Michael Roemer

In 1961, Robert Young and Michael Roemer shot a gritty documentary in Palermo's Cortile Cascino, a slum reserved for rag pickers and scavengers. Thirty years later, Young's son and daughter-in-law go back to Sicily to pick up the story of Angela Capra, her now ex-husband, and their children. Black and white footage from 1961 is intercut with color footage from the '90s. Much has changed: Angela's leaving her husband gives her a sense of rebirth. (jhailey)

A small-time Jewish racketeer, just out of prison, finds himself in a quandary. (imdb)

Unsuccessfully trying to close old family wounds on a trip back to the Rhode Island home of her miserable childhood, troubled Jo (Brooke Adams) finds her new friendship with neighbor has her stuck in another family drama. (imdb)

Michael Roemer was asked by a local television station whether he would be interested in making a film about death. He was interested but instead of presenting death from the perspective of society as a whole, he decided to focus his film on three people who were in the process of dying. He followed them and their families over a period of three years. (arsenal-berlin.de)

The tale is a familiar one for American moviegoers; devil-may-care young man drawn to a grounded young woman, they part, he realizes he prefers stability to freedom, they reconcile. interest for viewers now as well as 40 years ago lies in the protagonists' skin color...

A grim portrait of those living in a slum in Palermo, on the other side of the railroad tracks and without running water. (imdb)