Prohibition and the South Florida Connection

June 1999. Bogdan has to buy alcohol for his wife's 50th birthday. His job is made much harder by the Pope's visit in Poland and the resulting prohibition. A simple search for vodka quickly turns into a metaphysical odyssey.

It’s a Saturday night in 1954 and the roar of the racecars at Hialeah Speedway can be heard all over town for the first time. Families would gather, men would cheer, and teenagers would peek through the fences to steal a glimpse of the action and larger-than-life racing personalities. Then, in 2005, the track was silenced forever.

Densely developed, low-lying South Florida is one of the most vulnerable regions to sea-level rise and climate change in the U.S. and the world. South Florida sits on the front lines of sea-level rise and climate change—and this WLRN original production offers a compelling look at how local communities are responding. Filmed throughout the 2024 hurricane season, it highlights innovative projects and grassroots efforts across the region, from infrastructure improvements to environmental education and citizen science. Following climate leaders and advocates over the course of a year, the film captures both the urgency of these challenges and the resilience of those working toward solutions. It culminates at a regional summit in Key West, where participants reflect on progress and the path ahead.

Deep in the wilds of Southern Appalachia, lifelong moonshiner Popcorn Sutton runs 1 last batch of accurate moonshine whiskey. By means of the exhausting work of clearing the site, building a rock and clay furnace, brewing corn mash and producing high-proof moonshine, Sutton reveals the craft of standard distillation, the character of his Scots-Irish ancestors, and a lifetime of memories in the trade.

'The True History of Marijuana' digs deep to expose a world-wide conspiracy, led by the petrolchemical industry, that has outlawed one of the most useful plants known to mankind. Cannabis has been used for thousands of years, in almost every culture, in ways you may never have imagined. This shocking documentary will change the way you think about marijuana forever.

A group of underground rap scene kids from South Florida work together to try to become famous rappers but struggle internally with personal issues regarding home life, growing up and their relationship as a group.

In late eighties, in Ceausescu's Romania, a black market VHS bootlegger and a courageous female translator brought the magic of Western films to the Romanian people and sowed the seeds of a revolution.

When the Oglala Sioux Tribe passed an ordinance separating industrial hemp from its illegal cousin, marijuana, Alex White Plume and his family glimpsed a brighter future. Having researched hemp as a sustainable crop that would grow in the inhospitable soil of the South Dakota Badlands, the White Plumes envisioned a new economy that would shrink the 85% unemployment rate on the Pine Ridge Reservation. They never dreamed they would find themselves swept up in a struggle over tribal sovereignty, economic rights, and common sense.

In a small rural town hit hard by the Depression, Katie Connors resides in a middle-class home with her bootlegging husband Melvin. When the opportunity arises to bump him off without getting her hands dirty, she takes a chance she may never get again. After his murder at the hands of criminal Richard Hayden, she begins to receive inopportune visits by Melvin's old business partners about a large shipment of moonshine in her possession. Contacting the FBI for help, agent Ron Sheridan is assigned to her case and develops an unrequited love for Katie. But when a full-scale war develops, she learns the FBI may not be much help to her as she thought, and Katie must take matters into her own hands to pay off her husband's debts for good.

A love letter to a place that will forever be home, a visual ode, and a farewell to a neighborhood that is rapidly changing due to the forces of gentrification and Miami’s housing crisis.