Progressive Film Hour

Progressive Film Hour - Emily Driscoll - 10/14/14

This week's featured films are by the same filmmaker, Emily Driscoll, who will be part of the Round Table. Emily is a science video director/producer and the founder of BonSci Films, a production company specializing in science and art documentaries. Her films about invasive species, restoring wild oysters to New York Harbor, the threats of microplastics, and preserving fireflies and darkness in the environment, have screened internationally at museums, universities and film fests, and have aired on PBS stations in the U.S.. Emily teaches science video production at New York University's Science, Health and Environmental Reporting Program and received her master's degree from the same program in 2007. She has also produced short videos for Science Friday, Audubon Magazine and NBC Universal.

The films discussed are Shell-Shocked, Saving Oysters to Save Ourselves and two shorter films, The Invisible Ocean, about what is happening to plankton, the beginning of our food chain and Hutaru, about the disappearance of lightning bugs aka fireflies from our planet.

In Shell-Shocked, Saving Oysters to Save Ourselves follows efforts to prevent the extinction of wild oyster reefs, which keep our oceans healthy by filtering water and engineering ecosystems. Today, because of overfishing and pollution, wild oyster reefs have been declared 'the most severely impacted marine habitat on Earth' and no longer play a role in their ecosystems. Now scientists, government officials, artists and environmentalists are fighting to bring oysters back to the former oyster capital of the world - New York Harbor.

The Invisible Ocean, follows NYC sci-artist Mara Haseltine as she creates a sculpture to reveal a microscopic threat beneath the surface of the ocean. During a Tara Oceans expedition to study the health of the oceans, Haseltine finds an unsettling presence in samples of plankton she collected. The discovery inspires her to create a sculpture that shows that the microscopic ocean world affects all life on Earth.

Brilliant Darkness: Hotaru in the Night is an exploration of firefly conservation efforts in Japan and the US. The film considers the challenges, implications and significance of night and its crucial role in animal biology and life cycles.

Progressive Film Hour - Art And Craft - 10/07/14

Sam Cullman is a cinematographer, director and editor of documentaries, and the founder of Animated Advocacy, a video production company providing services for nonprofit organizations. Cullman graduated from Brown University in 1999, receiving a degree in Urban Studies and Visual Arts.

 Sam was one of the cameramen on Why We Fight, which won Sundance's Grand Jury Prize for documentaries in 2005. He was a cinematographer on the 2007 documentary King Corn.

 On January 24, 2012, Cullman and Marshall Curry were both nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature for the film If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front.. At the 84th Academy Awards, their film lost to Undefeated. In 2012, Cullman and Benjamin Rosen made Black Cherokee, a short subject, premiering in November 2012 as part of DOC NYC, a documentary film festival.

Art and Craft starts out as a cat-and-mouse art caper, rooted in questions of authorship and authenticity-but what emerges is an intimate story of obsession and the universal need for community, appreciation and life-purpose.

Mark Landis has been called one of the most prolific art forgers in US history. His impressive body of work spans thirty years, covering a wide range of painting styles and periods that includes 15th Century Icons, Picasso, and even Walt Disney. And while the copies could fetch impressive sums on the open market, Landis isn’t in it for money.

Posing as a philanthropic donor, a grieving executor of a family member’s will, and most recently as a Jesuit priest, Landis has given away hundreds of works over the years to a staggering list of institutions across the United States. But after duping Matthew Leininger, a tenacious registrar who ultimately discovers the decades-long ruse and sets out to expose his philanthropic escapades to the art world, Landis must confront his own legacy and a chorus of museum professionals clamoring for him to stop.

Tune in to hear filmmaker Sam Cullman and Mitchell Rabin discuss the film and the questions around what is art, forms of artistic gift and genius and definitions of creativity.

Progressive Film Hour - La Petite Chambre - 09/30/14

Tuesday September 30, 3pm EDT : Mitchell will discuss the film, La Petite Chambre, with its filmmakers 

Stephanie Chuat and Veronique Reymond.  Both trained as actresses, Stéphanie Chuat and Véronique Reymond have been active in theater since the age of fifteen in both Switzerland and France.

