Downtown Community Television (DCTV)
The Downtown Community Television Center (DCTV) was founded in 1972 with the goal of using filmmaking as a tool to catalyze, inform, and empower communities. From humble beginnings (DCTV's first educational projects operated from the back of a dilapidated mail truck), fifty years later DCTV has grown into one of the leading documentary production and film education centers in the country, with public programs designed to meet the needs of a diverse and ever-growing community of people who want to tell stories that matter to them, and stories that support social change.
To commemorate the grand opening of DCTV's new Firehouse Cinema, OVID is proud to present six of their groundbreaking documentaries. Ranging from the highs and lows of women’s college basketball (A Cinderella Season) to an unflinching look at drug addicts in Lowell, Massachusetts (High on Crack Street), these films would inspire a whole generation of documentary filmmakers.
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Third Avenue: Only the Strong Survive
Directed by Jon Alpert • Documentary • 1980 • 60 minutes
This Emmy Award-winning documentary tells the stories of six "ordinary" people who live or work along New York City's Third Avenue, which runs for sixteen miles through Manhattan, Brooklyn, and the Bronx, cutting through the complex social...
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Bullets in the Hood: A Bed-Stuy Story
Directed by Terrence Fisher, Daniel Howard • Documentary • 2005 • 23 minutes
Terrence Fisher, a teen living in the Louis Armstrong housing project in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, has had seven of his friends shot and killed with guns. Terrence is not a gang member or a drug dealer˜just a normal...
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A Cinderella Season: The Lady Vols Fight Back
Directed by Jon Alpert, Maryann De Leo • Documentary • 1998 • 77 minutes
In March 1996, the University of Tennessee women's basketball team completed a 32-4 dream season to win its fourth NCAA championship in nine years, creating high expectations for the next season. Combining on-court action a...
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High on Crack Street: Lost Lives in Lowell
Directed by Jon Alpert, Maryann De Leo, Richard Farrell • Documentary • 1995 • 61 minutes
This HBO film was shot over an 18 month period and documents the daily life of crack addicts living in the American city of Lowell, Massachusetts. Lowell itself has a population of 108,861 and is the forth ...
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Latin Kings: A Street Gang Story
Directed by Jon Alpert • Documentary • 2003 • 75 minutes
Assembled by DCTV co-founder, award-winning documentarian Jon Alpert, LATIN KINGS: A STREET GANG STORY follows the notorious New York gang's ex-leader, Antonio "King Tone" Fernandez. Under house arrest at the time of filming, Fernandez ins...
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Lock-Up: The Prisoners of Rikers Island
Directed by Nina Rosenblum, Jon Alpert • Documentary • 1994 • 75 minutes
If you’re arrested in New York City and can’t make bail, you’ll be sent to Rikers Island—a mammoth holding facility for 17,000 men and women awaiting trial. Jon Alpert spent ten months filming there, coming away with a grap...
