden of a Thousand Bees; and Wild Hope: The Big Oyster
3:30 PM - 5:00 PM
My Garden of a Thousand Bees: Locked down during the coronavirus pandemic, My Garden of a Thousand Bees follows acclaimed wildlife filmmaker Martin Dohrn as he sets out to record all the bee species in his tiny urban garden in Bristol, England. Filming with one-of-a-kind lenses he forged at his kitchen table, he catalogues more than 60 different species, from Britain’s largest bumblebees to scissor bees the size of a mosquito. Over long months, Dohrn observes how differences in behavior set different species apart. He eventually gets so close to the bees he can identify individuals by sight, documenting life at their level as we have never seen it before.
Running Time: 55 minutes
Writers: David Allen and Martin Dohrn
Director: David Allen
Production Company: HHMI Tangled Bank Studios, Passion Planet, Nature
Wild Hope: The Big Oyster
New York City is an iconic place many of us feel we know well—from its towering skyscrapers and sprawling bridges to its streets teeming with traffic, commerce, and cuisine. The “city that never sleeps” is famous for being full of life—on land. Less well-known is that its harbor was once teeming with life too. Until centuries of pollution and misuse turned it into a cesspool. Today, an alliance of architects, restaurateurs, scientists, and high school students is working to restore New York Harbor to its former glory—with the help of a remarkable and tasty creature that fits in the palm of your hand: the oyster. Each one of these filter-feeding reef builders can clean gallons of water a day. So the plan is to put a billion of them back into the harbor, where they will filter out pollutants, establish reefs that can protect the city from storm surges, and provide habitat for myriad other species that once called New York home.
Running Time: 28 minutes
Writer: Rakhi Varma
Field Producer: Danny Schmidt
Production Company: HHMI Tangled Bank Studios and Part2 Pictures production in co-production with Wild Elements
Sunday, June 25
Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant
8:00 AM - 8:05 AM
Book Trailer for the upcoming memoir, Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant. From filmmaker and co-founder of the Asian American Writers' Workshop, Curtis Chin's memoir about coming of age and coming out traces the author's journey through 1980's Detroit as he navigated rising xenophobia, the AIDS epidemic, and the Reagan Revolution to find his voice as a writer and activist — all set against the backdrop of his family's popular Chinese restaurant. The book, which features plenty of Chinese food, Motown vibes, and crack cocaine, will be published by Little, Brown in the fall of 2023.
Running Time: 3 minutes
Writer and Director: Curtis Chin
Production Company: Bull and Monkey
Let It Be Morning
8:00 AM - 10:00 AM
Israel’s official submission for Best International Feature Film at the 94th Academy Awards®, and an official selection at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival. Sami lives in Jerusalem with his wife and child, and an invitation to his brother’s wedding forces him to return to the Arab village where he grew up. After the wedding, with no warning or explanation, the village is put under military lockdown by Israeli soldiers and cut off from the outside world. Chaos rises overnight amongst those stuck within the walls. Director Eran Kolirin (The Band’s Visit) brings Sayed Kashua’s bestselling novel to life, exposing the absurdist world of Palestinian reality while highlighting human stories of being trapped in an unexpected situation. DVD and BR.
Running Time: 101 minutes
Writer: Sayed Kashua
Director: Eran Kolirin
Production Company: Cohen Media Group distributed by Kino Lorber
Boycott
10:30 AM - 12:00 PM
The Social Responsibilities Round Table (SRRT) would like Now Showing @ ALA to include the film, Boycott, at the Annual Conference in Chicago. The film addresses the large number of state laws that prohibit state contractors from endorsing a boycott of Israel in order to get state contracts. Several of these state laws have been declared unconstitutional, but the Arkansas law was upheld in their state court. Copycat laws are also sprouting in various states that prohibit boycotting firearms and fossil fuels corporations. These state laws are a direct attack on the First Amendment. SRRT has documented numerous instances where libraries/state agencies and city governments have been forced to sign off to get state library contracts. See our website page on "Anti-BDS Legislation: The Library Connection,” https://www.ala.org/rt/srrt/irtf/anti-bds-legislation-library-connection for the details. SRRT presented a program on the right to boycott at the 2022 Annual Conference which included the main plaintiff in the Arkansas case.
