The glamour is the grind.
Exploring the gritty underbelly of the stand-up comedy scene in Los Angeles.
Trailer
Chad
Mike
Eric
Chris
Charles
Perry
Heckler
Sandy
Kristi
Michael
LAPD Officer
Dan
East meets West as the Japanese Yakuza battle drug lords and the LAPD in the streets of Los Angeles...
It’s always been a dream of mine to do a show at the Fillmore. The name itself is synonymous with legendary performances. Countless iconic musicians and comedians have been on that stage. To be a part of that history was something I’ll never forget. As much as I was trying to keep my head together before the show, I couldn’t help but feel like a tourist or just some random dude who won a contest. LET IT GO represents the culmination of material I developed on the road from 2008-2009. As always thanks to everyone who came out to my shows, laughed at the funny stuff and stared during the bombing. I hope you enjoy it. – Bill Burr
When two bumbling barbers act as agents for a talented but unknown singer, they stage a phony murder in order to get him a plum role.
Why does Doris Dörrie have a bag on her head in the interview? Consistent in the sense that in her works she always poses the question of how we want to be perceived. Dörrie takes us through the most important stages of her life, her films, her work as a mentor and teacher, and also addresses existential themes: Identity, motherhood, her role as a woman. And she talks openly about fears, setbacks and crises, such as the untimely death of her partner and cameraman Helge Weindler. "Shut up and breathe", the advice of a Tibetan lama, carries her through life - even beyond the screen.
Between February and April 2025, filmmakers Bernard-Henri Lévy and Marc Roussel filmed the Pokrovsk and Soumy fronts in eastern Ukraine, following the fighters of the Anne de Kyiv Brigade, armed by France. They filmed the daily lives of the inhabitants, bombarded by Russian forces terrorizing civilians on the eve of possible negotiations. They interview President Zelenskyy, who is reluctant to travel to Washington, and then watch the rebroadcast of the meeting with Ukrainian soldiers in a bunker. For the real heroes are the anonymous fighters and civilians who hold their heads high in the face of adversity and suffering, and who are filmed on a daily basis. The final part of Lévy’s “Ukrainian Quartet”, Our War is a diary, peppered with flashbacks in which the author recalls the high points of this war that began in 2014.
An American low-budget action film celebrated an unexpected worldwide success in 1988: "Bloodsport". With its, the world of film fans and martial arts cinema discovered a new idol: Jean-Claude Van Damme. In the 1970s there was Bruce Lee, but at the end of the 1980s a Belgian won the day. Van Damme was a karate master and had unparalleled strength and flexibility. For ten years he was one of Hollywood's hottest action stars. But excessive overconfidence and drugs bring him down again. At home in Europe he becomes a laughing stock on talk shows. Only with "JCVD" does he manage to get back on his feet, playing his character with perspective and self-irony, but without ever giving up the reputation that his action films brought him and which has been a cult for several generations. The highs and lows of his eventful life are told through archive footage and contributions from people close to the popular Belgian actor.
Leah and Purity are rangers in the Kenyan bushland. They roam around Amboseli National Park every day to track down wildlife. The Maasai shepherds also have their villages here. Conflicts can hardly be avoided. The young women are often called to missions to mediate or comfort. The two Maasai women themselves have to fight against discrimination
For all his bad taste, Roy Chubby Brown is undeniably something of a phenomena. For over 20 years, he has built an extremely strong career solely on the basis of his live comedy shows and has done incredibly well at it.
Chuck and Buck are childhood best friends whose lives have taken very different paths. While Chuck moved away and now has a real life, Buck stayed behind and developed a dangerous fixation—on Chuck's life.
Reminiscent of Sunset Boulevard, the action is transposed from the silver screen's old backlots to contemporary male prostitution and the pornographic industry.
This is a great performance. Through yelling and energetic story-telling, he talks about marriage, drugs, being arrested (thanks to his ex-wife), pleasing women, religion, and much, much more.
A place with stairs, but that leads to walls. A place with lots of space, but no one fights for it. And a place with lots of owners, but so empty that no one wants to enter.
Starring Sigmund Freud is a video memento for Sigmund Freud's little-known film career. Based on an essay John Menick published in Frieze in 2011, the video collects the dozens of appearances that the character of Sigmund Freud has made on small and big screens. After the 1950s, when pill vials replaced analytic couches, the father of psychoanalysis found a second career impersonating himself in everything from a John Huston clunker to a Star Trek episode. The video suggests that maybe it is in front of the camera, alongside surgically enhanced starlets and CGI chimeras, that “Herr Doktor” will find his final resting place. This video was produced by the Kadist Foundation and commissioned by dOCUMENTA (13).
Voices in Wartime is a 2004 documentary that explores the human experience of war through poetry. Combining interviews with soldiers, journalists, and historians, it reveals how war affects individuals and societies across time and place. The film features poets from around the world – from Homer and Wilfred Owen to Shoda Shinoe and modern writers in Iraq and Nigeria – showing how poetry expresses the pain, trauma, and truth of conflict. By linking verse with real-life accounts, Voices in Wartime highlights how poetry helps us understand the emotional and moral impact of war.
A feature documentary about Ohio-based artist Sparks McFly and his friends as they attempt to conceptualize, write, record, and produce a rap album over the course of just 7 days.
After breaking up with her fiancé, a gym teacher returns to work at a women's college, but a legal loophole allows him to enroll as one of her students.
A glamorous film star rebels against the studio, her pushy press agent and a family of hangers-on.
Produced in 2014, this documentary about the making of TIE ME UP! TIE ME DOWN! features interviews with director Pedro Almodóvar; actors Antonio Banderas, Victoria Abril, Loles León, and Rossy de Palma; producer Agustín Almodóvar; production manager Esther García; and cinematographer José Luis Alcaine.
A filmmaker’s meditation on loss and grief. A digital eulogy and swan song to his creative partner and best friend. Mixed media woven into the fading daydream of their time together.
People from different ethnic backgrounds with "difficult" names by Western standards share their experience with moving through the world with an identity that challenges others to simply just say their name. A short social docu-film by Mariam Meliksetyan, “Say My Name” is a meditation on identity, otherness, assimilation, community, and ancestral roots.