Films



A PBS award-winning documentary film, 4 Wheel Bob tells the story of Bob Coomber, an intrepid adventurer who sets out to be the first wheelchair hiker to cross the 11,845-foot Kearsarge Pass in the Sierra Nevada. This story of overcoming immense obstacles will inspire us to look at our own self-imposed limitations and perhaps reach beyond what we think is possible.

The PBS documentary Freeway Philharmonic follows seven San Francisco Bay Area freelance classical musicians as they perform with regional orchestras across Northern California while struggling to acquire a permanent position with a major symphony. It depicts their efforts to balance a love of music with a road warrior lifestyle that often requires traveling hundreds of miles a day to rehearse, teach and perform.

In this video documentary, classical musicians do a lot more than just show up for their orchestra gigs. Here are true tales of the city from two musicians whose creativity defies categories. Harpist Boris Goldmund and tuba player Zachary Spellman are very different people, but they share the ability to see beyond the notes to the universals behind musical styles. Their tales are stories of creativity finding its own outlets among the possibilities of a great city.

This Telly award winning video goes behind-the-scenes to experience the modern-day premiere of Rameau’s masterwork — Le Temple de la Gloire (The Temple of Glory) — fully staged as Rameau intended, for the first time since the opera’s 1745 premiere. The magnificent libretto is by Voltaire. The original manuscript is housed at UC Berkeley’s Hargrove Music Library, making Berkeley’s Zellerbach Hall the ideal setting for three spectacular performances. This co-production with Cal Performances and Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles represents a collaboration years in the making.

Drawn Together: Comics, Diversity and Stereotypes looks at the pervasive culture of racist stereotyping in U.S. society through the lens of comics and their dynamic creators.

Hard Problems is a feature length documentary about the extraordinarily gifted students who represented the United States in 2006 at the world's toughest math competition: the International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO). It is the story of six U.S. high school students who competed with 500 others from 90 countries in Ljubljana, Slovenia and captures the spirit that infuses the mathematical quest at the highest level.

Stana Katic from ABC's prime-time show "Castle" stars in this haunting mystery thriller set in Ireland. When a young American woman is found dead on a beach in Ireland, her best friend travels to the remote fishing village to investigate what really happened to her. It isn't long before she realizes that the village may be hiding more secrets than she thought, and her friend's death may have been no accident.

The Bridge So Far is a multiple Emmy winning documentary on the wild and troubled history of the new east span of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge. Addressing what State Senator Tom McClintock calls "one of the great fiascos of the 20th and 21st centuries in California history," this documentary finds both the humor and the drama in that story.

A small traveling carnival owned and operated by the Sullivan family struggles to keep their way of life, despite being told by town after town that they are no longer welcome. Faced with what lies ahead, they work to keep their band of misfits and drifters together even though it may be the end of the road.

Counting from Infinity is a study of Yitang Zhang's rise from obscurity and a disadvantaged youth to mathematical celebrity after making an important breakthrough towards solving the Twin Prime Conjecture. The story of quiet perseverance amidst adversity, and Zhang's preference for thinking and working in solitude, is interwoven with a history of the Twin Prime Conjecture.

Four friends embark on a cross-country journey to Las Vegas in an old RV to stop a wedding and save a friend from losing the love of his life.

Four survivors take us inside the experience of traumatic brain injury (TBI) to reveal their personal stories of devastation, heroism and hope.

A documentary about the life of Miya Rodolfo-Sioson, the lone survivor of the November 1, 1991 University of Iowa shooting. Following her injury, Miya became a quadriplegic, but her disability has not prevented this determined woman from helping others. The film portrays Miya's life as an activist, following her as she overcomes many challenges and fights for the rights of others she sees as less fortunate than herself.

The return voyage of Americans who had lived in Sierra Leone in their youth as Peace Corps Volunteers. Decades older, when these Americans come again to give assistance in rebuilding a war-torn country, they find that the generosity and spirit of the Sierra Leone people has miraculously survived the brutality of war.

The Secrets of Medea, adapted from the novel "Les Silences de Médéa" is the story of a young Muslim woman's escape from the Algerian Civil War in the 90's.