Running Time: 70 minutes
Writers: Julia Bacha, Shad Babaa, Daniel J. Chalfen
Director: Julia Bacha
Production Company: Just Vision
Sponsored by: Sponsored by the Social Responsibilities Round Table of ALA
Haymarket: The Bomb, the Anarchists, the Labor Struggle
1:00 PM - 3:00 PM
The Chicago Haymarket tragedy, where a bomb thrown into the ranks of Police was followed by an eruption of panic and violence resulting in a trial and execution of presumably innocent workers' rights activists, is examined in this feature documentary film. Expert historians and professors present the history of the bomb, the anarchist movement of the 19th century, and the labor struggle of working people fighting for a shorter work day during the industrial might of America's Gilded Age.
Running Time: 85 minutes
Writer and Director: Adrian Prawica
Production Company: Filmadria
Sponsored by: Film & Media Round Table (FMRT)
Neurodivergent
3:30 PM - 4:00 PM
In March 2020, at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic and in her third year at USC School of Cinematic Arts, Afton underwent extensive psychological tests and was diagnosed with something she never even considered: ADHD. In a unique way of coping with this new information, she courageously decides to put herself in front of the camera and, with the help of her husband, Jesse, documents this very personal journey. Her bible soon becomes the 1995 book, Women with Attention Deficit Disorder: Embrace Your Differences and Transform Your Life, as she learns that she is not the only young girl to have silently suffered in school. In fact, women with ADHD are more often under-diagnosed than men, as well as commonly misdiagnosed and treated for anxiety and mood disorders as primary diagnoses. Finally feeling understood, Afton is thrilled to have the opportunity to meet the author of the book and superstar advocate in the ADHD world, Sari Solden. With Sari’s help, Afton recognizes that her life-long pattern of negative thoughts and feelings were not the result of the learning disability itself but rather the shame of not being able to fully inhabit her genuine self.
Running Time: 25 minutes
Director: Afton Quast Saler
Production Company: University of Southern California, School of Cinematic Arts
WINN
4:00 PM - 4:30 PM
This powerful, short documentary exposes the horrifying experience that incarcerated pregnant women endure and documents Pamela Winn's mission to end shackling and ultimately prison birth.
Running Time: 17 minutes
Directors: Erica Tanamachi and Joseph East
Production Company: Brave Voices Media and Erica Jane Films
Weston Woods: Chez Bob; and The Pigeon Will Ride the Roller Coaster!
4:30 PM - 5:00 PM
Chez Bob: Welcome to Chez Bob, which seems like a real restaurant...until you realize...it's on an alligator's NOSE! Bob's got a hidden plan for his customers: "Birds will come to eat, but I will eat the birds!" As they fly in from all over the world to dine on Bob's face, something starts to happen that takes the lazy, hungry reptile by surprise -- the birds stay. "More yummy birds!" he rejoices -- he'll want for nothing! But when the time is right, will Bob make the right choice?
The Pigeon Will Ride the Roller Coaster!: Buckle up for twists, turns, and emotional loop-de-loops in the most roller coaster-y Pigeon book ever! The Pigeon WILL be ready. Will YOU!?
Writers:
Chez Bob: Based on the book by Bob Shea
The Pigeon Will Ride the Roller Coaster!: Mo Willems
Directors:
Chez Bob: Virginia Wilkos
The Pigeon Will Ride the Roller Coaster!: Pete List
Production Company: Weston Woods Studios
Running Time:
Chez Bob: 9 minutes, 19 seconds
The Pigeon Will Ride the Roller Coaster!: 8 minutes
Monday, June 26
Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant
8:00 AM - 8:05 AM
Book Trailer for the upcoming memoir, Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant. From filmmaker and co-founder of the Asian American Writers' Workshop, Curtis Chin's memoir about coming of age and coming out traces the author's journey through 1980's Detroit as he navigated rising xenophobia, the AIDS epidemic, and the Reagan Revolution to find his voice as a writer and activist — all set against the backdrop of his family's popular Chinese restaurant. The book, which features plenty of Chinese food, Motown vibes, and crack cocaine, will be published by Little, Brown in the fall of 2023.
