In communist Romania in the 1980s the population collectively watches "Dallas", their only window into capitalism. Inspired by the US TV show, a young woman decides to emigrate to America. "Hotel Dallas" mixes documentary scenes with staged and experimental sequences.
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.
Ensemble for Somnambulists was a film Maya Deren made while teaching a workshop at the Toronto Film Society. It was never completed, and is officially "unpublished," but this title has been restored and it screens occasionally along with her other films. It is sort of a preliminary sketch for The Very Eye of Night. ~ David Lewis, Rovi
An idealistic collective launches a TV channel in the very early days of portable video cameras. This wonderful lesson in journalism makes it clear just how perilous it is to promote your own view of society via autonomous media. From the tumultuous period of Woodstock, the Black Panthers, women’s lib and anti-Vietnam demonstrations.
Fien de la Mar (1898-1965) was a Dutch actress with exceptional allure and extraordinary talent. With this she celebrated many triumphs, but her life ultimately ended in tragedy.
Abandoned Goods is an essay film exploring the journey of one of Britain’s major collections of Asylum Art containing about 5,500 objects (paintings, drawings, ceramics, sculptures and works on stone, flint and bone) created between 1946 and 1981, by about 140 people compelled to live in the Netherne psychiatric hospital in South London. Blending archive, reconstruction, animation, 35mm rostrum, and observational photography, the film explores the transformation of these objects from clinical material to revered art objects examining the lives of the creators and the changing contexts in which the objects were produced and displayed.
While people in Western Europe were used to choose between hundreds of brands, the communist Romanian used to have a different experience: all our life we lived with only one brand for each basic product. Imagine the importance that this 'mono-brands' could acquire for the lives of those who made them and for the lives of those who consumed them. A love story between man and object.
Le Bois de Vincennes is a safe harbour for many Parisians. Migrants and natives, prostitutes and stalkers, rich and poor, old and young, downshifters and loners come to this forest in search of themselves and find there an escape from the metropolis. A delicate and profound portrait of a contemporary man and his desperate search for an 'unknown homeland'.
A documentary that follows a young French girl living in children's home from the age of nine to the age of twentythree.
BLACK BALLERINA tells the story of several black women from different generations who fell in love with ballet. Six decades ago, while pursuing their dreams, Joan Myers Brown, Delores Browne and Raven Wilkinson confronted racism, exclusion and unequal opportunity. Today, young dancers of color continue to face formidable challenges breaking into the overwhelmingly white world of ballet. Moving back and forth in time, this lyrical, character driven film shows how far we still have to go and stimulates a fresh discussion about race, inclusion and opportunity across all sectors of American society.
Paul, a teenager in the underground scene of early-nineties Paris, forms a DJ collective with his friends and together they plunge into the nightlife of sex, drugs, and endless music.
Virgie's family feeds on the fishes that lurk under the industrial ships of North Harbor. Their alternatives are packs of tasteless gelatin found in the same waters. One morning when the fishes are dead and the sea's color is that of milk, uncertainty is born.
A film in two parts about a fierce and deadly battle raging between farmers and landowners in the Philippines. The first part tracks the Sumilao farmers’ gruelling 1,700-kilometer journey through scorching heat, rains, fatigue, and great uncertainty to the presidential palace in Manila. The second part tells the story of the sugarcane workers from Negros.
Mother Mameng delves deep into the character of a woman who has experienced extreme poverty and domestic violence and rose from from it all to become the beloved personality, well-known to the Philippine mass movement.
A story about Camelia a theater actress and notorious maneater. One day she falls in love with an up-and-coming politician, who unconditionally loves her even with her dark past.
Language, dance, music and Potowatomi history are woven into a wise weft by a self-taught young director in this beautiful homage to the teachings and cultural heritage of the director’s father.
Self-portrait. In 1998 our family came under armed attack. We were able to escape and we fled Grozny. We have been silent about it since.
Do You Dream in Color? in this documentary follows four courageous blind high school students. This coming-of-age story see's the students as they strive to prove that their disability will not hold them back from achieving their dreams.
The Beastie Boys are among the most influential groups of the last two decades. As their music has opened hip-hop to a wider audience and changed the parameters of its sound, their ambitious music videos have carried the medium to new levels of artistic expression. This groundbreaking two-disc anthology showcases eighteen videos containing alternate visual angles and multiple audio tracks. Loaded with never-before-seen footage and unreleased music tracks, this special edition also contains a trove of rare still photos and exclusive audio commentary by the band and the video directors.
Ydessa Hendeles' exhibition entitled "The living and the Artificial" (consisting of works of art all comprising a photograph of living persons in the company of one or several teddy bears) had puzzled Agnès Varda so much that she decided to go to Toronto where the artist lives and interview her. In front of Agnes Varda's DV camera, Ydessa tells about the singularity of her artistic approach. She also expresses herself about the Holocaust, which both her parents survived.