Jonathan Berman

The Shvitz

Jonathan Berman

A look at the unlikely community forged in the 200 degree heat of the last traditional steam baths in the U.S. From gamblers to "new age" masseuses, from poets to rabbis, the characters form a sometimes conflicting, yet often compelling voice. The film uses the baths to give a perspective on the evolution of city life, while bringing up issues of ethnicity, nostalgia, sexuality, spirituality and ritual. "When we sit in this intense heat", says one patron, "we're all the same - millionaire and pauper".

Calling All Earthlings

Jonathan Berman

Teddy Quinn, Ted Markland

Calling All Earthlings explores a mid-century UFO cult led by one-time Howard Hughes confidante, George Van Tassel. Van Tassel claimed to have combined alien guidance with the writings of inventor/physicist Nikola Tesla, and other controversial science, to build an electromagnetic time machine he dubbed “The Integratron.” Was he insane? Or could the dome really break through the boundaries of space, time, and energy? FBI agents worked against Van Tassel and the alternative community that formed out of his work. Would he finish the Integratron before the government finished him?

Commune

Jonathan Berman

Peter Coyote

In 1968, Elsa and Richard Marley founded an alternative-living community, named Black Bear, in the remote Northern California wilderness with the motto "Free Land for Free People." This film tells the story of that intended utopia. Through archival footage and interviews with former residents, director Jonathan Berman explores the problems and realities of communal living and the evolution of a community that endured FBI harassment, cult leadership and more.