The Cemetery Club
The story of three Pittsburgh widows who meet every year to visit their husband's graves and talk about perspectives in their lives.
Waterland
The story of a mentally anguished high school history teacher going through a complete reassessment of his life. His method for reassessing his life is to narrate it to his class and interweave in it three generations of his family's history.
Tough Guys
10 years before the debut of the Ultimate Fighting Championship. In 1979, Bill Viola and Frank Caliguri dreamed up a contest pitting barroom bigmouths against wrestlers, martial artists, boxers, bouncers and brawlers, billed as no-holds-barred new type of competitive fighting. When the fights succeeded beyond their wildest expectations, they were swept up in a chain of events that ended in the first mixed-martial arts ban in the nation. “Tough Guys” chronicles the inception of Caliguri and Viola’s first bouts and the colorful, crazy cast of fighters who made them a hit as well as the politicians who brought it all crashing down. The film brings to life a moment when the national martial arts craze was building to a crescendo as the economies of Pennsylvania steel towns were plummeting to levels of unemployment never seen, breeding desperate men looking for a chance to prove their worth and make some money in the ring.
Dominick and Eugene
Dominick and Eugene are twins, but Dominick is a little bit slow due do an accident in his youth. They live together, with Dominick working as garbage man to put Eugene through medical school. Their relationship becomes strained when Eugene must decide between his devotion to his brother, or his need to go away to complete his training. Things are also not helped by Dominick's co-worker, or Eugene's budding romance.
The Painted
Horror / Suspense film, following the story of the Calaway family fighting to unmask a past made of lies and survive the haunting of a dark entity brought back from the grave.
The Gun on Second Street
The film is described as “an allegory of the gun crisis in the United States.” Its plot follows two Pittsburgh police partners and best friends who are called to an uneventful domestic violence dispute on Second Street. This quickly escalates to a violent confrontation as Officer TJ Meadows III accidentally shoots and kills his partner, Officer Kevin Cooper, with his backup gun. Years later, no longer a cop and still traumatised, he moves back to Pittsburgh and finds his way to his partner’s widow, Kacie. They slowly fall in love as Kacie confronts the history she’s been avoiding, including telling her 15-year-old son, Ralph, TJ’s backstory.
Pittsburgh
Charles 'Pittsburgh' Markham rides roughshod over his friends, his lovers, and his ideals in his trek toward financial success in the Pittsburgh steel industry, only to find himself deserted and lonely at the top. When his crash comes, he finds that fate has dealt him a second chance.
Stress
"The trauma of 9/11, the ideology of violent retribution, military service as a patriotic family tradition, the “unfairness” of today’s warfare – in their voice-overs, five young Afghanistan war veterans first establish familiar foundations. Joe, Torrie, Mike, James and Justin from Pittsburgh are slow to show us their faces. Physically unharmed but full of inner pain they have become the misunderstood upon their return. Their violent experiences speak a language that the people at home don’t understand.
There's Always Vanilla
A young man returns home to Pittsburgh and moves in with an older woman, on whom he begins to rely on for emotional and financial support.
Wire
A troubled loner longing for purpose finds it when a phone call gone wrong puts him on the scent of a mysterious woman’s murder.
Paul's Case
Captures the essence of Willa Cather's haunting story of Pittsburgh circa 1900. Lost in a world of fantasy, young working-class Paul dreams of escaping his dreary existence in turn-of-the-century Pittsburgh. As fate would have it Paul gets his chance by stealing some money and subsequently running off to glamorous New York City.