Besides working with stage and movie directors, they created the Switch Company, writing and performing their own theatre shows. In April 2010, they launched the theatre adaptation of Nancy Huston’s novel FAULT LINES (Lignes de Faille). They took their first steps into film by including video installations into their stage work and have since also co-wrote and directed five short-films and two documentaries together.

The film is about an elderly Edmond, who one day, a bad fall forces him to accept Rose’s help. Eventually, the two grow closer. The young woman finds relief in confiding painful memories to the older man; things she cannot even bring herself to tell her husband. Meanwhile, Edmond, too, opens up, sharing recollections of his beloved wife.

The film highlights a number of very human emotions, circumstances and conditions, several of which are generally taboo for open conversation in families and society, such as the experience of giving birth to a still-born child, the dilemmas surrounding aging and the pros and cons of committing one’s parents to a nursing facility, and issues around identity, conformity and loss.  A very human, emotional film, it has much to open us to in our own experience and attitudes/perspectives toward these matters very close to home.

Purchase this DVD 

Progressive Film Hour - 09/23/14

Tuesday September 23, 3pm EDT :  This week's film is Disruption (http://vimeo.com/105412070), all about Climate Change, and is a countdown to the Climate March.   

Round Table guests are the filmmakers, Kelly Nyks & Jared P. Scott, plus Patrick Lovell and Adam Bronfman of Forward 13. 


Kelly Nyks is an award-winning writer and director of narrative and documentary films, Kelly has worked across Europe, Asia and America. He most recently directed and produced DISRUPTION - the story of the greatest crisis mankind has ever faced and the movement rising to fight it. He is a partner at PF Pictures.

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Jared P. Scott is an award-winning Filmmaker and Partner at PF Pictures. He most recently directed and produced DISRUPTION - the story of our unique moment in history - of crossing thresholds, of tipping points - as we're the first generation to feel the impact of climate change and the last that can do something about it. Weaving together the science, politics and the movement, the film also takes us behind-the-scenes of the lead-up to The People's Climate March - the largest climate rally in the history of the planet. He has produced & directed numerous philanthropic mini-docs for NGOs and advocacy groups in the Americas, Africa and Asia on issues from medical care to tsunami relief to climate adaptation. In broadcast television, Jared is a PROMAX award-nominated editor with hundreds of on-air promos to his credit. Jared is also a musician.

Patrick Lovell, who worked as a Senior Producer on the nationally syndicated television program, ‘Home Team', which lent a hand to aspiring first-time homeowners home ownership became his nightmare when the global financial market crashed in 2008, leaving him jobless and with a mortgage he could no longer afford. Armed with a camera, Lovell set out to discover why the American Dream failed him and millions of others in FORWARD 13: WAKING UP THE AMERICAN DREAM. 

Adam Bronfman, born in March 1963, is a businessman and philanthropist. Adam is the president of The Samuel Bronfman Foundation, and of the Adam R. Bronfman Family Foundation. Bronfman runs several businesses including Rickdiculous Racing, LLC, a motorcycle coaching service based in Tooele, Utah. Adam and his wife, Cindy, have four adult children and live in Park City, Utah. 

Through a relentless investigation of climate change, the film, Disruption takes an unflinching look at the devastating consequences of our both negative actions largely in energy production, and our overall inaction to date, in shifting more completely globally to a new, renewable energy paradigm, reviewing the cost to humanity, all species and the Earth Herself. 

The exploration lays bare the terrifying science, the shattered political process, the unrelenting industry special interests and the civic stasis that have brought us to this social, moral and ecological crossroads.The film also takes us behind-the-scenes of the efforts to organize the largest climate rally in the history of the planet during the UN world climate summit. 

This is the story of our unique moment in history. We are living through an age of tipping points and rapid social and planetary change. We're the first generation to feel the impacts of climate disruption, and the last generation that can do something about it. The film enlarges the issue beyond climate impacts and makes a compelling call for bold action that is strong enough to tip the balance to build a clean energy future. 

Join us in our new time slot on Progressive Radio Network, Tuesdays at 3pm EDT, featuring a film that is focused on Climate Change and the Countdown to today's landmark Climate March (see below). 

