The Ozu Diaries

An extremely lovely tribute to Ozu, on the 20th anniversary of his death. It uses a combination of footage from vintage films and new material (both interviews and Ozu-related locations) shot by Ozu's long-time camera-man (who came out of retirement to work on this). Surprisingly (or perhaps not), it focuses less on Ozu's accomplishments as a film-maker than on his impact on the lives of the people he worked with..

Footage shot in and around North Bergen, New Jersey presented in a minimalist series of fixed camera angles and long-takes accompanied by the ambient noise of city streets.

“This film was a gift to me. I make no claims for it, nor do I offer any apologies. It comes from work on The Thoughts That Once We Had. There was one shot we had to cut whose loss I particularly regretted. It was a shot of a train pulling into Tokyo Station from Ozu’s The Only Son (1936). So I decided to make a film around this shot, an anthology of train arrivals. It comprises 26 scenes or shots from movies, 1904-2015. It has a simple serial structure: each black & white sequence in the first half rhymes with a color sequence in the second half. Thus the first shot and the final shot show trains arriving at stations in Japan from a low camera height. In the first shot (The Only Son), the train moves toward the right; in the last shot, it moves toward the left. A bullet train has replaced a steam locomotive. So after all these years, I’ve made another structural film, although that was not my original intention.”

During the reconstruction of the Valmiera Theatre building (2021-2024), artistic activities were never interrupted - the preparation of new productions and performances in the Round Hall continued. The promised one winter of patience turned into three. Rehearsals and performances took place in various locations in Valmiera, but the theatre building, despite the lack of water and heat, was never abandoned - with construction crews, through the dust and cold, actors and other theatre staff went to the rehearsal hall, the Round Hall, the carpentry workshop, and the administration to work as if nothing were unusual or difficult.

Follows Captain Irving Johnson and the crew of the Yankee on an 18-month journey around the world. Shows the people and places that they visited and some of the difficult sailing conditions that they encountered.

A stop motion/collaged based independent short film plays with the recontextualisation of memories and how time distorts them.

This shows physicist Stephen Hawking's life as he deals with the ALS that renders him immobile and unable to speak without the use of a computer. Hawking's friends, family, classmates, and peers are interviewed not only about his theories but the man himself.

Artists Peter Fischli and David Weiss create the ultimate Rube Goldberg machine. The pair used found objects to construct a complex, interdependent contraption in an empty warehouse. When set in motion, a domino-like chain reaction ripples through the complex of imaginative devices. Fire, water, the laws of gravity, and chemistry determine the life-cycle of the objects. The process reveals a story concerning cause and effect, mechanism and art, and improbability and precision, in an extended science project that will mesmerize the mind.

Two bodies and one mind, this is the extraordinary story of one pair of conjoined twins in today's world.

A Spanish documentary from Jean-Paul Le Chanois & Luis Buñuel made during the Spanish Civil War.

Documentary looking at the production of the James Bond movie 'Moonraker'. Narated by Patrick Macnee.

Documentary looking at the special effects from the bond movies and the men who created them. Narrated by Marie Clairu.

Filmmaker Jonathan Caouette's documentary on growing up with his schizophrenic mother -- a mixture of snapshots, Super-8, answering machine messages, video diaries, early short films, and more -- culled from 19 years of his life.

The image of a mysterious, solitary filmmaker - a cineaste maudit - who flees from both the media and the public, is unrelentingly bound to the figure of Leos Carax, in France. Elsewhere, the real focus is on his films and he is considered to be an icon of world cinema. Mr.X dives into the poetic and visionary world of an artist who was already a cult figure from his very first film. Punctuated by interviews and unseen footage, this documentary is most of all a fine-tuned exploration of the poetic and visionary world of Leos Carax, alias "Mr.X".

A film-within-the-film scenario involving a cameraman who's given a week to photograph the aerial highlights of Holland for a travelogue.

A documentary-style TV programme made by NBC in which Margaret Rutherford and her husband Stringer Davis visit three so-called haunted mansions.

With one of the most memorably stunning voices that has ever hit the airwaves, Linda Ronstadt burst onto the 1960s folk rock music scene in her early twenties.

The film presents many clips taken from the television and theatrical shows of the Tuscan comedian who makes fun of the habits of the Italians and of the governing politics of the eighties.

It explores the fate of the endangered wild Suffield horses of Alberta. Located near a military base close to Medicine Hat, these animals were originally domesticated but returned to the wild over generations. These horses face endangerment because of their growing numbers and the limitations of their environment.

Two-part investigation into man's relationship with horses. Diligently researched it goes to all four corners of the globe showing how man and horse became connected.