From the victimless to the devastatingly brutal, crime is in New York City's bloodstream. A meditation on the complexity of "true" crime in the rotten apple -- from the Central Park Jogger Case to Giuliani Time, Bernie Goetz to Bernie Madoff. Ripped from the tabloid pages to the big screen, True Crime New York is a quarterly film, speaker and performance series.

The box office is open for advance ticket purchases Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, & Friday, 12 - 6 pm, and one hour before the start of all events until they end. If the door is locked during these hours, knock on the store front window. Ticket-holders arriving 15 minutes before showtime are guaranteed a seat inside the theater. Overflow seating available for sold out shows.
Tickets $10 suggested donation, unless otherwise noted.
Members only: Reserve your seat at reservations@mayslesinstitute.org
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Our Cinema and one of our restrooms are handicap accessible. Feel free to call the Box Office at (212) 537-6843 if you have any additional questions or concerns.

Dir. Marc Singer, 2000, 94 min.
Dark Days is the multi-award winning documentary from Marc Singer about a community of homeless people illegally living in the "Freedom" tunnel beneath Manhattan, unofficially named for the graffiti artist Chris "Freedom" Pape and his series of pieces that famously adorn the endless tunnel. The film depicts a way of life that is unimaginable to most of those who walk the streets above. In the pitch black of the tunnel, rats swarm through piles of garbage as high-speed trains leaving Penn Station tear through the darkness. Dark Days is an eye-opening work that sheds a spotlight on a world generally shrouded in darkness and now provides a look back at a literal underground community at the turn of 20th century New York City.

AFTER THE SCREENING: Dir. Marc Singer and Mary Brosnahan, Executive Director of the Coalition for the Homeless

A portion of the proceeds from this screening will go to the Coalition for the Homeless. Evening curated by Sylvia Savadjian.

Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Elliot Spitzer
Dir. Alex Gibney, 2010, 117 min.
Almost exactly three years after the fall from grace of New York governor Elliot Spitzer, the Maysles Cinema inaugurates quarterly series, True Crime New York with Alex Gibney's Client 9. This film is an in-depth look at what Spitzer himself refers to as greek tragedy. The conspiracy to take down Spitzer, his undeniable hubris, Spitzer's take down of Wall Street and Albany. Its all here. A high level, white, starched-collar crime cornucopia. Including interviews with the scandalized, former politician as well as those he sought to destroy and, in turn, those same good men that sought to destroy him.
Film Website>

*Post screening Q&A with director Alex Gibney on Thursday, March 24th

More Speakers TBA

Thursday,
Mar. 24th*

Saturday,
Mar. 26th


7:30 pm

Inside Job
Dir. Charles Ferguson, 2010, 108 min.
Bigger than NYC but where would this 2010 Best Documentary Academy Award winner be without Wall Street's criminal class? Inside Job provides a comprehensive analysis of the global financial crisis of 2008, which at a cost over $20 trillion, caused millions of people to lose their jobs and homes in the worst recession since the Great Depression, and nearly resulted in a global financial collapse. Through exhaustive research and extensive interviews with key financial insiders, politicians, journalists, and academics, the film traces the rise of a rogue industry which has corrupted politics, regulation, and academia. It was made on location in the United States, Iceland, England, France, Singapore, and China.
Film Website>

**Wednesday, March 23rd: Post Screening Audience Led Discussion with Gale and Ben Armstead, Humanitarians and Long Time Harlem Residents

**Friday, March 25th: Post screening Q&A with Carl Dix.

Carl Dix is the national spokesperson for the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA. He was a member of the United States Army, but when he was called to go to Vietnam he refused. He served two years in prison as a result of this action. He then joined the Black Workers Congress. Carl Dix has since become a leader of the RCP, and an outspoken activist for that organization. He is currently embarking on a nationwide conversation with Cornel West on "Race and Politics in the Era of Obama."

Friday,
Mar. 25th*

Sunday,
Mar. 27th

at 7:30 pm

The Post 9/11 Universe

Programming the Nation
Dir. Jeff Warrick, 2011, 105 min.
Story goes since the late 1950's subliminal content has been tested and delivered through all forms of media, at an increasingly alarming rate. Programming the Nation examines the purported uses, influences and potential subconscious side-effects of what's going on beneath the surface of advertising, film, music and political propaganda. Also takes a hard look, with Amy Goodman commenting, at how, in the post 9/11 universe, Defense Department derived video packages air side-by-side with legitimate news stories on many TV news shows. This film not only traces the history of several phenomenons, but seeks to determine the validity and potential threats that may or may not exist. Do you ever find yourself doing or buying things without any conscious reasoning? Why has consumer debt in America risen over 50% since 1990? How is it possible that the United States consumes about 25% of the world's resources while only making up 4.5% of the world's population? Are we all part of an elaborate scheme which has been "Programming the Nation"?