Running Time: 3 minutes
Writer and Director: Curtis Chin
Production Company: Bull and Monkey
Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project
8:00 AM - 10:00 AM
Librarian and activist, Marion Stokes, was secretly recording television twenty-four hours a day for s. It started thirty year in 1979 with the Iranian Hostage Crisis at the dawn of the twenty-four hour news cycle. It ended on December 14, 2012 while the Sandy Hook massacre played on television as Marion passed away. In between, Marion recorded on 70,000 VHS tapes, capturing revolutions, lies, wars, triumphs, catastrophes, bloopers, talk shows, and commercials that tell us who we were, and show how television shaped the world of today.
Before “fake news” Marion was fighting to protect the truth by archiving everything that was said and shown on television. The public didn’t know it, but the networks were disposing their archives for decades into the trashcan of history. Remarkably Marion saved it, and now the Internet Archive will digitize her tapes and we’ll be able to search them online for free.
This is a mystery in the form of a time capsule. It’s about a radical Communist activist, who became a fabulously wealthy recluse archivist. Her work was crazy but it was also genius, and she would pay a profound price for dedicating her life to this visionary and maddening project.
Running Time: 1 hour 27 minutes
Writer and Director: Matt Wolf
Production Company: Zeitgeist in association with Kino Lorber; End Cue, Electric Chinoland, C41 Media
Sponsored by: Film and Media Round Table (FMRT)
B.A.D.D.
10:30 AM - 12:00 PM
An all-around good guy learns to fight to protect himself and his school after a bully transfers in and begins to wreak havoc..
Running Time: 54 minutes
Writer/Director: Jil Ross
Production Company: Minor Major Entertainment
Arab Israeli Dialogue/Imagine Peace
1:00 PM - 2:30 PM
Arab Israeli Dialogue (1974) is the passionate final documentary from Lionel Rogosin (On the Bowery, Come Back Africa), in which Palestinian poet Rashed Hussein and Israeli writer Amos Kenan seek dialogue toward a possible solution to the never-ending conflict. Never before have both sides discussed a mutual problem so frankly, and so willingly. Rogosin provides an open forum for two formidable intellects to discuss the fates of their nations, and the ever-receding possibility of peace. Imagine Peace (2022) is Michael A. Rogosin’s moving and thought-provoking film about his father’s Arab Israeli Dialogue. He screened the original film on the wall of the Palestine-Israel Journal offices in East Jerusalem, the only joint Israeli-Palestinian publication, and heard the editors, some of whom knew both Kenan and Hussein, make observations about the 1974 documentary and about where we are today. Arab Israeli Dialogue was restored by Fondazione Cineteca di Bologna from the original 16mm reversal film and magnetic soundtrack, preserved and made available by Anthology Film Archives. This film was restored under a project for the recuperation and promotion of the complete works of Lionel Rogosin, developed by Cineteca di Bologna and Rogosin Heritage. DVD only.
Running Time: 79 minutes
Writer and Director: Michael A. Rogosin
Production Company: The Milestone Cinematheque distributed by Kino Lorber
Imagine Peace (2022) is Michael A. Rogosin’s moving and thought-provoking film about his father’s Arab Israeli Dialogue. He screened the original film on the wall of the Palestine-Israel Journal offices in East Jerusalem, the only joint Israeli-Palestinian publication, and heard the editors, some of whom knew both Kenan and Hussein, make observations about the 1974 documentary and about where we are today. Arab Israeli Dialogue was restored by Fondazione Cineteca di Bologna from the original 16mm reversal film and magnetic soundtrack, preserved and made available by Anthology Film Archives. This film was restored under a project for the recuperation and promotion of the complete works of Lionel Rogosin, developed by Cineteca di Bologna and Rogosin Heritage. DVD only.
Running Time: 79 minutes
Writer and Director: Michael A. Rogosin
Production Company: The Milestone Cinematheque distributed by Kino Lorber
Category: Woman
3:00 PM - 4:30 PM
After then 18-year-old South African runner Caster Semenya's victory at the 2009 World Championships, her personal medical records were leaked to the international media. The public scrutiny of her body, driven by racism and sexism, brought into question her identity as a woman and as a great champion.
Running Time: 80 minutes
Director: Phyllis Ellis
Production Company: Proximity Films