What would your family reminiscences about dad sound like if he had been an early supporter of Hitler’s, a leader of the notorious SA and the Third Reich’s minister in charge of Slovakia, including its Final Solution? Executed as a war criminal in 1947, Hanns Ludin left behind a grieving widow and six young children, the youngest of whom became a filmmaker. It's a fascinating, maddening, sometimes even humorous look at what the director calls "a typical German story." (Film Forum)
Fernanda Pivano: A Farewell to Beat
An account of the life and work of the Spanish poet Luis García Montero; a journey through his experiences, his mentors, his influences and his contact with other artists, both from the literary world and from other disciplines.
Ninety-year-old sound artist and comedian Henry “Sandy” Jacobs lives a quirky existence at the end of Sunnyside Drive, a steep and winding dirt road washed by fog from the Pacific Ocean. Sixty feet down the hill lives his eccentric 84-year-old friend and neighbor, architect and former Frank Lloyd Wright collaborator Daniel Liebermann. These extraordinary old men, influential artists in the 1950s and ’60s, continue, each in their own way, to search the world for perfection. Sunnyside takes us to an extraordinary place, a microcosm with its own distinctive rhythm and remarkable inhabitants. It is a film about creativity, the capacity to dream and, ultimately, the transience of life.
About the Swedish writer Stig Dagerman (1923-1954). More than a style, there is a Dagerman voice. This simple voice speaks softly, without emphasis, of simple people, of children, of old men, of his native Sweden. She is friendly to the humble, the solitary, the victims.
A group of inspiring African teenagers brought illegally or trafficked into the UK overcome desperate situations and build new lives for themselves in London. The girls face deportation on their 18th birthdays under current Home Office rules. This film asks them what they long for and where they feel they belong.
Hélène Berr, une jeune fille dans Paris occupé
The film explores the destruction of a unique train station in Zurich and the construction of the new prison and police centre in its place. From the perspective of the filmmaker’s window, and with testimony from prisoners awaiting deportation, the film probes how we deal with the extinction of history and its replacement with total security.
A short documentary about the rapidly disappearing era of heritage movie palaces and the film going experience once offered within those hallowed walls.
As queer trans and gender non-conforming children of the Vietnamese diaspora, we are fragmented at the crossroads of being displaced from not only a sense of belonging to our ancestral land, but also our own bodies which are conditioned by society to stray away from our most authentic existence. Yet these bodies of ours are the vessels we sail to embark on a lifetime voyage of return to our original selves. It is our bodies that navigate the treacherous tides of normative systems that impose themselves on our very being. And it is our bodies that act as community lighthouses for collective liberation. Ultimately, the landscape of our bodies is our blueprint to remembering, to healing, to blooming.
Part film, part baptism, in BLACK MOTHER director Khalik Allah brings us on a spiritual journey through Jamaica. Soaking up its bustling metropolises and tranquil countryside, Allah introduces us to a succession of vividly rendered souls who call this island home. Their candid testimonies create a polyphonic symphony, set against a visual prayer of indelible portraiture. Thoroughly immersed between the sacred and profane, BLACK MOTHER channels rebellion and reverence into a deeply personal ode informed by Jamaica’s turbulent history but existing in the urgent present.
Milah van Zuilen, visual artist and forest ecologist in training, uses the square to deal with the habit of people to construct nature. Square Fieldwork is filmed in the Bohemian forest in the Czech Republic and the concrete structure of Barendrecht, The Netherlands.
The film tells the story of Alejandra Pizarnik: mythic Argentine poet who committed suicide at the age of 36. Her personal diaries, letters, poems, as well as accounts by close friends and family, offer us hints about the mysterious path that led her to her self-destruction. Years after its writer’s death, the poetry of Alejandra Pizarnik has been rediscovered by new generations of writers and readers, making her the most read Argentine poet in the world.
In the documentary Nola, we follow the 24 year old Daniëlle and her psychosocial assistance dog. Daniëlle has been struggling with her anxiety disorder for years and has tried many forms of therapy to no avail. Therefore, assistance dog Nola is her last hope for recovery.
Since ancient times, the Green Man has been one of the most mysterious and menacing of mythical characters. He also has a familiar face as Robin Hood , Jack in the Green and on numerous pub signs. Across the arts from comic strips to classical opera, the Green Man is now making a comeback. Where is he taking us? Writer Sir Kingsley Amis , film director John Boorman , composer Sir Harrison Birtwistle and other leading artists offer their interpretations of the mystery in this Omnibus documentary film from 16th November, 1990.
In 1244, Jelaluddin Rumi, a Sufi scholar in Konya, Turkey, met an itinerant dervish, Shams of Tabriz. A powerful friendship ensued. When Shams died, the grieving Rumi gripped a pole in his garden, and turning round it, began reciting imagistic poetry about inner life and love of God. After Rumi's death, his son founded the Mevlevi Sufi order, the whirling dervishes. Lovers of Rumi's poems comment on their power and meaning, including religious historian Huston Smith, writer Simone Fattal, poet Robery Bly, and Coleman Barks, who reworks literal translations of Rumi into poetic English. Musicians accompany Barks and Bly as they recite their versions of several of Rumi's ecstatic poems.
Award winning documentary by Joslyn Rose Lyons exploring the relationship between spiritual connection and the creative process in hip-hop music.
Young, inexperienced members of the Dutch Boarder Patrol undergo an intensive training on escorting refused asylum seekers to their homeland.
A short documentary on the River Ouse, following it downstream from Lewes to Newhaven, meditating on the surrounding area.
The story of three Turkish men. They all grew up in Switzerland and all got deported after various criminal offenses.