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4 Little Girls

On September 15, 1963, a bomb destroyed a black church in Birmingham, Alabama, killing four young girls who were there for Sunday school. It was a crime that shocked the nation — and a defining moment in the history of America’s civil-rights movement. Now, nearly 35 years later, acclaimed filmmaker Spike Lee tells the full story of the bombing, through heart-wrenching testimonials from surviving members of the victims’ families, insights from Bill Cosby, Walter Cronkite, Andrew Young, Coretta Scott King and many others, and a rare and revealing interview with former Alabama Governor George Wallace. This film was nominated for an Academy Award.

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A century ago, in the shadow of the Statue of Liberty, one of the world’s great public hospitals was built. As America’s first line of defense against immigrant-borne contagious diseases, the Ellis Island Hospital was both welcoming and foreboding: Those nursed to health were allowed entry to America, while those deemed too sick or “feeble-minded” were deported. After World War I, as America began shutting its borders, the hospital became mired in the politics of immigration, and by the 1930’s it fell into disuse and decay. Forgotten Ellis Island, the first documentary film about this remarkable institution, tells its compelling history through interviews with former patients and medical staff, never-before-published photographs, and exclusive footage of the abandoned hospital.

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Family Business features an ex-Marine, Howie Snyder, who is trying to raise a family while trying even harder to keep a pizza franchise afloat. A combination of Willie Loman and Horatio Alger, he pushes his wife and six children to work at the pizza parlor so he won’t have to pay employees. Howie is also an entertainer — he sings and plays the banjo for customers when he isn’t stoking the oven or begging the headquarters of Shakey’s Pizza not to shut him down for falling behind on payments. His children love him loyally, but also resent him bitterly for keeping them chained to a sinking business. Those tensions lead to an explosive family meeting, the climax in this portrait of a struggling entrepreneur.