David Neuman

Black Natchez

David Neuman, Ed Pincus

George Metcalfe, Wharlest Jackson

A cinema verite account of the attempt to organize a black community in the Deep South in 1965 during the heyday of the Civil Rights Movement. A black leader has been car-bombed and a struggle ensues in the black community for control. A group of black men organize a chapter of the Deacons for Defense--a secret armed self-defense group. The community splits between more conservative and activist elements.

One Step Away

David Neuman, Ed Pincus

Look at a crumbling hippie commune in California. In the words of Ed Pincus: "It was the Summer of Love, 1967. The Haight-Ashbury section of San Francisco was to be the center of a vast cultural experiment. Ideologically it was an attempt at a post-industrial society, where people no longer needed to work and communities of choice allowed people to “do their own thing.” David Neuman and I set off to film what happened that summer. We decided to do what we thought would be a film about a rural commune, because that seemed to be the apotheosis of hippie ideals. What we found was a bizarre replication of bourgeois society—the sun rose on the nothing new. We decided to use an anecdotal editing style with an attempt to enforce a narrative line."