In 1989, a collective of young artists gathered at a storefront health food cafe in South Central Los Angeles named “The Good Life”. Their mandate was to reject gang culture and expand the musical boundaries of hip hop. Directed by Ava DuVernay, THIS IS THE LIFE chronicles the little known story of “The Good Life” emcees, the alternative music movement they developed, and their worldwide influence on the artform.

ABEL FERRARA’S CHELSEA ON THE ROCKS documents the personalities and artistic voices that have emerged from this legendary residence in the heart of New York.

The 12-storey, 250 room Chelsea Hotel – originally built in 1883 as Manhattan’s first cooperative apartment, and the tallest building in New York until 1902 – was converted into a hotel and residence in 1905. Once considered an untouchable, impenetrable tower for writers, artists, musicians and mavericks, it has recently been claimed as a boutique hotel venture for a management company who shows blatant disregard for its formidable history.

Photography dp.

The officially landmarked building is recognized as an American cultural icon and renowned for those who have lived and created there, including Sir Arthur Clarke, Bob Dylan, Stanley Kubrick, Arthur Miller, Joni Mitchell, Dee Dee Ramone, Larry Rivers, Dylan Thomas, Mark Twain, Tennessee Williams, Milos Forman, Janis Joplin, Donald Sutherland, Patti Smith, Philip Taaffe, Dennis Hopper, Andy Warhol, Edie Sedgwick, Eugene O’Neill, Jane Fonda, Larry Rivers, Leonard Cohen, Robert Mapplethorpe, Tom Waits, Courtney Love, Sam Shepard, Charles Bukowski, Julian Schnabel, Jasper Johns, Viva, Quentin Crisp, Jimi Hendrix and many others (some of whom will appear in this film).

Beyond the famous are the little known who have made this their refuge in New York – countless writers, painters, directors, costume and lighting designers, gallerists and curators, and those who are just always there with no visible means of support. And then there are those – most famously Sid Vicious’ girlfriend Nancy Spungen – who died there.

Each of these characters fills out a cast that makes this story come together with the best of New York architecture, history, art, comedy and tragedy, all through the eyes and passion of acclaimed auteur Abel Ferrara. Interviewing current tenants, recreating scenes of events that occurred at the Chelsea and intertwining archival footage with different formats of film and video, Ferrara creates a film that breaks through the documentary mould into something that captures the essence of the Chelsea Hotel.

Directed by critically acclaimed documentary filmmaker Stacy Peralta and Executive Produced by NBA star Baron Davis and Silicon Valley entrepreneur Stephen Luczo, CRIPS AND BLOODS: MADE IN AMERICA tells the story of the Crips and Bloods, South Los Angeles’ two most infamous African-American gangs. Combining unprecedented access into the worlds of active gangs, CRIPS AND BLOODS: MADE IN AMERICA offers a compelling, character-driven documentary narrative which chronicles the decades-long cycle of destruction and despair that defines modern gang culture.

From the genesis of LA’s gang culture to the shocking, war-zone reality of daily life in the South L.A., the film chronicles the rise of the Crips and Bloods, tracing the origins of their bloody four-decades long feud.  Contemporary and former gang members offer their street-level testimony that provides the film with a stark portrait of modern-day gang life: the turf wars and territorialism, the inter-gang hierarchy and family structure, the rules of behavior, the culture of guns, death and dishonor.

Throughout the film ex-gang members, gang intervention experts, writers, activists and academics analyze many of the issues that contribute to South LA’s malaise: the erosion of identity that fuels the self-perpetuating legacy of black self-hatred, the disappearance of the African-American father and an almost pervasive prison culture in which today one out of every four black men will be imprisoned at some point in his life.