An American in Tangier

Whether famous or anonymous, stars or prisoners, models or sex workers, women have always been at the center of Bettina Rheims' photographic work since her debut in 1978. Both subversive and glamorous, trashy and sophisticated, her photographs mark and bear witness to the upheavals of the era, which this leading photographer both anticipated and accompanied.

Narrated by Linda Hunt, this documentary examines the life of the late author and gay rights activist Paul Monette. Born in 1945 to a well-off Massachusetts family, Monette grows up unable to accept his homosexuality, for years hiding it from his loved ones while struggling to develop as a writer. In 1978, Monette publishes his first novel, which allows him to come out to his parents. After losing one lover to AIDS in 1986, he becomes a ferocious advocate for awareness of the disease.

The film evokes all the aspects of bullfighting - its history, the bulls, the toreros, the arena, the audience - and involves numerous matadors from the era.

Ninja is famous around the world for her fierce ballroom performances, but she is not as well-known in her native country of French Guyana. But a trip home to teach a workshop might change that.

In 1892, Ellis Island, in New York Bay, became the main gateway to the United States for immigrants arriving increasingly from Europe. The story of immigration to the United States from 1892 to 1954, an enthralling polyphonic narrative that embraces both small and great history.

A portrait of the American artist Ray Johnson (1927-1995), based on a personal interpretation of Johnson’s avant-garde strategies, using the telephone and the internet as primary sources for sound and image.

An expedition through the mountains of Nepal, during which 9 peaks are climbed.

Mike Tyson escaped a life of poverty and petty crime to make a name for himself, becoming the youngest Heavyweight Champion of the World and a household name—but his rise was followed by a very public fall. In this remarkably candid portrait, the boxer addresses his controversial past, including the rape charge that sent him to prison and his struggles with substance abuse, while also detailing his ultimate recovery and comeback.

This short documentary is the portrait of an 88-year-old woman who lives alone in a log cabin without running water or electricity in the Williams Lake area of British Columbia. The daughter of a Shuswap chief, Augusta lost her Indian status as the result of a marriage to a white man. She recalls past times, but lives very much in the present. Self-sufficient, dedicated to her people, she spreads warmth wherever she moves, with her songs and her harmonica.

Dieu peut se défendre tout seul

In the vast expanse of desert East of Atlas Mountains in Morocco, seasonal rain and snow once supported livestock, but now the drought seems to never end. Hardly a blade of grass can be seen, and families travel miles on foot to get water from a muddy hole in the ground. Yet the children willingly ride donkeys and bicycles or walk for miles across rocks to a "school of hope" built of clay. Following both the students and the teachers in the Oulad Boukais Tribe's community school for over three years, SCHOOL OF HOPE shows students Mohamed, Miloud, Fatima, and their classmates, responding with childish glee to the school's altruistic young teacher, Mohamed. Each child faces individual obstacles - supporting their aging parents; avoiding restrictions from relatives based on traditional gender roles - while their young teacher makes do in a house with no electricity or water.

When the lights dim and the stage is revealed, Meschke channels life through the strings of his puppets, triggering the spiritual connection between the creator and his alter-egos: the charismatic Don Quixote, the loving Penelope, the inquisitive Baptiste, or the mysterious Antigone. THE MAN WHO MADE ANGELS FLY is a poetic story about a master of his craft that has inspired audiences to reflect upon common issues of suffering and the mortal coil. Visionary and un-biographic, imaginary tribute to the puppeteer.

The point of departure for this film is the 1981 composition De Tijd by Dutch composer Louis Andriessen. Van der Keuken leaves the music undisturbed as an autonomous soundtrack and has the images engage in a sort of battle with it. These images are associations, fragments of events, scenes and situations. The film is preceded by a text by Bert Schierbeek.

Dialogue-free short detailing the daily tasks of a man and his wife.

Stylized with dramatic interiors and a distorted frame rate, this early documentary miniature from Szulkin depicts six sequences of solitary, repetitious labor.

White’s camera offers several 360-degree pans of views of the fairground, then amazes by tilting up and down the Eiffel Tower, and concludes with a stunning tracking shot to the highest point above Paris. Exhibitors freely grouped films into nascent narratives such as those displayed here. - Bruce Posner

Stop for Bud is Jørgen Leth's first film and the first in his long collaboration with Ole John. […] they wanted to "blow up cinematic conventions and invent cinematic language from scratch". The jazz pianist Bud Powell moves around Copenhagen -- through King's Garden, along the quay at Kalkbrænderihavnen, across a waste dump. […] Bud is alone, accompanied only by his music. […] Image and sound are two different things -- that's Leth's and John's principle. Dexter Gordon, the narrator, tells stories about Powell's famous left hand. In an obituary for Powell, dated 3 August 1966, Leth wrote: "He quite willingly, or better still, unresistingly, mechanically, let himself be directed. The film attempts to depict his strange duality about his surroundings. His touch on the keys was like he was burning his fingers -- that's what it looked like, and that's how it sounded. But outside his playing, and often right in the middle of it, too, he was simply gone, not there."

Documentarian Jose Sanchez-Montes turns his attention towards the late Cuban musician Ignacio Villa, known throughout the world as Bola de Nieve (Snowball), with this 2003 biographical documentary entitled simply Bola de Nieve. A master pianist, Bola de Nieve was a mainstay through the middle portion of the 20th century, with his music almost omnipresent in South America cinema throughout those formative decades. With Bola de Nieve's famous statement "I'm a sad person, but my songs sound happy" in mind, Sanchez-Montes also looks at the influence of the musician's African heritage and homosexuality upon Bola de Nieve's unique musical style.

Short documentary about social and economic situation in Galicia (Spain) in 1936

A reframing of the classic tale of Narcissus, the director draws on snippets of conversation with a trusted friend to muse on gender and identity. Just as shimmers are difficult to grasp as knowable entities, so does the concept of a gendered self feel unknowable except through reflection. Is it Narcissus that Echo truly longs for, or simply the Knowing he possesses when gazing upon himself?