After the Screening: Q&A with director Jeff Warrick on Skype and Leroy Baylor (in person)

Leroy Baylor hosts two talk shows on WHCR 90.3FM (The Voice of Harlem). His shows are "The Communicators" which airs on Sundays (1-3pm) and "Respect for Life" which airs on Mondays 9am-10am.

All Our Sons: Fallen Heroes of 9/11

Enemy Alien

7:30 pm

All Our Sons: Fallen Heroes of 9/11
Lillian Benson, 2003, 28 min.
Twelve African American firefighters were among the World Trade Center victims on September 11th, 2001. This moving documentary profiles these heroes, their families and the ultimate sacrifices they made.

8:00 pm

Enemy Alien
Dir. Konrad Aderer, 2011, 82 min.
Enemy Alien, a first-person documentary, is the gripping story of the fight to free Farouk Abdel-Muhti, a Palestinian-born human rights activist detained in a post-9/11 sweep of Muslim immigrants. Told through the eyes of the filmmaker, the grandson of Japanese Americans interned during World War II, this documentary takes on unprecedented intimacy and historical resonance. As the filmmaker confronts his own family legacy of incarceration, his involvement in the current struggle deepens. Resistance brings consequences: In retaliation for organizing a hunger strike, Farouk is locked in solitary confinement, and a counterterrorism investigation into the documentary itself triggers the arrest of Farouk's American-born son Tarek.

Post Screening Q&A with Director Konrad Aderer

7:30pm

Control Room
Jehane Noujaim, 2004, 84 min.
Startling and powerful, Control Room is a documentary about the Arab television network Al-Jazeera's coverage of the U.S.-led Iraqi war, and conflicts that arose in managed perceptions of truth between that news media outlet and the American military. Egyptian-American filmmaker Jehane Noujaim (Startup.com) catches the frantic action at Al-Jazeera headquarters as President Bush stipulates his 48-hour, get-out-of-town warning to Saddam Hussein and sons, soon followed by the network's shocking footage of Iraqi civilians terrorized and killed by invading U.S. troops. Al-Jazeera's determination to show images and report details outside the Pentagon's carefully controlled information flow draws the wrath of American officials, who accuse it of being an al-Qaida propagandist. Most fascinating is the way Control Room allows pro-democratic Arabs an opportunity to express views on Iraq as they see it--in an international context, and in a way most Americans never hear about.

7:30pm

Outfoxed
Robert Greenwald, 2004, 78 min.
Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism takes a long, hard look at the Fox News Channel and its owner Rupert Murdoch, claiming that the channel is used to promote and advocate right-wing views. Outfoxed argues this pervasive bias contradicts the channel's claim of being "Fair and Balanced," and that Fox News has been engaging in what amounts to consumer fraud. This film also deconstructs instances where Fox News commentators such as Bill O'Reilly attempt to intimidate guests with whom they disagree, such as author and activist Jeremy M. Glick. This film's analysis is even more urgent and timely than ever considering recent events surrounding Murdoch and his empire on the other side of the pond in London.

Q&A with Jeremy M. Glick following screening

Jeremy M. Glick tragically lost his father, a Port Authority worker, in the attack on the World Trade Center on 9/11. Time Magazine calls Bill O'Reilly's interview with Glick one of the top 10 celebrity meltdowns of all time, which is certainly one way of looking at it. Jeremy has a PhD from Rutgers University in English, is an Assistant Professor at Hunter College and is currently writing a book on the Haitian Revolution. He is the co-author of Another World is Possible.

Jim Epstein
Jim Epstein, 6 min.
A slice of life in the story of "Manhattantown" which was one of the first projects authorized under urban renewal and it set the model not only for hundreds of urban renewal projects but for the next 60 years of eminent domain abuse at places such as Poletown, New London, and Atlantic Yards. The Manhattantown project destroyed six blocks on New York City's Upper West Side, including an African-American community that dated to the turn of the century. The city sold the land for a token sum to a group of well-connected Democratic pols to build a middle-class housing development. Then came the often repeated bulldoze-and-abandon phenomenon: With little financial skin in the game, the developers let the demolished land sit vacant for years.
   The community destroyed at Manhattantown was a model for the tight-knit, interconnected neighborhoods later celebrated by Jane Jacobs and other critics of top-down redevelopment. In the early 20th century, Manhattantown was briefly the center of New York's black music scene. A startling roster of musicians, writers, and artists resided there: the composer Will Marion Cook, vaudeville star Bert Williams, opera singer Abbie Mitchell, James Weldon Johnson and his brother Rosemond, muralist Charles Alston, writer and historian Arturo Schomburg, Billie Holiday (whose mother also owned a restaurant on 99th Street), Butterfly McQueen of "Gone with the Wind" fame, and the actor Robert Earl Jones.

