Godfathers and Sons
Director Marc Levin travels to Chicago with hip-hop legend Chuck D (from Public Enemy) and Marshall Chess (son of Leonard Chess and heir to the legacy of Chess Records) to explore the heyday of the Chicago blues and how they come together to produce an album that seeks to bring veteran blues players along with contemporary hip hop musicians. Along with never before seen footage from Howlin 'Wolf, Muddy Waters and Paul Butterfield Blues Band, they are original performances by Koko Taylor, Otis Rush, Magic Slim, Ike Turner and Sam Lay.
Marc Levin
Casts & Crew
Also Directed by Marc Levin
Explores the realities of death-row inmates inside Huntsville (Texas) Unit, a prison with the highest number of executions in 1997. Features interviews with prisoners, guards, officials, lawyers and victims' family members.
The true-life story of a Harlem's notorious Nicky Barnes, a junkie turned multimillionaire drug-lord. Follow his life story from his rough childhood to the last days of his life.
A documentary about the rise of anti-Semitism in the USA after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta explores how advances in neuroscience are shedding light on the origins and impact of stress.
From its beginning during the Reagan years through current times, the War on Drugs has left many victims stranded in the prison system. PRISONERS OF THE WAR ON DRUGS reveals life behind bars in the nation’s prisons. Each prisoner has his or her own story, but for most, the story is predictably similar; they have been criminalized for drugs or drug related offenses, locked up with easy access to substances, and given little opportunity for rehabilitation. This film provides an inside look at the prison system, its prisoners and a war on drugs we do not seem to be winning.
Slam tells the story of Ray Joshua, an original, gifted young MC trapped in a war-zone housing project known as Dodge City. Unable to find a job, Ray copes with the despair and poverty of his neighborhood by using his wits and verbal talent. Written by Offline Publicist Young Ray Joshua lives in the Washington, DC, district known as Dodge City, which is dominated by gang wars. One day he is arrested when his drug dealer is gunned down while talking to him. He is put to prison where two rival gangs, Thug Life and the Union, want to recruit him as a member.
Anna Deavere Smith transforms herself into scores of individuals -- using only their words and duplicating their speech patterns, mannerisms, dress, and attitudes -- in a mosaic set in the violent aftermath of the 1992 Rodney King trial and verdict. These verbatim portrayals bring together adversaries, victims, eyewitnesses, and observers who have never stood within the same four walls, let alone spoken to each other. In her signature performance style, Smith embodies and gives voice to scores of real-life "characters" -- from LAPD Police Chief Daryl Gates to a gang member, from Korean store owners to a white juror, from Reginald Denny to Congresswoman Maxine Waters -- black, white, Asian, Latino. Because she is able to speak the words and convey the deeply held sentiments of so many different people, Smith enables her audience members to hear what they might otherwise discount.
FREEWAY: CRACK IN THE SYSTEM tells the story of broken dreams, drug dealers, dirty cops, and government complicity—more compelling than fiction, it’s the real story behind America’s longest war. This documentary by award-winning filmmaker Marc Levin (SLAM, Mr. Untouchable, Brick City) exposes how the infiltration of crack cocaine destroyed inner-city neighborhoods across the country. At the center of it all is the rise, fall and redemption of Freeway Rick Ross, a street hustler who became the King of Crack, and journalist Gary Webb, who broke the story of the CIA’s complicity in the drug war. Featuring exclusive interviews with Freeway Rick Ross, not to be confused with the rapper who took his name Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Gary Webb, his source Coral Baca, and wife Susan Webb former Los Angeles Deputy Sheriff Roberto Juarez drug trafficker Julio Zavala and many more.
In a virtually all-white Iowa town, Flip daydreams of being a hip-hop star, hanging with Snoop Doggy Dogg and Dr. Dre. He practices in front of a mirror and with his two pals, James and Trevor. He talks Black slang, he dresses Black. He's also a wannabe pusher, selling flour as cocaine. And while he talks about "keeping it real," he hardly notices real life around him: his father's been laid off, his mother uses Food Stamps, his girlfriend is pregnant, James may be psychotic, one of his friends (one of the town's few Black kids) is preparing for college, and, on a trip to Chicago to try to buy drugs, the cops shoot real bullets. What will it take for Flip to get real?
A look at NYC’s gentrification and growing inequality in a microcosm, Class Divide explores two distinct worlds that share the same Chelsea intersection – 10th Avenue and 26th Street. On one side of the avenue, the Chelsea-Elliot Houses have provided low-income public housing to residents for decades. Their neighbor across the avenue since 2012 is Avenues: The World School, a costly private school. What happens when kids from both of these worlds attempt to cross the divide?