Rat Film

This Traveltalk series short highlights such Maryland destinations as Baltimore, Johns Hopkins, Annapolis, and Fort McHenry.

Baltimore City officials asked drug kingpin Melvin Williams to stop the riots happened following Martin Luther King's assassination. After helping the authorities out, Williams was then labeled a threat, framed and incarcerated by a hypocritical society.

The senior year of a girls’ high school step team in inner-city Baltimore is documented, as they try to become the first in their families to attend college. The girls strive to make their dancing a success against the backdrop of social unrest in their troubled city.

In the wake of Freddie Gray's death in police custody, peaceful protests and destructive riots erupted as the city awaited the fate of six police officers involved in the incident. Follow the activists, police officers, community leaders and gang affiliates, who struggle to hold Baltimore together.

Maryland folklorist Elaine Eff is a champion of Baltimore culture and traditions. In her documentary film The Screen Painters, she sets her sights on a much-loved Baltimore icon: the painted window screen and the artists who created them. This delightful documentary film chronicles the beginnings, the heyday, and the decline of an urban folk art unique to Baltimore - the practice of painting landscape scenes on window and door screens. It profiles seven artists who have spent much of their lives embellishing the bricks and stones of the inner city with a touch of enchantment. The film reveals how this unpretentious art form embodies the ethnic spirit of urban America and is a testament to the need for art in daily life. -Direct Cinema Limited

"The Last Season" follows the stadium's last year, the fans' communal last look, the witnessing of the wrecking ball and the great fall of the Memorial Wall.

Since 1950, Alberta's fabled Rat Patrol has kept the province rat-free. But as pest control meets ecology in the 21st century, what does the future hold for this mythic institution and their "enemy?"

During three years of unparalleled violence in Baltimore, Charm City delivers an unexpectedly candid, observational portrait of those left on the frontlines. With grit, fury, and compassion, a group of police, citizens, and government officials grapple with the consequences of violence and try to reclaim their future.

A study of the wily brown rat, humankind's unwanted companion throughout the world, whose bite on the world's food resources adds to the growing threat of shortage. In a normal, free-ranging environment, the rat is more than a match for its hosts and colonies flourish. Under abnormal conditions of restricted space and limited food, a rat colony loses all 'social' constraints on behaviour. The film has implicit analogies for all animal behaviour, including humanity's. Plagues, predators and extermination attempts are among the topics discussed.

Hiding in the Walls unwinds the fraught history of lead poisoning in Baltimore and follows the adult survivors who are on a mission to reclaim the narrative.

The story of an outsider from East Baltimore, an area challenged by gang violence and poverty. Often misunderstood, Coffin Nachtmahr found acceptance among a subculture of “throwers” and it turns out, he’s a virtuoso. He now helps others find a creative and social outlet by sharing the very toy that inspired him.