In 1947, two years after the end of the Second World War, Film Journal No. 1 was released in Sarajevo. Fifty years later, after the collapse of the Communist bloc, this newsreel was lost in the confusion of the fighting in Yugoslavia. In Journal No. 1 Hito Steyerl attempts to find out how the footage got lost and what was on this document from the Sutjeska studio. In the simultaneous projection of Journal No. 1 the ‘unattainability of an historical zero hour of the national identity’ takes concrete form: The lost newsreel reports on a literacy campaign as well as Muslim women confidently removing their headscarves. We listen however to eyewitnesses trying to recapture the lost content and we see the artist Arman Kulasic making a number of drawings that resemble the story-boards for the lost film. What appears to be moments of great change remain limited by subjective and uncertain memory. The film was premiered at documenta 12.
Russ Richards is a TV weatherman and local celebrity on the verge of losing his shirt. Desperate to escape financial ruin, he schemes with Crystal the TV station's lotto ball girl to rig the state lottery drawing. The numbers come up right, but everything else goes wrong as the plan starts to unravel and the game turns rough.
Fitness instructor Julia is down on her luck, trying to make her baby boot camp a thriving business. To make ends meet, she becomes a part-time nanny for a single widowed father. Trouble is, she knows nothing about taking care of children.
After the Kyrgyzstan Independence in 1991, the ancient practice of Ala-Kachuu ("grab and run") returned. Some women escape the men that kidnap them, but many remain married because of tradition and the fear of scandal.
In Los Angeles, a gang of bank robbers who call themselves The Ex-Presidents commit their crimes while wearing masks of Reagan, Carter, Nixon and Johnson. Believing that the members of the gang could be surfers, the F.B.I. sends young agent Johnny Utah to the beach undercover to mix with the surfers and gather information.
When a Mongolian nomadic family's newest camel colt is rejected by its mother, a musician is needed for a ritual to change her mind.
Devoted teacher Anne Sullivan leads deaf, blind and mute Helen Keller out of solitude and helps integrate her into the world.
The untold tragedy and scandal of what happened to a vibrant community of immigrants from the Cape Verde Islands in the Fox Point section of Providence, Rhode Island who were forcibly displaced by urban renewal to make way for fancy coffee shops, antique stores and elegantly restored houses. Poignant, heartfelt and warm, in a timeless snapshot SKFPR captures the essence, spirit and heart of a community whose history was erased before it was written.
A documentary on kids who attend a summer camp hoping to become the next Billy Graham.
Pensioners, lawyers, married couples and teenagers are all customers at the Angel Love Hotel in Osaka Japan. With unprecedented access into one of the most private and anonymous spaces in Japanese society, this film follows the love hotel's struggling manager and staff as the try to keep their hotel running, as well as revealing the intimate and private lives of the customers who visit.
Two women fought with uncompromising conviction to change the world in the late 1960s - Inge Viett as a former member of the RAF in Germany, Maria Barhoum as former member of the FAU in Uruguay. In 1999, they met in Cuba, a country that seemed to mirror many of their questions, hopes and fears. The film looks at their real lives and different roads to exile; two utopian visions sought under very different conditions on separate continents. It is a double portrait of two extraordinary women that succeeds in avoiding the twin pitfalls of condemnation and glorification.
HALF THE ROAD is a documentary film that explores the world of women's professional cycling, focusing on both the love of sport and the pressing issues of inequity that modern-day female riders face in a male-dominated sport. With footage from some of the world's best races to interviews with Olympians, world champs, rookies, coaches, managers, officials, doctors and even the U.S. Surgeon General, HALF THE ROAD offers a unique insight into the drive, dedication and passion it takes for a female cyclist to thrive despite oppression. Both on and off the bike, the voices and advocates of women's pro cycling take the audience on a journey of enlightenment, depth, strength, love, humor and best of all, change and growth.
The Oystermen of Pointe a la Hache, Louisiana. This town of nearly 300 is struggling to survive following the BP Oil Spill that left their crop dead, finances in ruin and culture facing extinction. This community has a history of being overlooked by the State, and therefore, are taking matters into their own hands, to assure their voice is heard so that they may not otherwise vanish
Accordions have returned, not only with amusement, but with a beautiful, eloquent, haunting, and downright exciting vengeance!
A documentary on the once promising American rock bands The Brian Jonestown Massacre and The Dandy Warhols. The friendship between respective founders, Anton Newcombe and Courtney Taylor, escalated into bitter rivalry as the Dandy Warhols garnered major international success while the Brian Jonestown Massacre imploded in a haze of drugs.
In the Realms of the Unreal is a documentary about the reclusive Chicago-based artist Henry Darger. Henry Darger was so reclusive that when he died his neighbors were surprised to find a 15,145-page manuscript along with hundreds of paintings depicting The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What is Known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glodeco-Angelinnian War Storm, Cased by the Child Slave Rebellion.
In 1971, graduate student Gloria Orenstein received a call from Surrealist artist Leonora Carrington that sparked a lifelong journey into art, ecofeminism and shamanism. This short film uses art, animation and storytelling to celebrate this wild adventure. Now more than 40 years later, award-winning Dr. Gloria Feman Orenstein is a feminist art critic and pioneer scholar of women in Surrealism and ecofeminism in the arts. Her delightful tale brings alive an often unseen history of women in the arts.
The eight-year Iran-Iraq War was one of the most brutal conflicts to devastate the region in the 20th century. Zahed was 13 years old when he enrolled in the Iranian army. Najah was 18 when he was conscripted into the Iraqi army, and he fought against Zahed in the Battle of Khorramshahr. Fast forward 25 years, a chance encounter in Vancouver between these two former enemies turns into a deep and mutually supportive friendship. Expanded from the 2015 short film by the same name.
The film follows the story of Jamie, a struggling butch lesbian actress who gets cast as a man in a film. The main plot is a romantic comedy between Jamie's male alter-ego, "Male Jamie," and Jill, a heterosexual woman on set. The film's subplots include Jamie's bisexual roommate Lola and her cat actor Howard, Lola's abrasive butch German girlfriend Andi, and Jamie's gay Asian friend David.
He’s from a place so old it’s been called the cradle of mankind. She’s led a privileged life in America without hardship or pain. Together these two unlikely friends embark upon a journey from the heights of Mt. Kilimanjaro to the depths of an AIDS ravaged village where even the smallest children become outcasts at the mere hint of the disease and malaria is an ever-present threat. As Venance and Kristen experience the ancient culture, heart-breaking poverty, and eternal spirituality of Venance’s motherland, the ability of the Tanzanian people to love, dream, and persevere in the face of overwhelming hardship triggers a life-changing transformation in Kristen—one that brings her face to face with her own mortality and will ultimately cause thousands of lives to be saved. Tanzania: A Journey Within is a dramatic, emotional, and visually stunning odyssey that will challenge and inspire you.