The Doc Spot

It is one of the most astonishing and inspiring survival tales of all time. On October 13, 1972, a young rugby team from Montevideo, Uruguay, boarded a plane for a match in Chile—and then vanished into thin air. Two days before Christmas, 16 of the 45 passengers miraculously resurfaced. They had managed to survive for 72 days after their plane crashed on a remote Andean glacier. Thirty-five years later, the survivors returned to the crash site—known as the Valley of Tears—to recount their harrowing story of defiant endurance and indestructible friendship.

‘Bama Girl follows a young black woman's quest to become the Homecoming Queen at the University of Alabama. Homecoming has a rich history there, tied into centuries of privilege, tradition, and racial exclusivity. The film follows Jessica Thomas as she campaigns for Queen, running against a strictly segregated Greek system, internal black politics, and a secret association called 'The Machine' that has been controlling politics at the University for most of the past century. This is a film about the light and the dark sides of heritage-- and an unexpected microcosm of electoral politics that reflects much of what is happening across our country today. (72 min.)

Detective Lieutenant Laurel Hester spent 25 years investigating tough cases in Ocean County, New Jersey, protecting the rights of victims and putting her life on the line. She had no reason to expect that in the last year of her life, after she was diagnosed with terminal cancer, that her final battle for justice would be for the woman she loved. The film chronicles Laurel's struggle to transfer her earned pension to her domestic partner, Stacie Andree. With less than six months to live, Laurel refuses to back down when her elected officials - the Ocean County Freeholders -deny her request to leave her pension to Stacie, an automatic option for heterosexual married couples. The film is structured chronologically, following both the escalation of Laurel's battle with the Freeholders and the decline of her health as cancer spreads to her brain. (38 min.)

In Bali, Indonesia, 27-year-old Schappelle Corby sits in Kerobokan Prison for a crime she insists she didn't commit: attempting to bring ten pounds of marijuana into the country, a crime punishable by death by firing squad. The film explores the myriad of twists and turns in this sensational case.     (92 min.)

In the picture-postcard community of North Vancouver, local bottle pickers, many of them homeless, race shopping carts down the steep hills. Murray Siple, a former snowboarder, borrows the cinematic language of extreme sports films to capture the risk and intensity of life on the very edge. (60 min.)

American Outrage documents the 35-year fight of Western Shoshone sisters, Carrie Dann and Mary Dann, against the U.S. government's attempts to take over traditional Shoshone land in Nevada, part of 60 million acres guaranteed to them in the 1863 Treaty of Ruby Valley. (56 min.)

This eye-opening film investigates the untold story of Lyme disease, an emerging epidemic larger than AIDS. Each year thousands go undiagnosed or misdiagnosed, told that their symptoms are "all in their head." Following the stories of patients and physicians as they battle for their lives and livelihoods, the film brings into focus a haunting picture of our health care system and its inability to cope with a silent terror under our skin.