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Show Us: American Documentary Film Festival
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November 12-16
Formula Kino Horizon 
The Embassy of the United States of America in Russia and art-association CoolConnections present American Documentary Film Festival "Show Us" to be hosted by Formula Kino Horizon on November 12-16. The festival program includes five documentary movies about political caricaturist working in The Washington Post for 55 years; about street photographers who dedicated their lives to create a portrait of New York; about one day in Pasadena Unified School District in California; about young social protectors trying to change a faulty justice system in the South of U.S.; and about a doctor working in the admission department in Los Angeles County General Hospital.
The guests of the festival will be Cheryl Dunn (Everybody Street), photographer and director which films have played at numerous film festivals including, Tribeca, Edinburgh, Rotterdam, Hotdocs, Los Angeles, Havana, and on PBS; and Ryan McGarry (Code Black), doctor and director, an Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine and a physician at The Weill Medical College of Cornell University/New York Presbyterian Medical Center in New York City.
Dunn's work has been exhibited in various galleries and museums including The Tate Modern in London, Deitch Projects in New York, and the "Art in the Streets" exhibition at the Geffen Contemporary MOCA. She was one of the subjects in the documentary, book, and traveling museum exhibition Beautiful Losers. She has had two books of her photographs published, Bicycle Gangs of New York, and Some Kinda Vocation. Her documentary film Everybody Street (2013) about photographers who have used New York City streets as a major subject in their work, world-premiered at HotDocs in Toronto in spring 2013. The film includes photographers Bruce Davidson (photographer), Jill Freedman, Joel Meyerowitz, Bruce Gilden, Mary Ellen Mark, Jamel Shabazz, Ricky Powell, Martha Cooper, Elliot Erwitt, Rebecca Lepkoff, Boogie, Clayton Patterson, Jeff Mermelstein with Max Kozloff and Luc Sante.
Code Black is a first-person reflection of McGarry's own training at the Los Angeles County General Hospital, the birthplace of emergency medicine. McGarry spent five years in production on Code Black while simultaneously working the 24/7 schedule of a young doctor in training - an especially sleepless approach to first-time filmmaking. He studied English at The Pennsylvania State University and received his medical degree at The University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, a decision inspired in part by his experience as a stage IV cancer patient while in college. He is currently developing fiction, scripted projects for both film and television.
All the films will be demonstrated in English with Russian subtitles.
Festival Films:
Code Black. USA 2014, 78 min. Directed by Ryan McGarry. Awards and festivals: Los Angeles International Film Festival - Best Documentary, Hamptons International Film Festival - Best Documentary, Aspen International Film Festival - Audience Award, Denver International Film Festival - Audience Award. A notorious trauma bay in an inner-city ER earns its keep as the "hurt locker of medicine" as new, idealistic and adrenaline-seeking doctors train in an environment akin to a war-zone. When the hospital moves to a swank, new building the rush fades and bureaucracy gridlocks the state of the art facility, and the doctors are faced with the unexpected realities of life and death in a safety-net health care system at the brink of overload.
Everybody Street. USA, Serbia and Montenegro 2013, 83 min. Directed by Cheryl Dunn. Everybody Street directed by Cheryl Dunn, illuminates the lives and work of New York's iconic street photographers - including Bruce Davidson, Mary Ellen Mark, Elliott Erwitt, Ricky Powell and Jamel Shabazz - and the incomparable city that has inspired them for decades. Shot by renowned photographer Cheryl Dunn on both black and white 16mm film and color HD, the documentary pays tribute to the spirit of street photography through a cinematic exploration of New York City, and captures the visceral rush, singular perseverance and at times immediate danger customary to these artists.
Gideon's Army. USA 2013, 96 min. Directed by Dawn Porter. Awards and festivals: Sundance Film Festival - Best Editing in a Documentary Film; Miami International Film Festival - Documentary Grand Prix, Documentary Audience Award; Independent Spirit Award Nomination - Best Documentary; Georgia Film Critics Association Award Nomination - Oglethorpe Award for Excellence in Georgia Cinema. Follows three young, committed Public Defenders who are dedicated to working for the people society would rather forget. Long hours, low pay and staggering caseloads are so common that even the most committed often give up.
Go Public: A Documentary Film Project. USA 2012, 90 min. Directed by Thai Alanis, Stephanie Aviles, Kimberly Bautista. Go Public: A Day in the Life of an American School District is a 90-minute documentary of one entire day in the Pasadena Unified School District. Pasadena is a racially and economically diverse community in Southern California with 28 public school campuses. Go Public tells the story of one full day from sun up to long after sundown. Public education is a privilege and a right available to everyone in our country and 90% of the nations' children attend public school. We provide a window into the world of one urban school district, the many dedicated people, the myriad of opportunities available and the complexity of effectively serving the needs of all students.
Herblock: The Black & The White. USA 2013, 95 min. Directed by Michael Stevens. Awards and festivals: TriBeCa Film Festival - participation, Writers Guild of America Award Nomination - Best Documantery Screenplay. Herbert L. Block looked to Ted Koppel like a "Vermont pharmacist" - not "the most feared editorial cartoonist in the country." And to Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, Block was ahead of everyone on Watergate just six days after the break-in: "We had thought it was probably a CIA operation… and did not think it was going to go to the White House. But Herb knew!" Block started cartooning in his Chicago teens and went on to win four Pulitzer Prizes and the Presidential Medal of Freedom during 55 years at the Washington Post. He challenged the high and the mighty without fear or favor; Senator Joe McCarthy and Richard Nixon, famously, felt the sting of Herb's pen. In Block's words, it was his job to remind our public servants that "they are, after all, public servants." Director Michael Stevens and producer George Stevens, Jr. draw on their knowledge of the Capitol and the best minds in journalism to tell the Herbert Block tale. Jules Feiffer, Gwen Ifill, Bob Schieffer, Tom Friedman, Tom Brokaw and David Brooks offer insights on how one man with an artist’s soul and a child's heart utilized his pen like a stiletto to express his belief in justice, human rights and always "watching out for the little guy" - while Jon Stewart and Lewis Black describe how Block influences 21st-century satire. The arc of Block's career takes us from World War II, to the Red Scare, our struggle for Civil Rights, Vietnam, Watergate and the conflicted media world of today - concluding with an unexpected end to the journey of the cartoonist-journalist known simply to millions as "Herblock."
Festival Schedule:
12 November, Wednesday
19:30 - Herblock: The Black & The White
13 November, Thursday
19:00 - Gideon's Army
14 November, Friday
19:00 - Everybody Street. Q&A: Cheryl Dunn
15 November, Saturday
17:00 - Go Public: A Documentary Film Project
16 November, Sunday
17:00 - Code Black. Q&A: Ryan McGarry
More info
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