S31.E7 ∙ New Writers, New Musicals: Jonathan Larson® Grants 2009

This is a feature documentary set in Dublin, Ireland in the early years of the twentieth century, a time of political ferment and the forging of a new Irish cultural identity. It tells the story of Hugh Lane's hard fought project to establish a public modern art gallery, showing the work of living artists, his untimely death on the Lusitania and his contested will. It's a story that continues in the here and now, as Citizen Lane plays its part in the long-running, still charged, campaign to recover Lane's Bequest of 39 "Continental" paintings, including masterpieces by Monet, Renoir, Manet, and Pissarro, for Ireland. In a narrative intercut with scripted drama, acted by a distinguished cast including Tom Vaughan-Lawlor and Sir Michael Gambon, a series of "character interviews" with Lane's friends and family develops a story richly illustrated with the paintings now hanging in the gallery founded by Lane, one of the greatest benefactors of the arts in Ireland, and the paintings lost for now to the National Gallery in London.

Holy Man is the story of Douglas White, an 88 year old Lakota Sioux medicine man from Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, who spent 17 years in federal prison for a crime he did not commit. During the making of this film, filmmakers uncovered new evidence of White's innocence and brought the case back to Federal Court. Holy Man offers a rare glimpse into the mysterious world of Lakota religion, their intimate connection to the land, and a provocative expose of the systemic injustice that Native Americans face in the criminal justice system.

Through the testimonies of friends and relatives of victims of road accidents, Paul Arcand portrays the driving habits of young people, who are sometimes victims and sometimes responsible for fatal accidents. Recklessness, the thirst for adrenaline and thrills says sometimes dangerous behaviors like excessive speeding, while alcohol remains a major cause of accidents. Of Quebec in Ville Mont-Royal, to Drummondville, victims talk about their grief and their habits at the exit bars. Internationally, young drivers how are they treated? These behaviors are they exclusive to young drivers?

Yassine El Idrissi is trying to make a graduation film for his Masters degree. He wants to shoot an Iranian style movie in Morocco, because he loves Iranian cinema. He enlists the help of a novelist, Rachid, and a theatre teacher, Hussein. Together they take a journey to look for locations and a cast for his film, entitled 'National Day', about a village that doesn't have flags on an important national holiday.

Long Road Home is the story of John Malangone, an East Harlem baseball player, signed by the Yankees in 1951, who had the skill and potential to be a great major league player. But Malangone carried around a terrible secret from his childhood, a secret that cast a huge shadow over practically his whole life. At age 64, Malangone finally confronts his past and is essentially reborn.

The film follows seven wine-making families in the Burgundy region of France through the course of a full year, and delves into the cultural and creative process of making wine, as well as its deep ties to the land. What lies within the rhythm of a year, from vines to grapes to wine? The film is in four season-sections, and plays out against that backdrop: spring showers, drought, heat wave, hail and storms, harvest moons and the damp cold of winter. Each vintage is a time capsule, a bottled piece of history of a very specific year, with its particular weather pattern, its crises and its triumphs. It all goes in, whether you want it to or not, and 2011 was full of drama.