Content from Downtown Community Television Center

Curtain Up! follows elementary school kids in New York’s Chinatown as they prepare for a production and begin to discover themselves. Behind the scenes, they face families’ expectations and uncertainties post-graduation. Interestingly, it is through rehearsing for this American favorite that these kids come to grapple with their Chinese roots.

Uncover the insidious ways in which our daily lives are being surveilled by the state. In a gripping chase, Ronan Farrow travels across the world following breadcrumbs and finally exposing a dark world of spywares, hacking, and peddling of private information, where activists and journalists are persecuted, and no one is protected from the watchful and vicious eyes of authoritarianism.

This documentary about the culture of intense cinephilia in New York City reveals the impassioned world of five obsessed movie buffs. These human encyclopedias of cinema see two to five films a day, and from 600 to 2,000 films per year. This is the story of their lives, their memories, their unbending habits and the films they love.

On March 13, 2022, filmmaker Brent Renaud was killed by Russian soldiers, the first American journalist to die while reporting on the war in Ukraine. His younger brother and collaborator, Craig Renaud, recovered Brent’s body and his final recordings from Ukraine and brought them back to their childhood home in Arkansas. As Brent’s journey to his final resting place unfolds, the film chronicles the years he and his brother spent covering some of the world’s most dangerous conflicts.

Not since the invention of the Internet has there been such a disruptive technology as Bitcoin. Bitcoin's early pioneers sought to blur the lines of sovereignty and the financial status quo. After years of underground development Bitcoin grabbed the attention of a curious public, and the ire of the regulators the technology had subverted. After landmark arrests of prominent cyber criminals Bitcoin faces its most severe adversary yet, the very banks it was built to destroy.

Junior Rios started using heroin when he was 15. At age 29, Junior is a father of three. To support his $200-a-day heroin habit, he scours the rooftops of the South Bronx for materials he can sell. When he's finally caught, he enters an aggressive rehab program. Meanwhile, his ex has moved on, and is trying to make a better life for herself and their children.

This is Jon Alpert's portrait of his father's struggles with growing old and nearing the end of life.

An intimate documentary that looks at the vicious cycles of drug addiction and street crime in one of the roughest parts of New Jersey.

Painter Titus Kaphar looks to film as a medium in the face of an insatiable art market seeking to silence his activism.

The first American television crew to be allowed into Cuba since the 1959 revolution, DCTV toured the country for six weeks to produce this candid portrait of life in Castro's Cuba.

Allyson Felix is the most decorated track and field athlete of all time. At the peak of her career, she faced a life-threatening pregnancy and saw her sponsorships slashed by 70% by companies with no maternal protections. But Felix, ever the champion, turned her battles into a movement.

An intimate exposé of the dark side of social media and its devastating impact on young users. Directors Matthew O'Neill and Perri Peltz take viewers inside the high-stakes legal battle to hold tech companies accountable for the harm caused by their negligence and dangerous algorithms. Based on investigative reporting by Bloomberg News' Olivia Carville, the film follows the Social Media Victims Law Center fighting for justice for families whose children suffered tragic consequences linked to social media use. As families seek justice, 'Can't Look Away: The Case Against Social Media' underscores the urgent need for industry reform and serves as both a wake-up call about the dangers of social media-and a call to action to protect future generations.

Auto racing is an obsession in Anderson, Indiana. Even with local auto factories closing down and jobs being lost, the town's residents continue to flock to the local speedway every Friday night--and its drivers continue to pour their dwindling resources into their Thundercars. Emmy(R)-winning filmmaker Jon Alpert presents this look at this passion for racing in rust-belt America. Since the closing of a GM plant and the loss of 33,000 jobs, the once-thriving town of Anderson now stands witness to empty factories, shuttered stores and abandoned home--but also to packed houses at Anderson Speedway where people put their troubles on hold to watch the cacophony of screeching tires and crashing metal as drivers vie for Thundercar supremacy.

A classic exposé on the disparity of health care services for the rich and poor in America, this incisive investigative report exemplifies the advocacy journalism of the Downtown Community Television Center (DCTV)

The stories of six "ordinary" people who live or work along New York City's Third Avenue, which runs for sixteen miles through Manhattan, Brooklyn, and the Bronx, cutting through the complex social strata of the city to reveal wildly different economic and ethnic subcultures.

Follows the struggle of 138 mostly immigrant workers who strike to save their jobs at a famous bakery in the Bronx when a private equity firm buys the bakery and demands wage cuts of up to 30%.

When Diana Levine went to the hospital in April 2000 seeking relief for a severe migraine headache, the professional musician and children's record producer never imagined that faulty drug labeling would result in the amputation of her arm. Today she is at the center of a closely-watched Supreme Court case and a national debate about the federal courts and corporate accountability.

Days after the U.S. declared the war officially over, Next Next Entertainment and DCTV sent a crew to a now smoldering Baghdad to rediscover the young Iraqis. While the American teenagers waited anxiously stateside for phone calls and emails that never came, the Iraqi youth were emerging to begin their adult lives in a strange new world. Bridge to Baghdad II allows these two groups to resume the conversation that was cut short by a war.

Homeless student in New York City documents her family struggles.

A father exits prison and tries to integrate with his two children and girlfriend while living in a halfway house and on parole.

Leading Axios journalists highlight the week ahead in politics, business and technology – and the big topics shaping the future. Each edition features coverage of a timely big issue, followed by documentary shorts, illuminating interviews with major newsmakers and trustworthy insights delivered with Axios’ signature “Smart Brevity” in a succinct, shareable format.

A 'quinceanera' is a coming-of-age celebration for a Latina girl's 15th birthday, marking her transition from girl to woman. Throughout four short films, follow five girls from different cultural, ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds, bonded together by this traditional rite of passage.

From the farms and fields of Arkansas to the deadly streets of Baghdad, OFF TO WAR tracks the citizen soldiers of the Arkansas National Guard as they come face to face with the horrors of war. Never before has a unit of soldiers been followed from the beginning to the end of their deployment at war. In April 2004, filmmakers Brent and Craig Renaud arrived in Iraq with the Arkansas National Guard during one of the bloodiest months to date. Within twenty-four hours of their arrival, one of the guardsmen lay dead. By the end of the first month, they had lost more soldiers than any other National Guard Brigade in Iraq From actual scenes of full-scale combat to a soldier's funeral, from the birth of a first child to the heartbreaking return home of a critically injured soldier, Off to War tells the story of a war in a way it has never been told before - through the eyes of the soldiers and families back home who endured it.