Documentary

WJZ reporter-anchor Adam May is leaving the Baltimore station at the end of the month to join Al Jazeera America as a national correspondent. May, who has been at the CBS-owned station for 10 years, will go to work for Al Jazeera in June. But he will continue to live in Baltimore. "It was a tough decision, especially saying goodbye to our viewers who have been so loyal over the last few years," May said in a telephone interview Monday. "I now consider many of them friends, and I hope when they still see me walking around Baltimore, they'll come up and say hi. " May, who is originally from Minnesota, said, "One of the most exciting things about this opportunity is that my family gets to stay in Baltimore.

It won't win an Oscar, but this movie could be useful if you're in the market for a car. The Maryland Consumer Rights Coalition is holding a screening of its film, Driven to Defraud , at the Enoch Pratt Central Library at 6:30 p.m. today. The movie comes at the same time that the consumer group releases a report on auto sale scams. Among them: Yo-yo sales This is where consumers leave the dealership in a car they think they have purchased, only to be called back days or weeks later and told that the sale or financing didn't go through for some reason.

The Cartoon Network continues its conversation with kids and families about speaking up against bullying with a special presentation of "The Bully Effect" at 5:30 p.m. and 8:00 p.m. on Sunday, April 28. Produced as part of the Cartoon Network's "Stop Bullying: Speak Up " initiative and presented commercial-free, the show is a half-hour CNN original documentary abridged for family audiences featuring additional original content, including a...

WJZ reporter-anchor Adam May is leaving the Baltimore station at the end of the month to join Al Jazeera America as a national correspondent. May, who has been at the CBS-owned station for 10 years, will go to work for Al Jazeera in June. But he will continue to live in Baltimore. "It was a tough decision, especially saying goodbye to our viewers who have been so loyal over the last few years," May said in a telephone interview Monday. "I now consider many of them friends, and I hope when they still see me walking around Baltimore, they'll come up and say hi. " May, who is originally from Minnesota, said, "One of the most exciting things about this opportunity is that my family gets to stay in Baltimore.

The Public Broadcasting Service recently presented a two-hour documentary on the War of 1812, the so-called "forgotten war. " Well, they forgot to include the Battle of North Point, one of the few land battles the Americans won against the British. While the show went into great detail describing American failures under inept generals, it ignored Gen. Sam Smith and the few Army regulars, militiamen and ordinary citizens under his command who prevented the British from capturing Baltimore and laying siege to Fort McHenry from the land side.

Actor William H. Macy, will offer a bit of Hollywood glamour to a documentary about his home state. According to the Cumberland Times-News, Macy is going to appear in the Maryland Public Television production "Our Town," which takes a look at Cumberland and Frostburg. Macy graduated from Allegany High School in 1968, the paper says. “Getting Bill Macy was beyond our wildest dreams,” Rick Lore, vice president of MPT told the paper, adding the program will open and close with the actor, who was nominated for an Oscar for his role in "Fargo.

The making of the Oscar-nominated movie "Music by Prudence" is a tale of two schools, one in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, and one in Baltimore. A favorite for best short documentary at tonight's Academy Awards, this 33-minute flight presents an affecting portrait of its tough, gifted title character, the singer-songwriter in a band of disabled youths at the King George VI School & Centre for Children With Physical Disabilities in Bulawayo. Prudence Mabhena suffers from arthrogryposis, a condition that deforms joints and cost her both her legs.

"12 O'Clock Boys," a documentary looking at West Baltimore dirt bikers, will get its world premiere at next month's South by Southwest (SXSW) festival in Austin, Texas. Director Lotfy Nathan's film was one of eight documentary features chosen to be screened at the festival, out of more than 900 submitted for consideration. The film centers on 13-year-old Pug, who desperately wants to join the West Baltimore dirt-bike gang that gives Nathan's work its title. The SXSW website says the film "presents the pivotal years of change in a boy's life growing up in one of the most dangerous and economically depressed cities in the U.S. " Director Nathan, who began working on "12 O'Clock Boys" in 2008, is currently trying to raise $30,000 through kickstarter.com to complete post-production on the film, including color correction, sound design and mixing, music licensing and getting to SXSW.

The Hubble Space Telescope has captured distant reaches of the universe over the past 22 years, but with the end of the space shuttle program, has not been repaired since 2009. A filmmaker is challenging that decision with the documentary "Saving Hubble" and will speak in Baltimore on Tuesday. David Gaynes will speak at the Space Telescope Science Institute with his message about saving Hubble, which is expected to continue operating only through next year. NASA is focused on replacing Hubble with the James Webb Space Telescope in 2018.

