The astonishing story of the first documentary film school in the USA—The Institute of Film Techniques at The City College of New York. This groundbreaking program exposed thousands of working-class kids raised on Hollywood movies to the power of documentary film - all under the watchful eye of DADAist, pioneering experimental filmmaker and radical thinker, Hans Richter.

The epic life story of Alice Guy-Blaché (1873–1968), a French screenwriter, director and producer, true pioneer of cinema, the first person who made a narrative fiction film; author of hundreds of movies, but banished from history books. Ignored and forgotten. At last remembered.

This documentary interweaves celluloid and voice recordings by Maya Deren, and colleagues who knew her firsthand: Jean Rouch, Jonas Mekas, Alexander Hammid, Cecile Starr etc. Maya Deren (1917-1961) was an experimental filmmaker. In the 1940s and 1950s she made several influential avant-garde films, such as Meshes of the Afternoon (1943). Images from this and her other work are used in this documentary. You can also hear her voice, as well as accounts by contemporaries such as Jean Rouch and Jonas Mekas.

Filmmaker Jonas Mekas films 160 underground film people over four decades.