L'oreille décollée
Examines the public scandal and private tragedy which led to legendary director Roman Polanski's sudden flight from the United States.
A moving and very funny portrait of the personal and professional life of the magnificent French comedian Louis de Funès (1914-83), as well as a detailed analysis of his masterful acting technique.
Gil Scott-Heron, one of rap's earliest (and unfortunately unknown) pioneers, gets his full due in Black Wax, the 1982 documentary recently reissued on video. Interspliced between performance footage of Scott-Heron and his Midnight Band are vignettes of him walking around Washington D.C., spouting his views on then-President Reagan (dubbed "Ray-Gun") and generally dropping knowledge. The live performance features many of Scott-Heron's best-known hits, including "Johannesburg," "Winter in America," and "Angel Dust," among others. Warm, intelligent, and insightful throughout, Scott-Heron is clearly enjoying himself and the opportunity to espouse his views. A must for any fan of Scott-Heron's, and definitely worth a look for fans of the funkier jazz music of the mid to late 1970's.
Québec en silence
In the half-hour tribute, friends and colleagues remember the three-time Emmy winner, who died June 19 at age 51. The special features clips of Gandolfini’s work as well as behind-the-scenes footage.
One of the first US born conductors to receive worldwide fame, Leonard Bernstein is an exceptional composer and certainly not only due to The West Side Story. Instead of concentrating exclusively on his most famous work, Thomas von Steinaecker sets out to paint a complete picture of Bernstein. Thus, the documentary focusses on the American’s less known later works and on three compositions in particular: his Mass, the musical 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and the great final opera A Quiet Place. The film paints a vivid picture of the multitalented Bernstein, struggling with his role as composer and conductor, tackling the tension between successes and flops, between the politics of his time and his own liberal humanitarian claim. It looks back on Bernstein’s major achievements, such as his acclaimed conducting of Mahler and his involvement in the Young People’s Concerts, and it shows Bernstein’s work with young aspiring musicians as well as his political commitment.
Pearl Randall, a 66-year-old widow, announces that she is planning to remarry, but her three grown children express conflicting emotions. Daughter Terri captures on tape the family's attempts to come to grips with Pearl's new romance.
A look at the life and work of the Austrian composer who pioneered the musical scoring of films - hundreds of them - from King Kong, to Gone with the Wind, to Casablanca and beyond.
La Guerre des centimes
"The Undefeated Femininity" - a film about Gun Grut Bergman. In September 1949 Ingmar Bergman left his wife and five children, and escaped to Paris with a new woman, Gun Grut. It was the beginning of a passionate love affair, an enduring jealousy drama and a new theme in Bergman's films. Now their son, Ingmar Bergman Jr, walks in his parents' footsteps, from Paris to the home on Grev Turegatan 69 in Stockholm.
Memory is a collaboration with musician Noah Lennox (Panda Bear), exploring the relationship between a musician and filmmaker and their personal reflection on memories. From Super 8 home movies and entirely handmade, this film explores familiar memories, the present moment combined with past experiences and how it all seems to evade from our present memory.
Mary Bauermeister - Eins plus eins ist drei
When the 2004 tsunami hit the coast of Sri Lanka, 65-year-old Anton Ambrose's wife and daughter were killed. "In five minutes," he says, "I lost everything." A year later, Anton returns to Sri Lanka. With him is his nephew, award-winning filmmaker Rohan Fernando. A Tamil, Anton moved to California in the 1970s and became a very successful gynecologist. His daughter, Orlantha, made the opposite journey, returning to Sri Lanka where she ran a non-profit group that gave underprivileged children free violin lessons. Blood and Water is the story of one man's search for meaning in the face of overwhelming loss, but it is also filled with improbable characters, unintentional comedy and situational ironies.
Between 1950 and 1955, Henri Langlois tried to produce, on behalf of the Cinémathèque française, several films devoted to great artists, with their cooperation, by entrusting them with virgin film stock. Wrote Langlois on the unfinished project, epic in scope: "We had the idea of asking poets, painters, scholars, writers and even repressed filmmakers [...] to make films in 16mm, with the means at hand, without taking into account any commercial concern or censorship." What precious little came of the project was eight minutes of film from Matisse and twenty-some from Marc Chagall, released at a later date.
Heda Blochová was born in Prague into the Jewish family of the cofounder of the well-known Koh-i-noor factory. She married Rudolf Margolius, a lawyer. Soon after the wedding the young couple and the whole Margolius family were deported to the ghetto in Lodz. After spending a couple of years there, they were all taken to Oswiecim concentration camp. There the family was parted. Heda was lucky enough to be taken to a labour camp after a few months and was finally made to join the Death March. She managed to escape the guards and thus saved her life.
A grandson shows his grandmother how to navigate an iPad 2 full of clues for solving a puzzle. Over a phone call, she recites an email she wrote seven years prior.
In this documentary we meet five children in Sweden and see what happened in their lives. Robin was nine years old, but he already knew what a prison looked like and the bad a punishment can do. Frida was not yet born when we filmed her mother Angela in 1983. Her sister Malin lived for several years in a foster family. Bosse was 14 years old and in 9th grade when we met him in 1978. He was the only guy in the class who had glasses. Marie received many postcards and letters from her father, but very rarely met him while she was growing up.
September 23, 2022 marks the 52nd anniversary of the death of Bourvil (1917-1970). Radio, sketches, boulevard theater, operetta, cinema, songs whimsical or tender, Bourvil is present in all areas of popular culture. Carried by the voice of Valérie Lemercier, this portrait of the artist allows us to rediscover his most beautiful songs, from Les Crayons to La Tendresse, and the highlights of his filmography, from the cult scenes of La Traversée de Paris, Le Corniaud and La Grande Vadrouille to Le Cercle rouge. We also rediscover the richness of his career as a singer and actor, with some little known nuggets. The testimony of Bourvil's two sons, unpublished family films and numerous archives tell the story of the all too brief life of this endearing man.
A documentary that explores the range of experiences lived by transgender Americans.