West 47th Street
"Made with depth and compassion, West 47th Street is an intimate cinéma vérité portrait of four people struggling to recover from serious mental illness, a topic rife with stereotypes and misunderstanding. They've come to Fountain House, a renowned rehabilitation center in NYC's Hell's Kitchen. The film follows its subjects over three years as they deal with issues with courage and humor." -- PBS
West 47th Street is the highly-acclaimed, feature-length documentary film produced by the Peabody Award-winning Lichtenstein Creative Media. It was called "Must See" by Newsweek and "remarkable" by the Washington Post.
At times hilarious and at other times tragic, the film follows three years in the lives of four people with serious mental illness, and provides an unprecedented window on the lives of people who are often feared and ignored, seldom understood. The film's producers enjoyed an extraordinary degree of access to their lives, and shot more than 350 hours of tape: off and on the street, in and out of hospitals and homeless shelters, healthy -- and psychotic. The resulting stories, both warm and dramatic, are about people who approach tremendous obstacles with humor, optimism and grace.
West 47th Street represents a radical return to cinéma vérité, without interviews or narration. Set at Fountain House, a rehabilitation program for people with serious mental illness located in New York City's Hell's Kitchen.
West 47th Street is the highly-acclaimed, feature-length documentary film produced by the Peabody Award-winning Lichtenstein Creative Media. It was called "Must See" by Newsweek and "remarkable" by the Washington Post.
At times hilarious and at other times tragic, the film follows three years in the lives of four people with serious mental illness, and provides an unprecedented window on the lives of people who are often feared and ignored, seldom understood. The film's producers enjoyed an extraordinary degree of access to their lives, and shot more than 350 hours of tape: off and on the street, in and out of hospitals and homeless shelters, healthy -- and psychotic. The resulting stories, both warm and dramatic, are about people who approach tremendous obstacles with humor, optimism and grace.
West 47th Street represents a radical return to cinéma vérité, without interviews or narration. Set at Fountain House, a rehabilitation program for people with serious mental illness located in New York City's Hell's Kitchen.
Order West 47th Street on DVD or Digital Download from Amazon
You can order your copy of West 47th Street on DVD by clicking here or by Instant Download by clicking here. Libraries or educational institutions can order West 47th Street with 28-page discussion and facilitation guide by clicking here.
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Watch the West 47th Street PBS trailer
Click here to watch the PBS West 47th Street trailer.
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Where to watch West 47th Street.
Click here to find the PBS station nearest you broadcasting West 47th Street.
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Localize the Broadcast of West 47th Street
Use the PBS Broadcast of West 47th Street to Reach Out to Your Local Media about Mental Health in Your Community! Click Here to Find Out More!
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Here's What They Had to Say About West 47th Street:
Here’s what they said about West 47th Street : “There is Hollywood’s too-perfect version of mental illness—‘Ordinary People,’ ‘Rain Man,’ ‘A Beautiful Mind.’ And then there’s the raw stuff of ‘West 47th Street' . . . The film debuts at a time when the country’s mental-health system is under fire. A recent presidential commission called it ‘fragmented, disconnected and often inadequate.’ For those battling mental illness, better services are critical. So is respect.” - Newsweek “Editors’ Choice – Pick of the Night” – TV Guide “Its craftsmanship, thoroughness, smart editing and sensitive but clear-eyed handling of its delicate subject matter make it a work of remarkable passion and uncommon decency. Most amazing of all, West 47th Street has the power to be a life-altering cinema experience. Watch it and you'll no longer be able to pass those troubled souls on the street without noticing, without caring, without understanding that attention must be paid." -- Dennis King, Tulsa World “With its four memorable characters, West 47th Street gives emotional oomph to Lichtenstein’s multimedia campaign for understanding mental illness, plowing like an icebreaker through frozen assumptions about homeless people.” - Current, the newspaper of public broadcasting “The most wrenching moments in the Cleveland International Film Festival belonged not to any scripted plot, but to a special preview of this vérité documentary masterpiece.” - Cleveland International Film Festival “You feel as a viewer as if you're right in there with these people … the filmmakers wrestled with 350 hours of footage to tell, in less than two hours, the stories.”- Lisa Simeone, host, NPR’s Weekend All Things Considered "Filmed in the manner of strict cinéma vérité style, the film borrows from documentary giants like Frederick Wiseman the ability of film to observe from a distance ... fiction could never invent such beautiful characters." - FilmFestivals.com “Involving, insightful documentary”- Variety “Told entirely without interviews or narration, this is radical, engaged filmmaking in the finest cinéma vérité tradition: it observes its subjects from a distance, without judging them, without framing them in a message, without telling us how to respond. This restraint makes our experience, as spectators, all the more powerful and unforgettable..- Vancouver Film Festival |
Visit the PBS website to learn more about West 47th Street.
..West 47th Street CreditsProduced by
Bill Lichtenstein June Peoples Editor Spiro C. Lampros Additional Editing Bernadine Colish Story Consultant Charlotte Zwerin Principal Photography Bill Lichtenstein Mark Petersson Sound Recording June Peoples Tracey Barry Associate Editor Greg Sirota Development Tamara Burgess Jean Sebastian Outreach Michelle Materre Additional Camera Eddie Marritz Kyle Kibbe Ellen Spiro June Peoples Greg Sirota Spiro C. Lampros Michel Negroponte Bill Cassera Additional Sound Greg Sirota Caleb Mose Mark Mandler Yvo Hanak Jeffrey Seymann Edit Room Assistance Karen Sim Alina Taalman Production Assistance Aryeh First Rafael Perez Frances Spisak Joe Kinard Sam Hernandez Hector Otero Ethan Tzavellas James Breen Carmelo Lopez On-Line Editor Travis Antolik Sound Editing and Design Joe Caterini Patrick Donahue Caterini Studios Publicity Lisa M. Bell Title and Graphic Design Wee Small Hours Design, NYC Legal Counsel Robert Freedman, Esq. David Lubell, Esq. Fiscal Sponsor New York Foundation for the Arts Travel Barbara Freedman, Singer Travel Music Clearances DMG, Inc. |
Lichtenstein Creative Media, Incorporated One Broadway; 14th Floor; Cambridge, MA 02142 Tel: 617-682-3700 LCM@LCMedia.com