Battle for Brooklyn
Suki Hawley and Michael Galinsky, 2010, 93 min.
Battle for Brooklyn is the epic and universal tale of one man under pressure, and how far he will go to save his community and his home from the private developers who want to build a basketball arena on top of it. Along the way, he loses a fiancée, falls in love again, gets married, and starts a family. Shot over the course of eight years and compiled from almost 500 hours of footage, Battle for Brooklyn is an intimate look at the very public and passionate fight waged by the Prospect Heights community to save their neighborhood from destruction. Daniel Goldstein spent five years carefully looking for the perfect apartment. Not long after he had begun to settle in, he was informed that he and his neighbors would be cleared out to make way for the Atlantic Yards development project. This massive plan to build a basketball arena for the New Jersey Nets, and 16 skyscrapers, had been arranged by a private developer. This company, Forest City Ratner, claimed that the building of Atlantic Yards would provide jobs and additional housing, and that the arrival of the New Jersey Nets would be important to the community.
   In turn, Goldstein and a host of Brooklynites formed the group "Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn" to counter Ratner's proposal and to expose misconceptions about the project. The effort to stop the project pits Goldstein and his neighbors against Ratner and an entourage of lawyers and public relations emissaries, the government, and those residents taken in by the promises of jobs, housing, and a basketball team on their turf. Focusing on the Goldstein's struggle to save his property from becoming center court, the film tells a story of the infuriating erosion of individual rights in the interest of corporate concerns and political maneuvering.

Month One
Suki Hawley, Joanna Arnow, Michael Galinsky, 2011, 10 min.
A short that gives a sense of the first month of Occupy Wall Street.

Battle for Brooklyn
Suki Hawley and Michael Galinsky, 2010, 93 min.
Battle for Brooklyn is the epic and universal tale of one man under pressure, and how far he will go to save his community and his home from the private developers who want to build a basketball arena on top of it. Along the way, he loses a fiancée, falls in love again, gets married, and starts a family. Shot over the course of eight years and compiled from almost 500 hours of footage, Battle for Brooklyn is an intimate look at the very public and passionate fight waged by the Prospect Heights community to save their neighborhood from destruction. Daniel Goldstein spent five years carefully looking for the perfect apartment. Not long after he had begun to settle in, he was informed that he and his neighbors would be cleared out to make way for the Atlantic Yards development project. This massive plan to build a basketball arena for the New Jersey Nets, and 16 skyscrapers, had been arranged by a private developer. This company, Forest City Ratner, claimed that the building of Atlantic Yards would provide jobs and additional housing, and that the arrival of the New Jersey Nets would be important to the community.
   In turn, Goldstein and a host of Brooklynites formed the group "Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn" to counter Ratner's proposal and to expose misconceptions about the project. The effort to stop the project pits Goldstein and his neighbors against Ratner and an entourage of lawyers and public relations emissaries, the government, and those residents taken in by the promises of jobs, housing, and a basketball team on their turf. Focusing on the Goldstein's struggle to save his property from becoming center court, the film tells a story of the infuriating erosion of individual rights in the interest of corporate concerns and political maneuvering.

Columbia Expansion Short (TBA)

Battle for Brooklyn
Suki Hawley and Michael Galinsky, 2010, 93 min.
Battle for Brooklyn is the epic and universal tale of one man under pressure, and how far he will go to save his community and his home from the private developers who want to build a basketball arena on top of it. Along the way, he loses a fiancée, falls in love again, gets married, and starts a family. Shot over the course of eight years and compiled from almost 500 hours of footage, Battle for Brooklyn is an intimate look at the very public and passionate fight waged by the Prospect Heights community to save their neighborhood from destruction. Daniel Goldstein spent five years carefully looking for the perfect apartment. Not long after he had begun to settle in, he was informed that he and his neighbors would be cleared out to make way for the Atlantic Yards development project. This massive plan to build a basketball arena for the New Jersey Nets, and 16 skyscrapers, had been arranged by a private developer. This company, Forest City Ratner, claimed that the building of Atlantic Yards would provide jobs and additional housing, and that the arrival of the New Jersey Nets would be important to the community.
   In turn, Goldstein and a host of Brooklynites formed the group "Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn" to counter Ratner's proposal and to expose misconceptions about the project. The effort to stop the project pits Goldstein and his neighbors against Ratner and an entourage of lawyers and public relations emissaries, the government, and those residents taken in by the promises of jobs, housing, and a basketball team on their turf. Focusing on the Goldstein's struggle to save his property from becoming center court, the film tells a story of the infuriating erosion of individual rights in the interest of corporate concerns and political maneuvering.