Paul Simon and Friends | The Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song

The Future of Food

May 2004 •English

Before compiling your next grocery list, you might want to watch filmmaker Deborah Koons Garcia's eye-opening documentary, which sheds light on a shadowy relationship between agriculture, big business and government. By examining the effects of biotechnology on the nation's smallest farmers, the film reveals the unappetizing truth about genetically modified foods: You could unknowingly be serving them for dinner.

Swim Team

October 2016 •English

SWIM TEAM chronicles the overwhelming struggles and extraordinary triumphs of 3 young athletes with autism and shows how a swim team can bring hope to a community.

Sea the Truth

October 2010 •English

This is the planet we still know so little. We call it Earth but less than 1/3 is land, over 2/3 is water and we use that water as a dumping site for our waste and as if it's an inexhaustible "horn of plenty" for humans. Our most important ecosystem is on the verge of collapse unless we act now. At this very moment the main problem with the oceans is that they're getting emptier and emptier. If we don't do anything then we face one of the biggest disasters in history of mankind.

Suburbia

April 1984 •English

When household tensions and a sense of worthlessness overcome Evan, he finds escape when he clings with the orphans of a throw-away society. The runaways hold on to each other like a family until a tragedy tears them apart.

Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band - Live in Barcelona

October 2002 •English

On October 16, 2002, two months into his world tour in support of The Rising, Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band took the stage of the Palau Sant Jordi in Barcelona, Spain, to create the kind of soul-stirring concert experience that transforms Springsteen neophytes and fans alike into true believers.

Modern British Slavery

January 2017 •English

Explores the rise of modern slavery in the UK, giving a portrait of the dark world of forced labor through the eyes of the people involved.

The Murmuring

April 1995 •Korean

Every Wednesday at noon, women who were kidnapped for sexual purpose by the Japanese army during its imperialism and their supporters demonstrate against Japanese government to request official apology and indemnity for their crimes. This documentary portrays sexually abused old women's suppressed story of overcoming of their shame and forced silence.

Women with Eyes Open

January 1994 •French

Portraits of contemporary African women from four West African nations: Burkina Faso, Mali, Senegal and Benin.

Holy God

April 2016 •Russian

Self-portrait. In 1998 our family came under armed attack. We were able to escape and we fled Grozny. We have been silent about it since.

Seeking Mavis Beacon

August 2024 •English

Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing taught millions globally, but the software's Haitian-born cover model vanished decades ago. Two DIY detectives search for the model while posing questions about identity and artificial intelligence.

The Occupation of the American Mind

January 2016 •English

Over the past few years, Israel's ongoing military occupation of Palestinian territory and repeated invasions of the Gaza strip have triggered a fierce backlash against Israeli policies virtually everywhere in the world—except the United States. This documentary takes an eye-opening look at this critical exception, zeroing in on pro-Israel public relations efforts within the U.S.

Silvered Water

December 2014 •French

Shot by a reported “1,001 Syrians” according to the filmmakers, SILVERED WATER, SYRIA SELF-PORTRAIT impressionistically documents the destruction and atrocities of the civil war through a combination of eye-witness accounts shot on mobile phones and posted to the internet, and footage shot by Bedirxan during the siege of Homs. Bedirxan, an elementary school teacher in Homs, had contacted Mohammed online to ask him what he would film, if he was there. Mohammed, working in forced exile in Paris, is tormented by feelings of cowardice as he witnesses the horrors from afar, and the self-reflexive film also chronicles how he is haunted in his dreams by a Syrian boy once shot to death for snatching his camera on the street.

Amazona

November 2016 •Spanish

This is the story of Val and Clare: a mother and a daughter. After the tragic death of her eldest daughter, Val left her kids and family behind and escaped into the Colombian jungle in order to search for her identity. Clare was only 11 years old when her mother left and couldn't understand what she was looking for. A son who became an addict, three break-ups and a fractured family remained behind. Now Clare is pregnant and decides to confront her mother, heal the wounds of the past and try to define motherhood on her own terms. Together they go on an intimate journey exploring the boundaries between responsibility and freedom, the power of love and the meaning of family.

Casa Roshell

November 2017 •Spanish

You’d never know this is your home away from home. The surveillance camera outside shows a drab reception area and an unremarkable street in Mexico City; inside, the lights flash, but the tables are empty. Yet preparations are soon underway and fixed categories cease to apply: stubble is removed, make-up applied and strands of hair are teased into place; the camera is trained not on the men themselves, but what they see in the mirror.

Olympic: Procházka historií 2

December 2013 •Czech

The Voyagers

September 2010 •English

In the summer of 1977, NASA sent Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 on an epic journey into interstellar space. Together and alone, they will travel until the end of the universe. Each spacecraft carries a golden record album, a massive compilation of images and sounds embodying the best of Planet Earth. According to Carl Sagan, “[t]he spacecraft will be encountered and the record played only if there are advanced space-faring civilizations in interstellar space. But the launching of this bottle into the cosmic ocean says something very hopeful about life on this planet.” While working on the golden record, Sagan met and fell madly in love with his future wife Annie Druyan. The record became their love letter to humankind and to each other. In the summer of 2010, I began my own hopeful voyage into the unknown. This film is a love letter to my fellow traveler. - Penny Lane

CARA-B

April 2023 •Catalan

A desktop documentary that focuses on the Golden Record that NASA sent into space in the late 1970s. The piece reflects on issues such as the power of scientific discourse to produce revisions of the world, the evolution of the concept of the archive and the resignification of borders in the rhetoric of space colonialism.

Chuck Close

January 2007 •English

Chuck Close, an astounding portrait of one of the world's leading contemporary painters, was one of two parting gifts (her second is a film on Louise Bourgeois) from Marion Cajori, a filmmaker who died recently, and before her time. With editing completed by filmmaker Ken Kobland, Chuck Close lives the life and work of a man who has reinvented portraiture. Close photographs his subjects, blows up the image to gigantic proportions, divides it into a detailed grid and then uses a complex set of colors and patterning to reconstruct each face.

Relative

April 2022 •English

A filmmaker unearths a pervasive history of multigenerational trauma in her Italian-American family. As decades of secrets, home movies, and long-avoided conversations surface, a family once bound by tradition forges a new path forward.

AFI: I Heard a Voice

December 2006 •English

I Heard a Voice is the first live DVD from AFI that was released on December 12, 2006. The concert was filmed at the Long Beach Arena in Long Beach, California on Friday, September 15, 2006. Part of the Decemberunderground Tour, the crowd was the largest AFI had ever headlined with over 13,000 people in attendance. The title of this DVD is lifted from a line of poetry in the decemberunderground CD booklet. Underneath the song 37mm, it says: "The power went out. I turned on the radio. The power went out. I turned on the radio. The power went out. I turned on the radio....I heard a voice." The moth on the case is also from the decemberunderground booklet.