City Lights

City Lights chronicles the unlikely story of how a scruffy neighborhood bookstore and publishing house in San Francisco became a global beacon for free expression, radical literature, and the enduring belief that books can change the world.

Founded in 1953, City Lights helped transform American literary culture by championing affordable paperback books, nurturing the Beat Generation, and publishing voices that mainstream publishers would not. From the publication and landmark obscenity trial of Allen Ginsberg’s Howl to its role in the counterculture movements of the 1960s up to present day, the bookstore became a gathering place for writers, artists, activists, and readers committed to challenging convention and expanding the boundaries of free expression.

Drawing on rare archival material and intimate conversations with Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Peter Coyote, John Sayles, Anne Waldman, Dave Eggers, and many others—including the booksellers, publishers, and staff who have shaped City Lights across generations—City Lights reveals how one independent bookstore has remained both a witness to and a catalyst for some of the defining cultural and political movements of the past seventy-five years, and explores why independent bookstores remain essential spaces for culture, community, and democracy.

Producer/Director: Starr Sutherland, Atypical Project

Producer/Director: Jim McKee, Earwax Productions

Executive Producer: Bob Hercules, Media Process Group

Consulting Producer: Richard O’Connell

Editor: Greg Snider

Tec Director: David Lawrence

Director of Photography: Frazer Bradshaw

Graphics: Casey Stockdon, Red Dynamo

Learn more: https://www.citylightsdocumentary.org/

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