Cinema and Sanctuary — Hans Richter & America's First Documentary Film School

Cinema and Sanctuary tells the astonishing story of the first documentary film school in the USA—The Institute of Film Techniques at The City College of New York. This groundbreaking program exposed thousands of working class kids raised on Hollywood movies to the power of documentary film - all under the watchful eye of  DADAist, pioneering experimental filmmaker and radical thinker, Hans Richter. Richter himself had only recently arrived in America - narrowly escaping from the Nazi SS, who were preparing to arrest him as a “degenerate artist”. 

In 1941, the charge of CCNY’s Film Institute was to train young Americans to make effective wartime informational films that would respond to the powerful screen propaganda being churned out by the Nazis during World War II. To meet the challenge, Richter assembled a faculty of iconic social documentary makers - among them Robert Flaherty, John Grierson, Leo Hurwitz, Willard Van Dyke and Joris Ivens.

The story is told by those whose lives were transformed by Hans Richter and his Film Institute, including Oscar-winners Alan Heim, Martin Starger and Lawrence Silk, as well as legendary experimental filmmaker, Jonas Mekas. Rich visual recreations, rare historical footage, and Richter’s own newly-discovered audio commentary are woven in to bring this lost piece of film history to the screen.

Produced and Directed by Dave Davidson

Edited by Pamela Ralat

Cinematography: Uladzimir Taukachou, Herman Lew, Dave Davidson

Supervising Sound Editor / Music Supervisor: Paul Kozel

Narrator: Mark Zeisler

62 minutes