Film Guide
Documentary

A Hard Trade Rebuilding Broken Lives 
Short - 30 minutes

''A Hard Trade: Rebuilding Broken Lives'' is a new, original documentary, produced by MediaLab at Pacific Lutheran University. ''A Hard Trade'' chronicles the progress of several female offenders enrolled in the Trades Related Apprenticeship Coaching (TRAC) program, a 14-week course at the Washington Corrections Center for Women that boasts a 95 percent success rate for those who complete it.

Dive  
Full Feature - 44 minutes

Follow filmmaker Jeremy Seifert and his circle of friends as they dumpster dive in the back alleys and gated garbage receptacles of L.A.'s supermarkets. In the process they uncover thousands of dollars worth of good food and an ugly truth about waste in America: grocery stores know they are wasting and most refuse to do anything about it.

Flunked 
Full Feature - 49 minutes

Results of national and international tests show that our students are falling further and further behind. The average American student is no longer able to compete with foreign students, and in many cases, they’re failing to meet even basic academic standards.

Success rates are plummeting, and remediation and dropout rates are skyrocketing. Students entering the current American education system are in for a grim ride. It truly is a national scandal.
Flunked is the story of these schools—their founders, leaders, and students—who are breaking the mediocre mold by attaining great results in terms of college preparation, high test scores, and graduating competent workers for tomorrow’s economy. Discovering that one size truly does not fit all, they are finding different ways to make it work in their area, with their students.

Gotta Dance 
Full Feature - 93 minutes

GOTTA DANCE is BAD NEWS BEARS morphed into the flip side of MAD HOT BALLROOM.

GOTTA DANCE the movie chronicles the debut of the New Jersey Nets' first-ever senior hip-hop dance team, 12 women and 1 man - all dance team newbie’s, from auditions through to center court stardom.

As smooth dance moves are perfected and performed in front of thousands, aging myths and misperceptions are pulverized.

Despite swollen ankles, exhausting rehearsals, fashion clashes and seemingly impossible dance steps, the NETS national Seniors go for it, spreading joy, inspiration and cool dance moves as they hip-hop their way into the hearts of Nets fans and beyond.

Hats Off 
Full Feature - 84 minutes

With the style and grace of Katharine Hepburn, the smoky wit and wisdom of Dorothy Parker, and her own personal philosophy, ''rise above it,'' Mimi is truly an iconic American original, rising above the mundane and difficult confines of her own daily life to reach for the stars and fulfill her dreams. Hats Off captures the essence of this most unusual woman, named at age 90 by New York Magazine as one of the ''50 Most Beautiful People in New York,'' whose full-time acting career began at age 65 upon the passing of her husband, and whose daily routine mocks the traditional image of old age. From grueling 14-hour days at cattle call auditions to her weekly gymnastics and dance workouts, Mimi Weddell exudes a 'can-do, will-do' attitude in the face of life's trials and tribulations, and moves through her challenges with grace, encouraging us all to be more than we are.

Shelter to Sunlight 
Short - 13 minutes

This project is a meditation on what one may see and who one may meet while riding a train in New York City.

The Suicide Tourist 
Full Feature - 90 minutes

ALERT: Controversial Subject Matter

The controversy about a person’s right to die at a time and place of their own choosing has become focused on the Swiss organization Dignitas, and its founder Ludwig Minelli. Dignitas, in Zurich Switzerland, is the only place in the world where a person seeking an assisted suicide can be helped to die, no matter where they are from – and no matter what their state of health. For the past year, Oscar-winning Canadian director John Zaritsky has had exclusive access to Dignitas, and its clients.

In The Suicide Tourist, Zaritsky tells two interwoven stories about suicide: In the first, he follows a terminally-ill man, 59 year-old American Craig Ewert, through the last four days of his life – preparing to leave his adopted home in England for the last time, then on his journey to Zurich, and into the care of Dignitas, with whose help he will end his life. Dignitas – a kind of travel agency to the afterlife – has made all the arrangements. The death will take place in a rented apartment, where a Dignitas employee will prepare a fatal dose of sodium pentobarbital. With his wife Mary at his side, Craig will swallow the poison, and slip quietly into a final sleep. Dignitas will arrange all the necessary paperwork, the body will be cremated, and the ashes shipped home to his family.

Trash Out 
Short - 5 minutes

''On the frontlines of an American tragedy, this essay film documents the everyday experience of workers who must 'trash-out' the remains of foreclosed family homes.''