Vernon Messenger

A documentary about the rise and fall of the Cannon Film Group, the legendary independent film company helmed by Israeli cousins Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus.

Extensive documentary on the making of Tobe Hooper's infamous 1985 science fiction flop LIFEFORCE. Features interviews with Hooper, producer Michael J. Kagan, editor John Grover, actors Aubrey Morris and Nicholas Ball, makeup artist Sandra Exelby, screenwriter Michael Armstrong, sound designer Vernon Messenger, artistic designers Tom Adams and Roger Stewart and effects artist John Schoonraad.

Freedom, Nigeria's contribution to the 1957 Berlin Film Festival, was based on a play commissioned by the Moral Re-Armament Association. Based on a stage piece, the film is an unabashed paean to the MRA, demonstrating how the organization helped to check British colonialism and radical insurrection in Nigeria and bring peace to the troubled country. Subtlety is not the film's strong suit, and as a result the film seems at times to be a self-parody. Reportedly the first African production to be lensed in color, Freedom benefits from the cinematographic expertise of Scandinavia's Richard Taegstrom and Aimo Jaederman. The film was enthusiastically received at the Berlin festival, but fared less well when released internationally.