All Rights Reserved By Maryann De Leo.
The film follows Maxim Surkov when he returns to his home in Pripyat, Ukraine after 20
years.
We travelled with Maxim Surkov through a true no man’s land, the Chernobyl forbidden zone, the
worst contaminated area on earth where nobody will be able to live for centuries. When we
arrived at Maxim’s former apartment he began to remember his lost childhood.
Maxim’s story is a story thousands could tell, there were 16,000 children evacuated from Pripyat
after the accident. Those children were scattered and resettled all over the Soviet Union. We
will never know what happened to them, their trauma, both mental and physical; we will never
know their lives and deaths. There will be no record of that in any history book. No one is
recording their fate.
Chokwe Lumumba is a Black nationalist, civil rights lawyer and revolutionary mayor of Jackson, Mississippi. Through his decades-long involvement with the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement and the Provisional Government of the Republic of New Afrika, he has advocated for a Black separatist state in the American South. But when Lumumba suddenly dies, his legacy is put in jeopardy. In a cloud of grief, Lumumba’s son and namesake Chokwe Antar, a handsome and charismatic young man, steps up to the plate to cement his father's legacy. Chokwe Antar wants to make Jackson, Mississippi the “most radical city in the world.” The film follows Chokwe Antar Lumumba’s campaign as he runs for mayor.
Under Production
"Terror at Home: Domestic Violence in America" is an intimate look into the lives of several women as they try to break free of their abusive relationships. The film follows several women who have been in abusive relationships including: an upscale woman who escapes after 22 years of being battered and finds solace with others in her situation,a mother of a six- year-old who finds the strength to save herself and her son, a college student who relies on her family to help her walk away after being hit every day for the past four month, and a woman who can't share her story firsthand, since her estranged husband stabbed her to death but her family, including her three children, keep her memory alive.
Chernobyl Heart is a documentary about the effects of radiation on the children of Belarus, 16 years after the accident at the nuclear reactor at Chernobyl. The film begins with the journey into the exclusion zone, driving to the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, and follows the invisible trail of radiation to the country's hospitals, cancer centers, orphanages, and mental asylums, where the children live, or are being treated for their disease. We traveled throughout Belarus following Adi Roche, the executive director of the Chernobyl Children's Project, an Irish organization that has been delivering humanitarian aid to the children of Belarus since 1991. In a children's hospital, we follow Dr. William Novick, a heart surgeon from Memphis, Tennessee as he performs life saving operations on children born with hearts that have multiple defects, often called a Chernobyl heart.
In an unprecedented look inside the country's most famous psychiatric institution, it is an unflinching look at the reality of day-to-day life in a mental hospital. In cinema verite style without narration, the camera reveals the challenging inner world of more than a dozen real-life patients over the course of a year.
Winners of the 1996 NCAA Women's Basketball Championship, the University of Tennessee's Lady Volunteers seemed poised to contend for the trophy again. But halfway through the 1997 season, the team was losing almost every important game. Even the remarkable efforts of All-American forward Chamique Holdsclaw could not keep the team from falling apart. Could this team really win again? A Cinderella Season follows the Lady Vols for the entire season: 6:00 A.M. torture runs, inside the locker room, on the bench, during games, on the bus, the broken bones and broken hearts. This tape also captures the intensity and drive of Tennessee coach Pat Summitt as she seeks to mold her players into overachievers and winners. In the end, the viewer will feel like a member of the team as the Lady Vols turn tears into triumph at the 1997 NCAA Championship.
The film follows four people who were diagnosed with inoperable cancer. Unwilling to accept a fatal prognosis, each pursued alternative medicine in search of cures Western medicine was unable to offer. Two women, one man and one child are the focus of the 60-minute documentary. When orthodox therapies such as chemotherapy are found ineffective, they try unconventional treatments - herbal remedies, macrobiotic diet, and Native American spiritual healing, among others. Whether these alternative methods work remains in question, but the therapies offer the patients and their families hope against daunting odds. De Leo spent five years making Six Months to Live, capturing intimate moments of hope and courage, despair and resignation as each person faced the greatest challenge of their lives, mortality.
This documentary follows three long- time Lowell residents who are addicted to crack. As Brenda, Dicki, and Boo-Boo move in and out of crack houses, rehab centers, and jail, we watch them in their day to day struggle to remain clean and sober.
DeLeo looks at the crime of rape in the United State. She takes an unflinching look at seven cases covered by the Memphis Rape Crisis Center. Victims both young and old talk about their experiences while crisis center investigators attend to their well-being while trying to determine what actually happened.
A basketball dynasty. A dominating star player. A grueling regular season. A championship year.
The
Chicago Bulls? No, it's the Tennessee Lady Volunteers, gunning for their second consecutive NCAA
women's basketball crown, and their fifth in a decade when this documentary debuted in March
1998 on
HBO.
In March 1996, the University of Tennessee women's basketball team completed a 32-4 dream season
to
win its fourth NCAA championship in nine years, creating high expectations for the next season.
Combining on-court action and revealing behind-the-scenes footage, A CINDERELLA SEASON: THE LADY
VOLS FIGHT BACK shows how the squad struggles through a disappointing regular season before
regaining its championship form with a late-season string of heroics to take a second straight
NCAA
crown in March 1997 -- a feat no previous UT team had accomplished.
Whatever cynical tendency there may be to mock Lifetime’s campaign against domestic violence — it’s certainly an issue with no “pro” side — it mostly melts away watching this sober documentary, which the channel is presenting commercial-free. Beginning with a 911 call and ending with a tombstone, filmmaker Maryann De Leo (“Chernobyl Heart”) exhibits restraint in between — tackling the problem by talking to women of various ethnic and regional backgrounds, as well as those seeking to help them, regarding their ordeals.
America Undercover looks at the crime of rape in the United State. It takes an unflinching look
at
seven cases covered by the Memphis Rape Crisis Center. Victims both young and old talk about
their
experiences while crisis center investigators attend to their well-being while trying to
determine
what actually happened.
Director : Maryann DeLeo
Writer : Maryann DeLeo
The film is about the effects of global warming in the United States. Heat waves. Melting
glaciers. Rising sea levels. Catastrophic storm surges. Migrating viruses. Population
displacement. Over the past 100 years, the mass consumption of fossil fuel, especially in
America, has contributed to a dangerous global warming that has adversely impacted the way we
live and promises to do far greater damage if we continue to ignore its warning signs.