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Charm City

2018 · ★ 9

During three years of unparalleled violence in Baltimore, Charm City delivers an unexpectedly candid, observational portrait of those left on the frontlines. With grit, fury, and compassion, a group of police, citizens, and government officials grapple with the consequences of violence and try to reclaim their future.

Heroin King of Baltimore: The Rise and Fall of Melvin Williams

2013

Baltimore City officials asked drug kingpin Melvin Williams to stop the riots happened following Martin Luther King's assassination. After helping the authorities out, Williams was then labeled a threat, framed and incarcerated by a hypocritical society.

Baltimore Rising

2017 · ★ 6.9

In the wake of Freddie Gray's death in police custody, peaceful protests and destructive riots erupted as the city awaited the fate of six police officers involved in the incident. Follow the activists, police officers, community leaders and gang affiliates, who struggle to hold Baltimore together.

The Last Season: The Life and Demolition of Baltimore's Memorial Stadium

2002 · ★ 9

"The Last Season" follows the stadium's last year, the fans' communal last look, the witnessing of the wrecking ball and the great fall of the Memorial Wall.

12 O'Clock Boys

2013 · ★ 6

Pug, a wisecracking 13 year old living on a dangerous Westside block, has one goal in mind: to join The Twelve O'Clock Boys; the notorious urban dirt-bike gang of Baltimore. Converging from all parts of the inner city, they invade the streets and clash with police, who are forbidden to chase the bikes for fear of endangering the public. When Pug's older brother dies suddenly, he looks to the pack for mentorship, spurred by their dangerous lifestyle. Pug's story is coupled with unprecedented, action-packed coverage of the riders in their element. The film presents the pivotal years of change in a boy's life growing up in one of the most dangerous and economically depressed cities in the US.

Rat Film

2016 · ★ 7.1

Across walls, fences, and alleys, rats not only expose our boundaries of separation but make homes in them. "Rat Film" is a feature-length documentary that uses the rat—as well as the humans that love them, live with them, and kill them—to explore the history of Baltimore.

Historic Maryland

1941 · ★ 7

This Traveltalk series short highlights such Maryland destinations as Baltimore, Johns Hopkins, Annapolis, and Fort McHenry.

Step

2017 · ★ 7.6

The senior year of a girls’ high school step team in inner-city Baltimore is documented, as they try to become the first in their families to attend college. The girls strive to make their dancing a success against the backdrop of social unrest in their troubled city.

The Screen Painters

1988

Maryland folklorist Elaine Eff is a champion of Baltimore culture and traditions. In her documentary film The Screen Painters, she sets her sights on a much-loved Baltimore icon: the painted window screen and the artists who created them. This delightful documentary film chronicles the beginnings, the heyday, and the decline of an urban folk art unique to Baltimore -- the practice of painting landscape scenes on window and door screens. It profiles seven artists who have spent much of their lives embellishing the bricks and stones of the inner city with a touch of enchantment. The film reveals how this unpretentious art form embodies the ethnic spirit of urban America and is a testament to the need for art in daily life. -Direct Cinema Limited

Loop Dreams

2021

"Can we continue playing yoyo?" It was a million-dollar question for Dae-yeol, Dong-hun, Hyun-woong, Dong-keon, and Jong-ki, all of whom had been yoyoing since childhood. In summer 2011, the five boys decided to go for the stages they had been dreaming of—it was going to be the last time before they say goodbye to their yoyo. Four of them, Dae-yeol, Dong-hun, Hyun-woong, and Dong-keon, went to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Jong-ki couldn’t afford the travel and took his shot at a TV talent show competition in Korea. The five tasted dreamlike moments, which, in turn, made their choices more difficult. Now, the yoyo means something different for each of them. But they have to face daunting reality no matter where they stand.

Jenes Flowers

This documentary explores a Maryland flower business using residential addresses for targeted promotion, blending digital marketing in order to reach local communities in the modern world.

Hiding in the Walls

2022

Hiding in the Walls unwinds the fraught history of lead poisoning in Baltimore and follows the adult survivors who are on a mission to reclaim the narrative.