Lock-Up: The Prisoners of Rikers Island
Docs Love New York
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1h 15m
Directed by Nina Rosenblum, Jon Alpert • Documentary • 1994 • 75 minutes
If you’re arrested in New York City and can’t make bail, you’ll be sent to Rikers Island—a mammoth holding facility for 17,000 men and women awaiting trial. Jon Alpert spent ten months filming there, coming away with a graphic and unblinking documentary portrait of life inside America’s largest prison complex, including a moving look at the human faces behind the statistics. This documentary, along with Jon Alpert’s ONE YEAR IN A LIFE OF CRIME, inspired the Safdie brothers’ crime drama, GOOD TIME. LOCK UP: THE PRISONERS OF RIKERS ISLAND is a DCTV / HBO production, directed by Jon Alpert and Nina Rosenblum.
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Egg Cream
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Red Squad
Directed by Steven Fischler, Joel Sucher, Howard Blatt and Francis Freedland • Documentary • 1972 • 45 minutes
An investigative (but frequently humorous) documentary on the surveillance activities of the New York City Police Department's Bureau of Special Services, known as the Red Squad.
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Tighten Your Belts, Bite the Bullet
Directed by James Gaffney, Martin Lucas, and Jonathan Miller • Documentary • 1980 • 48 minutes
Focusing on the 1970s fiscal crises in New York City and in Cleveland, Ohio, TIGHTEN YOUR BELTS, BITE THE BULLET looks at the root causes of fiscal crises in American cities, and the political response...
