Marc Levin
2021Marc Levin (born in 1951) is a Jewish American filmmaker who is perhaps best known for his film Slam (1998) which won both the Sundance Film Festival's Dramatic Feature Grand Jury Prize and the Cannes Film Festival's Golden Camera award. Levin was awarded the 1997 DuPont-Columbia Award for CIA: America's Secret Warriors, a three-part series that first aired on the Discovery Channel. He is also the recipient of a 1999 primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Non-Fiction Special. In 1996, his Prisoners of the War on Drugs was nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Informational Special. He was also nominated for an Emmy, in 2010, for his role as producer of the documentary series Brick City.
Levin's documentary The Protocols of Zion, which is about resurgent anti-Semitism following the September 11, 2001 attacks, focuses on The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, an anti-Semitic forgery which supposedly describes the Jewish plan for global domination. Although the book has been repeatedly debunked as an obvious forgery, Levin continually discovers various groups presenting it as "proof" for their own anti-Semitic agenda.
He graduated from Wesleyan University in 1973.
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Prisoners of the War on Drugs
Marc Levin
Michael Jones
From its beginning during the Reagan years through current times, the War on Drugs has left many victims stranded in the prison system. PRISONERS OF THE WAR ON DRUGS reveals life behind bars in the nation’s prisons. Each prisoner has his or her own story, but for most, the story is predictably similar; they have been criminalized for drugs or drug related offenses, locked up with easy access to substances, and given little opportunity for rehabilitation. This film provides an inside look at the prison system, its prisoners and a war on drugs we do not seem to be winning.
Prisoners of the War on Drugs
Twilight: Los Angeles
Marc Levin
Anna Deavere Smith
Anna Deavere Smith transforms herself into scores of individuals -- using only their words and duplicating their speech patterns, mannerisms, dress, and attitudes -- in a mosaic set in the violent aftermath of the 1992 Rodney King trial and verdict. These verbatim portrayals bring together adversaries, victims, eyewitnesses, and observers who have never stood within the same four walls, let alone spoken to each other. In her signature performance style, Smith embodies and gives voice to scores of real-life "characters" -- from LAPD Police Chief Daryl Gates to a gang member, from Korean store owners to a white juror, from Reginald Denny to Congresswoman Maxine Waters -- black, white, Asian, Latino. Because she is able to speak the words and convey the deeply held sentiments of so many different people, Smith enables her audience members to hear what they might otherwise discount.
Twilight: Los Angeles
Gang War: Bangin' in Little Rock
Marc Levin
Raw and unflinching, this pair of award-winning HBO films looks at the death and destruction caused by gang warfare across the United States. With unlimited access, the filmmakers document the lives and culture of rival Arkansas factions in Gang War: Bangin' in Little Rock. Back in the Hood: Gang War 2 follows Leifel Jackson, a former gang leader and ex-con trying to turn his life around after spending nearly a decade in prison.
Gang War: Bangin' in Little Rock
Hard Times: Lost on Long Island
Marc Levin
David Hartstein, Heather Hartstein
Though the recession officially ended in summer 2009, the fallout continues for some 25 million unemployed and underemployed Americans, many of whom worked their way up the corporate ladder..
Hard Times: Lost on Long Island
Gladiator Days: Anatomy of a Prison Murder
Marc Levin
Across the United States, violent crime in prison is an everyday reality, with inmates routinely exposed to assault, riot, rape and murder. Anatomy of a Prison Murder examines the culture of institutional violence through the events that led to one burtal prison murder. Utah State Prison surveillance cameras capture this disturbing real-life account of the vicious stabbing of black inmate Lonnie Blackmon by convicted murderer, white supremacist Troy Kell and his accomplice Eric Daniels.
Gladiator Days: Anatomy of a Prison Murder
Class Divide
Marc Levin
Brandon, Hyisheem
A look at NYC’s gentrification and growing inequality in a microcosm, Class Divide explores two distinct worlds that share the same Chelsea intersection – 10th Avenue and 26th Street. On one side of the avenue, the Chelsea-Elliot Houses have provided low-income public housing to residents for decades. Their neighbor across the avenue since 2012 is Avenues: The World School, a costly private school. What happens when kids from both of these worlds attempt to cross the divide?
