The Doc Spot

The Doc Spot film series will return in Spring 2012. Check this website in January for our upcoming screenings.

Takes a journey into the world of artificial intelligence -- a field of study where computer technology, robotics, biology, neuroscience, and developmental psychology converge --exploring not only the latest advancements and developments, but the ethical and philosophical questions raised along the way. Features interviews with scientists, engineers and established experts in this field, including American inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil and former MIT professor Joseph Weizenbaum, a pioneer in the field of AI who has since become one of its harshest critics. (91 min)

As wireless technology keeps expanding the debate surrounding the health impacts of electromagnetic waves keeps growing. Filmed in France, Israel, Sweden, and the United States, the new documentary SURROUNDED BY WAVES uses an elegant blend of interviews, archives, experiments and 3D animation to investigate what is known, and unknown, about the potential risks.

Powerful document of impacts -- environmental, economic, political, social -- from drilling for natural gas in the Rocky Mountains and southwest. In particular, pollution of water by fracking fluids is noted.

The Green Wave is a touching documentary-collage illustrating the dramatic events and telling about the feelings of the people behind this revolution. 

The film describes the experiences and thoughts of two young students and their initial hope and curiosity, their desperate fear, and the courage to yet continue to fight. These fictional 'storylines' have been animated as a motion comic – sort of a moving comic – framing the deeply affecting pictures of the revolution and the interviews with prominent human rights campaigners and exiled Iranians. Ali Samadi Ahadi's documentary is a very contemporary chronicle of the Green Revolution and a memorial for all of those who believed in more freedom and lost their lives for that.

Chronicles the political and social history of the National School Lunch Program, one of our nation's most successful social programs, from the factors that led to its creation to the current debate over its nutritional standards. The National School Lunch Program began in 1946, and now more than 60 years later, feeds more than 31 million children every day. In this documentary, leaders from all sides of the school food debate including government officials, school food service experts, activists and students, weigh in on the program and discuss ways to continue nourishing America's children for another 60 years. The documentary also follows six kids from one of the toughest neighborhoods in Chicago as they set out to fix school lunch, and end up at the White House. Their unlikely journey parallels the dramatic transformation of school lunch from a patchwork of local anti-hunger efforts to a robust national feeding program. The film tracks the behind-the-scenes details of school lunch and childhood hunger from key moments in the 1940s, 1960s and 1980s to the present, revealing political twists, surprising alliances and more common ground than people might realize.

In the small mountain town of Heber Springs, Arkansas, a portrait photographer known as Mike Disfarmer captured the lives and emotions of the people of rural America during the two World Wars and the Great Depression. Critics have hailed Disfarmer's remarkable black and white portraits as "a work of artistic genius" and "a classical episode in the history of American photography." This feature documentary discovers an American master, his influence on the modern Manhattan art world, and the legacy he left behind in his hometown of Heber Springs.

During World War II, most Americans considered war reporting “No Job for a Woman.” Women were banned from the frontlines, prevented from reporting front page stories about generals and battlefield maneuvers and assigned instead to “woman’s angle” stories about nurses and female military personnel. Fighting these restrictions, 140 women correspondents defied journalistic conventions and forever changed America’s understanding of war.

By war’s end, women reporters brought home a new kind of war story – more personal and all-encompassing, reaching beyond the battlefield and deep into human lives.  The film will tell this story through the lives of three of these pioneering women: magazine writer Martha Gellhorn, wire service reporter Ruth Cowan, and photographer Dickey Chapelle.

We've been told again and again that sports and politics don't mix. But the way sportswriter Dave Zirin sees it, this is wishful thinking. In this powerful documentary, Ziriin, the iconoclastic sports editor of The Nation magazine, takes viewers on a fascinating and uncompromising tour of the good, the bad, and the ugly of American sports culture -- showing how sports have helped both to stabilize and to disrupt the political status quo throughtout history. After first exploring how American sports, at their worst, have reinforced repressive political ideas and institutions by mindlessly glamorizing things like militarism, racism, sexism, and homophobia, Zirin excavates a largely forgotten -- and ultimately exhilarating -- history of rebel athletes who dared to fight for social justice beyond the field of play.

Examines Robert Flaherty's career as "the father of the modern documentary film" and the dispute about his staged scenes. Includes excerpts from his films as well as telling interviews with the people whose parents and grandparents Flaherty put onto the cinema screens of the world: Inuit, Samoans and the 'wild men' of Aran.

Of the thirty most industrialized nations, the U.S. has the worst record of infant mortality,with African American babies dying at three times the rate of whites. In some places, that rate equals those of many third world countries. When filmmakers David Appleby and Craig Leake discovered that their hometown of Memphis had the highest infant mortality rate in the country, they decided to follow those individuals who were working to reverse the statistics. Soon they began meeting some of the young pregnant mothers most at risk, and decided to concentrate much of their efforts on learning more about their particular circumstances. The film takes us from the neonatal intensive care unit where doctors and nurses fight for the lives of pre-term babies, to a county cemetery that buries so many infants the residents of the poorest neighborhoods call it 'Babyland.' We observe doctors, nurses, church volunteers and social workers as they try to navigate their way through dwindling resources,and we meet three teenage girls whose stories give us a glimpse into the stressful realities of the inner city - conditions that contribute significantly to the high mortality rate.

Indelible Mark: Full of emotion and thought-provoking stories, this documentary opens the experience of traumatic and acquired brain injury to anyone interested in the subject. (25 min)

How Does it Feel: Like many people, Kazumi was daunted by the idea of singing in public. But at 58, he has decided to use his awe-inspiring singing voice to channel his cerebral palsy (CP). As Kazumi draws from his exuberant, poignant and painful experiences, performer and teacher Fides Krucker guides him to embrace his inner artist. Kazumi’s one-man show features songs like Smokey Robinson’s “Tracks of my Tears,” which take on new and unexpected meaning in this moving account of self-discovery and transformation through the power of song.  (34 min)

The Doc Spot Film Series is a weekly series of outstanding documentary films covering the arts, politics, business and a wide range of current issues. This series is brought to you by the UNT Media Library.

How did two boyhood friends from Midland, Texas wind up arrested on terrorism charges at the 2008 Republican National Convention? Better This World follows the journey of David McKay (22) and Bradley Crowder (23) from political neophytes to accused domestic terrorists with a particular focus on the relationship they develop with a radical activist mentor in the six months leading up to their arrests. A dramatic story of idealism, loyalty, crime, and betrayal, Better This World goes to the heart of the War on Terror and its impact on civil liberties and political dissent in post-9/11 America. (89 min)

The Doc Spot Film Series is a weekly series of outstanding documentary films covering the arts, politics, business and a wide range of current issues. This series is brought to you by the UNT Media Library.

Primary is a 1960 documentary that follows candidate John F. Kennedy during the climax of his 1960 Wisconsin presidential primary run against Huber Humphrey.  Produced by Robert Drew and shot by Ricky Leacock, both pioneers of the American Direct Cinema film style , Primary granted audiences unprecedented access into the world of a young politician and his glamorous wife as they campaigned across the Wisconsin landscape and navigated their way through throngs of ardent supporters.  (53 min)

This documentary focuses on a unique culture found on the Staten Island Ferry, New York. This culture is made up of some of the women who frequent the women's powder room each day, not only as a place for putting on make-up, but as a safe place for sharing and camaraderie with women from diverse backgrounds. (40 min)