The Field of Enchantment

How did Hollywood pitch movies about gays and lesbians between 1956 and 1977? Here are theatrical trailers for 27 mainstream and art-house films, presented chronologically from "Tea and Sympathy" to "Outrageous!" More than half are films released between 1968 and 1972. Half are dramas and half are comedies, with farce dominating the films released after 1971. At least three advertise X-rated films: "The Killing of Sister George," "Midnight Cowboy," and Visconti's "The Damned." There's no voice-over commentary for this compilation, but it does include advertisements for snacks and one warning against public displays of affection aimed at "her" to control "him."

The first in a series of films for the Rural Cinema Scheme in the Orkneys, it records the return to the island of Wyre of Neil Flaws, a farmer, and his family at a time when the drift from the northern isles of the Orkneys was of concern to some Orcadians.

A short piece of film recording general views of Edinburgh's Princes Street in the 1950s.

A silly prince wants to marry a beautiful peasant girl. His guards kidnap her, but the girl escapes and returns to her beloved. Meanwhile, a UFO lands in the kingdom and the aliens witness nuisances, court intrigues, and lies. They are not allowed to meddle in other people's affairs, but they still influence the happy ending.

Following their triumph with Manufactured Landscapes, photographer Edward Burtynsky and filmmaker Jennifer Baichwal reunite to explore the ways in which humanity has shaped, manipulated and depleted one of its most vital and compromised resources: water.

In this absorbing film, seven independent female Iranian documentary makers take us into their personal and professional world, in an Iran that continues to be punctured by political, social and economic crises. What becomes clear over seven autobiographical chapters, is that choosing to become a documentary maker in Iran is a brave decision, often placing your liberty in danger. These women are driven by the need to document their world, and the forces that continue to restrict their movement and freedom. Whether it is making a film about department stores in Tehran featuring mannequins with severed heads and breasts, or the women singers they used to love as children, who have been banned from radio and TV since the revolution, or the huge swell of hope that comes with each election, these directors provide a rare and incisive view inside contemporary Iran, a country they continue to love, even as they will it to change.

Même pas mal

Who We Were

Through interviews with both victims and instigators, Nanfu Wang, a first-time mother, breaks open decades of silence on a vast, unprecedented social experiment that shaped — and destroyed — countless lives in China.

Found footage anti-war film comprising film documents of the Austro-Hungarian and Italian army on the Alpine front, and from first generation picture material by war-film pioneer Luca Comerio.

Working from archives of private film footage from a trip to India by the upper class of the late 1920s, a period of strong anti-colonial outbreak, Yervant Gianikian and Angela Ricci Lucchi deconstruct the images and analyze the attitude and behavior of Westerners in the East.

Using images shot in Russia and Armenia from World War I to the 1930s and retrieved from a Soviet film archive, Gianikian and Ricci Lucchi constructed a meditative film about the status of Armenians as a people without a state. Inspired by the diary of Gianikian’s father, People, Years, Life uses rare footage depicting the region’s major historic events: the end of Tsarist Russia, violence in the Caucasus during World War I, the 1918 Armenian exodus from Azerbaijan. Gianikian and Ricci Lucchi’s treatment of the material manipulates the speed of the images, adds color and music, and magnifies various parts of the image, so that the movement of bodies across the frame begins to carry the weight of exile, mourning, dispossession.

Comprised of images shot by amateur photographers and German soldiers in the Balkans from the twenties through the forties, BALKAN INVENTORY was begun by Gianikian and Ricci Lucchi in response to the tragedy unfolding in the former Yugoslavia.

Inspired by their beloved Dolomite area in Northeast Italy, a battle theater in World Wars I and II, Gianikian and Ricci Lucchi continue to explore issues of war and peace in their most recent production. The film uses shots of ordinary toys found in the area, many missing limbs and other pieces, to represent, in both direct and oblique ways, the historical period between Fascism, Nazism, and the postwar era.

In this filmic comment on Fascist ideology - which uses footage from the recently discovered archives of Luca Comerio - invisible hands push captive animals to fight among themselves.

Forty years before WikiLeaks and the NSA scandal, there was Media, Pennsylvania. In 1971, eight activists plotted an intricate break-in to the local FBI offices to leak stolen documents and expose the illegal surveillance of ordinary Americans in an era of anti-war activism. In this riveting heist story, the perpetrators reveal themselves for the first time, reflecting on their actions and raising broader questions surrounding security leaks in activism today.

This documentary tells two stories simultaneously: it's a profile of Bernard Tapie, a wealthy man who rises and falls spectacularly in French society and may be on the rise again; and, it's a look at Marina Zenovich's fascination with Tapie, behaving oddly in spite of her awareness that she's being irrational. Politicians, athletes, friends, companions, and journalists comment on Bernard's charm, his rise to prominence in sports and politics, and his subsequent trouble with the law. Zenovich becomes fixated on her need to interview Tapie, becoming virtually a stalker in her quest.

They experienced perhaps the greatest crimes against humanity the world has ever seen. Yet what do we know about the Holocaust survivors who made Britain their home? Britain's Holocaust Survivors takes a unique approach to recording the experiences of the last generation to have living memories of the Holocaust. The film takes viewers into the homes of a small group of extraordinary survivors, telling their stories with sensitivity, humour and compassion. A compelling cast of characters are revealed as they gradually reveal the horror of their past and how those experiences have shaped their lives.

Sicilian photojournalist Letizia Battaglia began a long battle against the ruthless Cosa Nostra when she first photographed the sinister scene of a brutal murder. Documenting the barbaric rule of the Italian Mafia, she was an unwavering witness to its crimes. His art and courage helped end the horrific and bloody reign of the Corleonesi clan.

John Wayne, Henry Fonda and James Stewart discuss working with John Ford