Monk in Pieces - BLU-RAY

Meredith Monk - composer, performer, and interdisciplinary artist - is one of the great artistic pioneers of our time, yet her profound cultural influence is largely unrecognized. With Monk's music at it's center, and featuring interviews with Björk and David Byrne, Monk in Pieces is a mosaic that mirrors the structure of Monk's own work, and illuminates her wildly original vocabulary of sound and imagery.

Filmmaker Bruce Ricker couldn't believe his luck. Michael and Christian Blackwood's extensive 1968 footage of modern jazz pianist/composer Thelonious Monk -- including the very private Monk offstage -- was in excellent shape. The reels were, Ricker said, "just sitting there like the Dead Sea Scrolls of jazz." Ricker, as coproducer, joins director and fellow producer Charlotte Zwerin (Gimme Shelter), executive producer Clint Eastwood and

Nicolas Philibert's documentary features hearing-impaired people of all ages and from all walks of life, focusing on the students and teachers in a French school for deaf children and exploring the personal lives of some of the pupils and various adults, including an actor, a sign-language teacher, and an engaged couple. Sensitive and fascinating, in the Land of the Deaf is a moving account of it's subjects' lives.