Documentaries are the most exciting conversation-starters in contemporary American movies — and when they earn Academy Awards, their influence soars into the stratosphere. Winners like "Taxi to the Dark Side" and "The Cove" have shaped international discussions about human and animal rights. No wonder the Maryland Film Festival gala on March 11 will debate the question: "Are documentary filmmakers the new journalists?" Documentaries give the Academy a needed dose of gravitas.

Joe Tropea thought he was writing a research paper on the Catonsville Nine, a group of Catholic anti-war activists who set draft records ablaze outside a Selective Service office in 1968. But what he was really working on was a movie script. "I just got hooked on telling the story," Tropea says of the six-year film project, undertaken with co-director Skizz Cyzyk, that will be getting its local premiere during this week's 15th Maryland Film Festival. The festival starts Wednesday and runs through Sunday.

Talk about a great story just falling into your lap. Baltimore filmmaker Ramona Diaz can't help but chuckle while recounting how she first heard about Arnel Pineda, the unlikely successor to Steve Perry as lead singer for Journey and the subject of her latest documentary, "Don't Stop Believin': Everyman's Journey," which is showing Tuesday at the Charles Theatre. "I heard about Arnel getting the gig through an unsolicited email," she says, "that connected me with a link that was sort of going viral among the Filipino community.

A dozen films to be shown at this year's Maryland Film Festival have ties to Baltimore or Maryland — a record number, organizers say. Here are some of the highlights: "12 O'Clock Boys" Maryland Institute College of Art grad Lotfy Nathan's documentary follows a teenager nicknamed Pug as he tries to get in good with the West Baltimore dirt-bike gang that gives the film its title. The film, Nathan's first, was a big hit at this year's South by Southwest festival. 7 p.m. Friday (MICA's Brown Center)

The Cartoon Network continues its conversation with kids and families about speaking up against bullying with a special presentation of "The Bully Effect" at 5:30 p.m. and 8:00 p.m. on Sunday, April 28. Produced as part of the Cartoon Network's "Stop Bullying: Speak Up " initiative and presented commercial-free, the show is a half-hour CNN original documentary abridged for family audiences featuring additional original content, including a...

Eighteen months ago, Baltimore post-punk heroes Double Dagger played its final show at the Ottobar. But the trio of Nolen Strals, Denny Bowen and Bruce Willen aren't finished celebrating the band's career. On April 20 - internationally known as Record Store Day, which falls on the third Saturday in April each year - Double Dagger will host a free record release party at Hampden's Atomic Books . The trio is releasing its final album, a hard-hitting EP called "333," along with a documentary called "If We Shout Loud Enough" that follows the band on its final tour.

On the same day that fans will gather to watch the Orioles open their season in Tampa against the Rays, another event will be highlighting baseball in Baltimore. “The President's Cup,” a documentary on Baltimore's annual high school baseball tournament, debuts at 6 p.m. Tuesday at the University of Baltimore's Wright Theater. The film is directed by University of Baltimore associate professor Julie Simon and chronicles the 2012 edition of the tournament, which is sponsored by City Council President Bernard C. “Jack” Young and draws more than a dozen public and private high schools from around the city.

John Ehrlichman was in London recently to talk about a new three-hour television documentary on Richard Nixon's life done by WGBH-TV in Boston.He says he does not, quoting from his former boss, "wallow in Watergate."But 13 years after leaving prison for his Watergate crimes, Mr. Nixon's one-time chief domestic policy adviser, has not escaped Watergate's shadow, and he also hasn't shied away from it.So, when the ghosts of Watergate were summoned in the documentary, Mr. Ehrlichman, 65, agreed to go to London to discuss it.

The CBS Sports Network does some drum beating for March Madness Monday night with " The Miracles : The 1988 Kansas Jayhawks," a documentary about how an underdog team won the national championship that year. Known as Danny and the Miracles, because of star Danny Manning, Kansas upset the Oklahoma Sooners for the championship. There are a couple of local angles worth noting in the film that marks the 25th anniversary of that championship. One of the producers is Tamiko Bullock, a graduate of Morgan State University.

Varsity baseball President's Cup film to premiere today "The President's Cup," a documentary film about an annual high school baseball tournament in Baltimore, will premiere at the University of Baltimore today at 6 p.m. The film, directed by Julie Simon , associate professor in the university's School of Communications Design, follows the progress of the second annual tournament, which took place in 2012, and makes its debut as this...

When “12 O'Clock Boys” director Lotfy Nathan brought his film to this month's South by Southwest film festival, one of his main goals was to find distribution for the documentary. Nathan didn't have to wait long, as deadline.com reported this week that Oscilloscope Laboratories had purchased the North American rights to Nathan's documentary on the West Baltimore dirt-bike riders. Oscilloscope, which was co-founded by deceased Beastie Boy Adam “MCA” Yauch, is considered a boutique film company.