Progressive Documentary Hour - 09/08/14

Guests Carolyn Miles, Dr. Nina Meyerhoff, and Michael Dudko, filmmaker of Kids’ Rights; will be discussing our nation's future "children."

Progressive Documentary Hour - 08/11/14

Tonight's film Mitchell is featuring is the award-winning documentary, The End of Poverty, a powerful film describing how the indigenous peoples of the Americas were raped and pillaged by the Europeans and how this corrupted these ancient civilizations and left them like empty husks contributing to a cycle of poverty for hundreds of years continuing into today.

Progressive Documentary Hour - Michael Rossato Bennett - 08/04/14

This week's featured film on Progressive Film Hour with Mitchell Rabin is the award-winning film, ALIVE INSIDE, a very moving film tracking the effect music has had in re-enliving the geriatric population suffering from dementia and Alzheimers, restoring memory, vitality and raison-d'etre.   Mitchell will be joined in discussion about the film with filmmaker Michael Rossato Bennett and founder of Music & Memory, Dan Cohen.   Michael is the Writer, Director and Producer of ALIVE INSIDE – winner of the 2014 Sundance Film Festival Audience Award for U.S. Documentary – and through film he strives to incite conversations that interrogate issues related to cultural consciousness. . Description: Image removed by sender. Dan CohenDan is founder and executive director of Music & Memory, which promotes the use of digital music players with individualized playlists to improve the quality of life for elders, regardless of their cognitive or physical status. He received his MSW from Adelphi University. Dan has spent most of his career helping individuals and organizations better leverage technology. Music & Memory operates in hundreds of long-term care homes across the U.S. and abroad.   ALIVE INSIDE is a joyous cinematic exploration of music's capacity to reawaken our souls and uncover the deepest parts of our humanity. The film chronicles the astonishing experiences of individuals around the country who have been revitalized through the simple experience of listening to music. His camera reveals the uniquely human connection we find in music and how its healing power can triumph where prescription medication falls short.

Progressive Documentary Hour - Forks Over Knives - 07/28/14

Tonight’s guest is Dr. Gabriel Cousens M.D., M.D.(H.), N.D.(h.c.), D.D., Diplomate Ayurveda, Diplomate American Board of Holistic Medicine.  Gabriel functions as a true and complete holistic physician, homeopath, psychiatrist, family therapist, Ayurvedic practitioner, Chinese herbalist, world leading diabetes researcher, ecological leader, spiritual master, founder and director of Tree of Life Foundation, Tree of Life Center US, Cousens School of Holistic Wellness, and bestselling author of the books There Is a Cure for Diabetes, Conscious Eating, Spiritual Nutrition: Six Foundations for Spiritual Life and Awakening of Kundalini, Rainbow Green Live Food Cuisine, Creating Peace by Being Peace, Torah as a Guide to Enlightenment, and Depression Free for Life.  

The other member of the Roundtable is Viktoras Kulvinskas. , Viktoras has been carrying the message of the imperatives of eating raw foods, taking enzyme-based nutritional supplements and living holistically for many years. He has an amazing history that has resulted in millions of people seeking a natural way to live and often healing themselves of illness. He rightly takes into consideration the whole person, with an understanding of how, in addition to the physical components, mental, emotional and spiritual issues affect our health.

Progressive Documentary Hour - Urban Roots - 07/21/14

 Mitchell’s guests tonight are URBAN ROOTS producer Leila Connors and Permaculture expert, Michael Judd. Produced by Leila Conners (The 11th Hour) Mark MacInnis and Mathew Schmid, the film follows the urban farming phenomenon in Detroit. Urban Roots is a timely, moving and inspiring film that speaks to a nation grappling with collapsed industrial towns and the need to forge a sustainable and prosperous future.

Progressive Documentary Hour - Plan B with Lester Brown - 07/07/14

This week’s film is Plan B, narrated by Matt Damon, Plan B is a 90-minute film based on the book by environmental visionary Lester Brown who will be discussing the themes of the film with Mitchell on tonight’s show.