Blog Posts by Subject: Documentary films

On Thursday, April 25th the Fort Washington Library held a special screening of the film Bully, a 2011 documentary about bullying in U.S. schools directed by Lee Hirsch, followed by a conversation about how to deal with this serious problem. Our discussion was lead by T. Burgess, an Information Assistant with an MA in School Counseling. To promote this event all the staff wore buttons, created and designed in house a few weeks before the program. These buttons were also given to teens who agreed to participate in the program. They were a huge hit!

I'm sorry to shout. But we're showing Desperately Seeking Susan and DIRECTOR SUSAN SEIDELMAN WILL BE HERE. So if ever you were going to attend a Lower East Side Heritage '80s film, this is the one. Ms. Seidelman will be speaking about her work, and there will be a Q and A after the show. Moving on...

One can scarcely think of any park in NYC — or any city, really — without envisioning the ubiquitous pigeon there as well. Despite signs requesting you not feed the birds in adjacent Bryant Park, the library has more than its share of feathered patrons.

In the 1982 documentary, Return Engagement, Timothy Leary sits before a class of high school students and says, "I think that everyone in this room, in our lifetimes, can go through as many changes and metamorphosis and mutations, as the butterflies go from cocoons to caterpillars to beautiful high-flying creatures."

Tonight at 9pm, HBO will premiere Jeffrey Schwarz's new documentary VITO: The Life of Gay Activist Vito Russo.

The 50 Documentaries to See Before You Die series on Current TV has generated a fair amount of controversy... nothing on the list predates 1988, and it's heavy on English-language films, for example. I have posted the list here with links to the NYPL BiblioCommons catalog so that you can read descriptions and put any of the DVDs on hold.