Duane Michals

A look at photographer Duane Michal's sequential photo narratives, with voiceover by Michals himself.

Portrait of an artist who has marked the history of contemporary photography with his images in sequences where gravity and humor and even writing are mixed. Through the emblematic themes of his work, such as love, desire, death or immortality, this film proposes to revisit the places that have marked him: Pittsburgh, the flagship city of the steel industry, the city of his childhood and his first discoveries; New York, where he has been living for many years with his companion Frédéric, a city that symbolizes encounters and desire; and finally Vermont, for the nature, the seasons and the disused hotel where he works. These places bring out the artist's fantasy, humor and emotion. Duane Michals is a young man of 80 years, with a great freedom of spirit and vitality, his enthusiasm is contagious and this film is a reflection of it.

The film of Michael Engler from the year 1982 showing the different methods of operation of photgraphers Harry Callahan, Mark Cohen, Robert Frank, Ralph Gibson, Duane Michals, Joel Meyerowitz, Stephen Shore, Garry Winogrand and others

Presents an intimate view of four decades of the Swiss-born artist Robert Frank who has had an extraordinary influence on contemporary photography and filmmaking. This documentary which examines his life through his films and photographs, includes interviews with many of his collaborators and contemporaries. Written, directed and edited by Philip Brookman, Amy Brookman

Magritte, le jour et la nuit

From this "inexorable disease", Hervé Guibert did not recover. The miracle he had so much hoped for did not happen. But, before his death in 1991, three years after learning of his HIV-positive status, he engraved in his literary and photographic work "the places of [his] suffering", "the stations of [his] way of the cross". With his thin body and sunken cheeks, the handsome man with curly hair that he was, the one whose clear gaze radiated from the seaside photos, fought a fierce battle against AIDS. A fight of every moment against the decay of the body, observed and commented with a methodical care in his autobiographical novels, in particular "To the Friend Who Did Not Save My Life" (1990) and "The Compassionate Protocol" (1991), and of which he testified on television on the set of "Apostrophes"...

An intimate look at pioneering artist George Platt Lynes, who took radically explicit photographs of the male nude. The documentary reveals Lynes’ gifted eye for the male form, his long-term friendships with Gertrude Stein and Alfred Kinsey, and his lasting influence as one of the first openly gay American artists.

A grandfather struggles to understand his grandson’s sexual identity. The tension builds as a consequence of their conflicting emotions. Their dialogue has a brutal tempo, a staccato that mirrors the characters’ own discomfort. As in his still photographs Michals deftly orchestrates the effects of multiple exposure using the technique to convey the complexity and emotional resonance of a charged situation. The actors’ words imply one thing, while beneath their dialogue exists an empathy they are unable to articulate.