Bigfoot The Movie
Bigfoot has come to the town of Ellwood City, PA and is causing BIG problems. Now it’s up to three town locals to take him down. Funded by a Kickstarter campaign and filmed in Ellwood City, LA Filmmaker and hometown hero Jared Show assembled a colorful cast of characters from all over the region to bring his vision to life! The movie features some of Pittsburgh’s most famous and best loved celebrities like Curt Wootton (Pittsburgh Dad), Joanie Dodds (America’s Next Top Model), Jim Krenn (stand-up comic, formerly of the WDVE morning show), Mike Wysocki (WDVE), and even veteran news anchor Darieth Chisolm (formerly of WPXI) among others. In this comedy/horror flick mullets, guns and beer are in full supply as the movie skewers the Pittsburgh ‘Yinzer’ stereotype right alongside the Bigfoot myth
The Ocean - Five Years
An early morning phone call in 2017 changed the lives of two teenage brothers bonded by their love of percussion. One died tragically in a car accident while the other determined to make sense of his loss through music.
The Spirit of Pittsburgh
THE SPIRIT OF PITTSBURGH celebrates the human achievement of a city's continuing Renaissance. It is the heroic story of how Pittsburgh, once plagued by industrial pollution and urban blight, was transformed in just 40 years to what it is today. It is a story told by people who were intimately involved in its change - scientists, politicians, teachers, construction workers, business and community leaders. Unique archival footage dramatically portrays Pittsburgh's past; stunning photography captures the city today - from its hills, bridges and rivers to the medical, educational and artistic communities in its mosaic of neighborhoods. This is Pittsburgh, a place whose people take pride in their heritage and in their ever-changing home. THE SPIRIT OF PITTSBURGH was commissioned by The Pittsburgh Foundation of Dollar Bank. Look for this remarkable film at its permanent home in the Renaissance Theatre of the David L. Lawrence Convention Center.
REkOGNIZE
REkOGNIZE is a three-channel video installation and a meditation on photography, memory, and movement. Artist and Academy Award-nominated cinematographer Bradford Young (Selma, Arrival) finds inspiration in Pittsburgh’s Hill District neighborhood, a site of the early 20th-century Great Migration. During this time, millions of African Americans moved from the rural southern United States to cities in the north and west. The Hill District saw a flourishing of culture during these years and was a site of artistic development for luminaries such as August Wilson, Charles “Teenie” Harris, Errol Garner, and many others. REkOGNIZE takes its visual cues from the Pittsburgh landscape, especially the city’s tunnels, which serve not only as literal entry points into the city, but also as metaphors for this movement of people and culture.
Downtown Pittsburgh
This documentary explores the wonders of downtown Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Rick Sebak narrates while you are taken on a nostalgic journey through downtown Pittsburgh's rich history as a bustling American urban center. The film explores downtown Pittsburgh's culture, history, architecture, and secrets. With new and archival footage.
Plant
Houses Around Here
Looking in other people’s houses can be fun. And in southwestern Pennsylvania, it doesn’t matter if you live in a city neighborhood like Friendship or in rural Washington County, you can find wonderful houses not far away that reveal much about the history, the culture and the people in this comfy corner of the state.
Maxo Vanka’s Masterpiece: The Murals at St. Nicholas Church
The magnificent murals at St. Nicholas Church in Millvale, painted by Maxo Vanka in the late 1930s, are legendary. Filmmaker Kenneth Love conveys the significance of these images and the impact they have had on art historians, parishioners, and the public.
A Flea Market Documentary
A Flea Market Documentary is a new PBS special and an all-American celebration of open-air shopping across the country. On any weekend, there may be no better place to find out what makes America great than at a flea market. A Flea Market Documentary is an unabashed celebration of the unusual people and the enticing things that can be found in parking lots, fairgrounds, drive-ins, sidewalks, and wherever else someone has posted a sign saying "Flea Market." It's capitalism mixed with craziness. It's amazing old stuff, great salespeople, the ancient tradition of the open-air market, and the possibility of finding a bargain, all uniting shoppers across the nation. Produced by WQED Pittsburgh, A Flea Market Documentary travels from the gigantic Rose Bowl Market in Pasadena, California, to the busy but modest- sized Eastern Market in Washington, DC, talking with organizers, vendors, food merchants and shoppers.