Alan Berliner

Showcasing the best in international documentaries, Storyville has developed an enviable reputation since its inception more than a decade ago. Screening over 340 films, from some 70 different countries, the strand has garnered a staggering array of awards: five Oscars, 15 Griersons, three Peabodys and two International Emmys. In true, unique, Storyville style, the new series promises to deliver the strand's usual eclectic mix of compelling stories from across the globe.

Two literary women compete for 20 years: one writes for the critics; the other one, to get rich.

Jack Rebney is the most famous man you've never heard of - after cursing his way through a Winnebago sales video, Rebney's outrageously funny outtakes became an underground sensation and made him an internet superstar. Filmmaker Ben Steinbauer journeys to the top of a mountain to find the recluse who unwittingly became the "Winnebago Man".

Two directors' unexpected joint project explores life, death, imagination and existence, while examining how mental wellness and artistic expression intertwine.

No synopsis available yet.

Filmmaker Alan Berliner documents his first cousin, the poet-translator Edwin Honig, as he succumbs to Alzheimer's.

Showcasing the best in international documentaries, Storyville has developed an enviable reputation since its inception more than a decade ago. Screening over 340 films, from some 70 different countries, the strand has garnered a staggering array of awards: five Oscars, 15 Griersons, three Peabodys and two International Emmys. In true, unique, Storyville style, the new series promises to deliver the strand's usual eclectic mix of compelling stories from across the globe.

Two directors' unexpected joint project explores life, death, imagination and existence, while examining how mental wellness and artistic expression intertwine.

No synopsis available yet.

Filmmaker Alan Berliner documents his first cousin, the poet-translator Edwin Honig, as he succumbs to Alzheimer's.

Filmmaker Alan Berliner documents his first cousin, the poet-translator Edwin Honig, as he succumbs to Alzheimer's.

A documentary on the influential anthropologist Margaret Mead. Using never-before-seen archival footage, stills, interviews and dramatic re-creations, it shows the journey of how Mead became a scientist, adventurer, and international celebrity. As a true pioneer of cultural anthropology, her findings and ideas shaped how we think about ourselves.

Filmmaker Alan Berliner chronicles his lifelong battle with insomnia in this intimate documentary. The cameras roll as he tries to quiet his overly active mind so he can get a decent night's sleep, capturing the details of what it's like to suffer from a chronic sleep disorder. As he struggles to find balance, his friends and family -- who endure the worst of Berliner's bouts with insomnia -- question whether he really wants to find a cure.

Filmmaker Alan Berliner chronicles his lifelong battle with insomnia in this intimate documentary. The cameras roll as he tries to quiet his overly active mind so he can get a decent night's sleep, capturing the details of what it's like to suffer from a chronic sleep disorder. As he struggles to find balance, his friends and family -- who endure the worst of Berliner's bouts with insomnia -- question whether he really wants to find a cure.

Independent filmmaker Alan Berliner considers the power of photography and what may be lost as daily newspapers face extinction, in this documentary exploring his near-lifelong obsession with clipping and indexing photos.

Independent filmmaker Alan Berliner considers the power of photography and what may be lost as daily newspapers face extinction, in this documentary exploring his near-lifelong obsession with clipping and indexing photos.

"...Berliner's film which talks about nature, culture, and technology impresses through its outstanding classical editing technique...Berliner finds precise and original transitions..."

Alan Berliner has been chronicling the final years of his friend, cousin, and former mentor, Edwin Honig - distinguished poet, translator, critic, and teacher - into the depths of Alzheimer's disease. Among many other honors, Honig received honorary "knighthoods" from Spain and Portugal for his seminal translations of Lorca, Calderón, and Pessoa that awakened English-speaking readers to the work of these literary giants. This suite of six short films reveals a poet and wordsmith who may have lost his memory and his command of language, but still retains his sense of rhythm, rhyme and sublime musicality. And through it all, his dignity.

Alan Berliner uses the internet to track down 12 men who share his surname, and invites them over for dinner in New York.

Director Alan Berliner takes on his reclusive father as the reluctant subject of this affecting and graceful study of family history and memory. Ultimately this complex portrait is a meeting of the minds -- where the past meets the present, where generations collide and where the boundaries of family life are stretched, torn and surprisingly, at times, also healed. Berliner has transformed a story of a troubled man who has sealed himself off from life's pain into a work of universal resonance.

Director Alan Berliner takes on his reclusive father as the reluctant subject of this affecting and graceful study of family history and memory. Ultimately this complex portrait is a meeting of the minds -- where the past meets the present, where generations collide and where the boundaries of family life are stretched, torn and surprisingly, at times, also healed. Berliner has transformed a story of a troubled man who has sealed himself off from life's pain into a work of universal resonance.

"From there to here...from then to now. The soundtrack feature 33 frogs, 22 birds, lion growls, bomb whistles, a heartbeat and the chromatic scale."

Cars, trucks pedestrians and the line they cross over, by and through.

Relentless camera movements over a busy urban intersection, following the lines of force.

A student film by a fledgling master––a single-shot "research report" on Berliner's experiences as the Harpur College Film Society projectionist.

A documentary about the director's maternal grandfather.

A documentary about the director's maternal grandfather.

A documentary about the director's maternal grandfather.

City Edition immerses us in a lived experience of the fourth estate, beginning with the print-run and purchase of a single issue of the New York Times; a rapid found-footage montage of political happenings, wars, sports, celebrity, and natural disasters ensues—the whole world in bits and pieces. These disparate scenes are woven in and out of one another as though rendering visually the dissonance of reading the folded pages of a newspaper as a singular thread of events.

A one-hour experimental documentary film utilizing a vast collection of rare 16mm home movies from the 1920s through the 1950s. These home movies are exciting authentic documents of American folk history and culture, taken from the personal vantage point of the amateur photographic eye. Subjects span the entire spectrum of the traditional home movie idiom, including mixed racial, ethnic, economic and geographic sources. Structured from birth to death. The Family Album is a collage film that weaves its elements into a composite lifetime, passing through the celebrations and struggles from childhood to adulthood, from innocence to experience. It is a universal yet intimate portrait of the American family, not scripted, not rehearsed, not immune to the conflicts and contradictions underlying family life and its rituals.

A symphony of found footage scenes, each shot loosely connected to the one before.