On the evening of July 7, 2016, protesters gathered in cities across the nation after police shot two black men, Philando Castile and Alton Sterling. As officers patrolled a march in Dallas, a young man stepped out of an SUV wearing a bulletproof vest and carrying a high-powered rifle. He killed five officers and wounded eleven others. It fell to a small group of cops to corner the shooter inside a community college, where a fierce gun battle was followed by a stalemate. Crisis negotiator Larry Gordon, a 21-year department veteran, spent hours bonding with the gunman - over childhood ghosts and death and racial injustice in America - while his colleagues devised an unprecedented plan to bring the night to its dramatic end. Thompson's minute-by-minute account includes intimate portrayals of the negotiator, a surgeon who operated on the fallen officers, a mother of four shot down in the street, and the SWAT officers tasked with stopping the gunman. Their stories go to the heart of the deeply pressing issue of race and policing in the USA, and reflect America's divide over how to view the men and woman assigned to protect us.

Seeking answers amidst LA's occult underground, a hard-boiled detective chases down a serial rapist intent on consuming the souls of the innocent and becoming a god. The clock is winding down in "As Above So Below..". In the theatre of my mind, these are sweeping, fantastical adventures, mixing themes of dark magick with beauty, violence and chaos.

No saint, no pope, no general, no sultan, has ever had the power that a filmmaker has-the power to talk to hundreds of millions of people for two hours in the dark." -Frank Capra Inspiring everything from pop culture earthquakes to popular revolutions, filmmakers have demonstrated an uncanny ability to move the masses. But the drama they project on screen is only half the picture. Stretching back from its earliest days of two-reel silent films to the latest 3-D digital blockbusters, film history provides a cast of characters ready to spill witty bon mots, outrageous pronouncements, and heartfelt reflections. The Filmmaker Says is a colorful compendium of quotations from more than one hundred of history's most influential and opinionated creators of filmed entertainment. Paired like guests at the ultimate filmgeek dinner party-a celebrated filmmaker of today might sit next to a giant from the silent era-the members of this raucous crew puts on a show arguing, complimenting, and disagreeing with each other about every step of the moviemaking process. A perfect gift for working filmmakers, aspiring auteurs, and avid moviegoers, The Filmmaker Says will delight anyone who has dreamed of yelling "action" or just can't wait for the lights to go down and the curtain to go up."