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.

A film by Ari Marcopoulos

Big wave surfers Grant “Twiggy” Baker, Brian Conley, Greg Long, Rusty Long, Frank Solomon and Anthony Tashnick call for the creation of marine protected areas in our oceans, like national parks on land, in this film by Ari Marcopoulos, presented by NRDC.

The new cartoon of the great Hayao Miyazaki –Ponyo on the Cliff– is out today in France. Anyone familiar with the work produced by Ghibli studio will be happy to find a new sort of narrative, and design. Like Miyazaki says in an interview for Le Monde, after forty years working with computers he was seeking for more freedom and more flexibility. The result is that all drawings in Ponyo are made by hand, and there is less work spent on details and shadows. This approach is reflecting the origin of animated cartoons back in the 1930s. –dp