Jonathan Berman — Director (2)
The Shvitz (1993) [Movie] IMDb TMDB
The Shvitz
director: Jonathan Berman
A look at the unlikely community forged in the 200 degree heat of the last traditional steam baths in the U.S. From gamblers to "new age" masseuses, from poets to rabbis, the characters form a sometimes conflicting, yet often compelling voice. The film uses the baths to give a perspective on the evolution of city life, while bringing up issues of ethnicity, nostalgia, sexuality, spirituality and ritual. "When we sit in this intense heat", says one patron, "we're all the same - millionaire and pauper".
Calling All Earthlings (2018) [Movie] WikiData IMDb TMDB
Calling All Earthlings
director: Jonathan Berman actor: Teddy Quinn / Ted Markland
other title: People of Earth
Calling All Earthlings explores a mid-century UFO cult led by one-time Howard Hughes confidante, George Van Tassel. Van Tassel claimed to have combined alien guidance with the writings of inventor/physicist Nikola Tesla, and other controversial science, to build an electromagnetic time machine he dubbed “The Integratron.” Was he insane? Or could the dome really break through the boundaries of space, time, and energy? FBI agents worked against Van Tassel and the alternative community that formed out of his work. Would he finish the Integratron before the government finished him?