Sam Green

The Universal Language is a new documentary from Academy Award-nominated director Sam Green (The Weather Underground). This 30-minute film traces the history of Esperanto, an artificial language that was created in the late 1800s by a Polish eye doctor who believed that if everyone in the world spoke a common tongue, humanity could overcome racism and war. Fittingly, the word “Esperanto” means “one who hopes.” During the early 20th century, hundreds of thousands of people around the world spoke Esperanto and believed in its ideals. Today, surprisingly, a vibrant Esperanto movement still exists. In this first-ever documentary about Esperanto, Green creates a portrait of the language and those who speak it today that is at once humorous, poignant, stirring, and ultimately hopeful.

An Informative documentary series about our world.

Explores the elemental phenomenon of sound and its power to bend time, cross borders, and profoundly shape our perception of the world around us.

A decade-long global journey chronicles the ever-changing record holders of the title of oldest person alive. What begins as a portrait of longevity becomes a meditation on the passage of time, the randomness of fate, and the joy and profound human experience of being alive.

The remarkable story of The Weather Underground, radical activists of the 1970s, and of radical politics at its best and most disastrous.

Short doc surrounding Paul Rudd's clear glasses that came to Sam's door from a time when the world was different.

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The true story of the neighborhood that inspired David Simon's fictional HBO television series "Tremé", from slave revolts and underground free black antebellum resistance through post-Katrina rebuilding, set to a fabulous soundtrack of New Orleans music through the ages.

A short documentary portrait of the greatest pet cemetery in the world.

A documentary look at the 'making of' and cult success of the troubled Lou Adler directed film "Ladies And Gentlemen The Fabulous Stains" starring Diane Lane.

Filmmaker Sam Green, in collaboration with writer and editor Joe Bini, takes the stage with the legendary classical-music group Kronos Quartet to create a "live documentary" that chronologically unfolds the quartet's groundbreaking, continent-spanning, multi-decade career. Wildly creative and experimental in form, A Thousand Thoughts is a meditation on music itself-the act of listening closely to music, the experience of feeling music deeply, and the power that music has to change the world. Green narrates the piece live onstage while the Kronos Quartet performs the score, and a rich blend of archival footage, photos, and interviews with members of the Kronos Quartet – as well as longtime collaborators like Philip Glass, Laurie Anderson, Terry Riley, Tanya Tagaq, and Steve Reich – unspools on screen.

This Is What the Future Looked Like is a documentary about the work of architect and futurist Buckminster Fuller, using his geodesic domes as the visual environment.

A Cinematic Study of Fog in San Francisco showcases a visually compelling experience of fog and the rich feelings it evokes.

How can a sound make you cry, or make your hair stand on end? Can sound be political?

Documentarian Sam Green interprets our collective fascination with the Guinness Book of World Records as a profound need to try and make some sense of who we are by calibrating human experience and marveling at its outer contours. Green himself travels to various reaches of the Earth to collect original footage of record-holding people, places, and things-the tallest man, the woman with the longest name, the oldest living thing on the planet. He weaves into these original portraits a rich assembly of archival footage, his own live narration, and an evocative live soundtrack from the chamber group yMusic to create an indelible rumination on fate, human endeavor, and the nature of our existence on Earth.

A tour of the world's largest shopping mall, located near Guangzhou, China.

The mystery behind the man who died at Altamont.

Opening night of the 1969 San Francisco International Film Festival on the steps of City Hall. A who's who of SF high society is suddenly ambushed by a cadre of independent filmmakers armed with pies.

A melancholy train ride filled with small, rich moments.

The Love Song of R. Buckminster Fuller traces the career of twentieth-century futurist, architect, engineer, inventor, and author R. Buckminster Fuller (1895–1983). An early proponent of environmental stewardship, Fuller spoke persuasively about contemporary design and architecture’s ability to tackle issues of sustainability and conservation, and to stimulate radical societal change. At every screening, Green narrates the film in person and cues images from a laptop while Yo La Tengo performs their original score. The performance is a follow-up to Green’s internationally-acclaimed live film Utopia in Four Movements, which premiered at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival. This new work features the same unique combination of film clips and live music, as Green’s in person cinematic narration draws inspiration equally from old travelogues, the Benshi tradition, and TED talks.