CASTING BY

Directed by Tom Donahue
Our8s and Creative Chaos
in association with Tashtego Films

A feature documentary about the history and impact of the Hollywood Casting Director featuring the accomplishments of the "one-woman casting revolution" Marion Dougherty. Legendary casting director Marion Dougherty had a career in movies and television that spanned 50 years. Marion Dougherty's legacy, represented in over 100 motion pictures  and over 1,000 television programs, brought to screens the likes of Al Pacino, Glenn Close, Robert Redford, Dustin Hoffman, Gene Hackman, Richard Gere, Christopher Walken, Mel Gibson, Debra Winger, Robert Duvall, Diane Lane, Brooke Shields, Brendan Fraser, Martin Sheen and Bette Midler, and enduring, timeless movie unforgettables such as The Sting, Midnight Cowboy, Slaughterhouse-Five, Lenny, Pretty Baby, The Last  Picture Show, The Killing Fields, A Little Romance, The Great Gatsby, The Man Without a Face, Lethal Weapon and Batman.






FULL BATTLE RATTLE

Directed by Tony Gerber and Jesse Moss
A Market Road/Mile End/Don't Foam/
Pop's Paper Route/Tashtego Films Production

In the Mojave Desert, the US Army has built a "virtual Iraq" and populated it with hundreds of Iraqi role players. The film follows an Army battalion through the simulation as they attempt to quell an insurgency and prevent Medina Wasl, a mock Iraqi village from slipping into civil war. Comic, surreal and poignant, the film provides a revelatory look at the soul of the American war machine, and finds a potent allegory of the Iraq War and the cultural and religious differences that confound America's efforts. Premiered at the 2008 Berlin Film Festival and South by Southwest.

Visit official website for news and screenings.
 

THE TOPDOG DIARIES

Directed by Oren Jacoby
For ITVS, PBS/Stage on Screen

An intimate portrait of playwright Suzan-Lori Parks featuring actors Don Cheadle and Jeffrey Wright and director George C.Wolfe. In this inside look at the creative process, Parks spends two years struggling to produce her 2002 Pulitzer Prize-winning play, Topdog/Underdog. A true American success story, this triumphant Broadway debut takes daring chances to define a distinctive new voice that can shake up American theater and still find a place in the mainstream. From her early mentorship years with the legendary James Baldwin to her recent marriage to a blues musician, this film charts an astonishing story complete with behind-the-scenes footage of rehearsals and close-up coverage of the play.



CHANGING STAGES

In a six-part series, Sir Richard Eyre, one of the world's leading theater directors and former director of Britain's Royal National Theatre, shares his passion for the theater and his personal view of key moments of the 20th Century stage.An impressive cast joins Richard Eyre, including John Geilgud and Jason Robards (each in one of his last ever interviews), Peter Brook, Caryl Churchill, Stephen Daldry, Judi Dench, David Hare, Kim Hunter, Tony Kushner, Arthur Laurents, Robert Lepage, Ian McKellan, Arthur Miller, Liam Neeson, Trevor Nunn, Harold Pinter, Sidney Poitier, Harold Prince, Luise Rainer, Stephen Rea, Vanessa Redgrave, Sam Shepard, Fiona Shaw, Stephen Sondheim, Tom Stoppard, Julie Taymor, August Wilson, George C. Wolfe and many others. Visit website here.





TANTALUS: BEHIND THE MASK

Fifteen years in the writing, seven months in rehearsal, and over ten hours in the playing, Sir Peter Hall's production of John Barton's epic play cycle "Tantalus" premiered at the Denver Center For the Performing Arts. The production brought together an outstanding international cast, a Greek designer, a Japanese lighting designer, an American choreographer, and an Irish composer to create one of the most extraordinary and ambitious theatrical journeys undertaken in world theater.

The feature-length documentary employs the text and action of Barton's stage play as a metaphor for all that goes on behind the scenes in mounting this historic world-premiere event. Interweaving brilliant performances with intimate backstage footage -- from the dedication, love, fear, faith, joy, trials, and triumph shared by the cast and crew, to the heart-breaking creative tensions between Peter Hall and John Barton.