Class Divide
Godfathers and Sons
Marc Levin
Chuck D, Paul Butterfield
Director Marc Levin travels to Chicago with hip-hop legend Chuck D (from Public Enemy) and Marshall Chess (son of Leonard Chess and heir to the legacy of Chess Records) to explore the heyday of the Chicago blues and how they come together to produce an album that seeks to bring veteran blues players along with contemporary hip hop musicians. Along with never before seen footage from Howlin 'Wolf, Muddy Waters and Paul Butterfield Blues Band, they are original performances by Koko Taylor, Otis Rush, Magic Slim, Ike Turner and Sam Lay.
Godfathers and Sons
Mob Stories
Marc Levin
They're the real 'goodfellas': 'Joe Dogs' Iannuzzi, Tommy DelGiorno, 'Big Dom' Lofaro. For the first time on television, Mafia turncoats give personal accounts of life inside the Mob. In this shocking documentary, five high-ranking informants tell tales of murder, brutality, greed and vanity--and why they broke the Sicilian code of honor. The first generation of the American Mafia stood on the foundation of loyalty and a code of silence. The second and third generations traded their Sicilian traditions for government protection and instant personal gain. MOB STORIES presents five chilling narratives from five members of the underworld, most of whom are overwhelmed with fear and paranoia with the exception of “Fat Jackie”, a loyal lifelong mobster. Father and son team, Alan and Marc Levin, direct and produce an honest and personal portrayal of the demise of the Mafia.
Mob Stories
Thug Life in D.C.
Marc Levin
Aundrey Burno, a black youth looking down the wrong end of a murder charge -- for which a conviction could result in a lifetime in prison -- appears to be the epitome of an unrepentant thug. Speaking to viewers, he claims to have done whatever was necessary to survive on the mean streets, to earn the respect of his criminal peers. But as his case progresses and his younger brother, Kevin, faces the same choices he did -- to become a thug or not -- a very different Aundrey reveals himself.
Thug Life in D.C.
Freeway: Crack in the System
Marc Levin
FREEWAY: CRACK IN THE SYSTEM tells the story of broken dreams, drug dealers, dirty cops, and government complicity—more compelling than fiction, it’s the real story behind America’s longest war. This documentary by award-winning filmmaker Marc Levin (SLAM, Mr. Untouchable, Brick City) exposes how the infiltration of crack cocaine destroyed inner-city neighborhoods across the country. At the center of it all is the rise, fall and redemption of Freeway Rick Ross, a street hustler who became the King of Crack, and journalist Gary Webb, who broke the story of the CIA’s complicity in the drug war. Featuring exclusive interviews with Freeway Rick Ross, not to be confused with the rapper who took his name Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Gary Webb, his source Coral Baca, and wife Susan Webb former Los Angeles Deputy Sheriff Roberto Juarez drug trafficker Julio Zavala and many more.
Freeway: Crack in the System
Soldiers in the Army of God
Marc Levin, Daphne Pinkerson
Connected by the Internet and an unshakable belief in their cause, a tight-knit group of extreme pro-life activists who -- all members of the Army of God -- have turned to violence to abolish abortion. This fascinating documentary examines several of the soldiers involved in the ongoing "battle," including Paul Hill, the man who committed the infamous 1993 murders of two abortion clinic workers in Pensacola, Fla.
Soldiers in the Army of God
Slam
Marc Levin
Saul Williams, Sonja Sohn
Slam tells the story of Ray Joshua, an original, gifted young MC trapped in a war-zone housing project known as Dodge City. Unable to find a job, Ray copes with the despair and poverty of his neighborhood by using his wits and verbal talent. Written by Offline Publicist Young Ray Joshua lives in the Washington, DC, district known as Dodge City, which is dominated by gang wars. One day he is arrested when his drug dealer is gunned down while talking to him. He is put to prison where two rival gangs, Thug Life and the Union, want to recruit him as a member. A new digital restoration from a 35mm interpositive made in collaboration between Sundance Institute, the Academy Film Archive, and the UCLA Film & Television Archive premiered at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival.
Slam
The After Party: The Last Party 3
Michael Schiller
André Benjamin, Mark Benjamin
A documentary feature film about a cinematographer who is caught in a mass arrest. His film crew's videotape of the incident leads to a civil rights lawsuit, uncovers a police spying ring and launches his personal investigation in to the weird world of domestic surveillance. With special appearances by Andre '3000' Benjamin, Barack Obama, The Bush Twins, Cornel West, Al Sharpton and Don King.
The After Party: The Last Party 3