Lyrical Nitrate

An exciting video tour of Amsterdam.

In 1917, French artist Marcel Duchamp declared everyday objects as art. A provocative act that sparked a heated, still topical discussion around the question: what is art? Since then, that question has been asked time and time again. To the artist and to the viewer. If everything is possible and everything is allowed, how do you remember what art is? Director Ditteke Mensink spent two years at De Ateliers: the breeding ground for top talent in the visual arts. Her stay ended in a harsh confrontation with herself, the young artists and modern visual arts.

Artist Chris Berens finds his inspiration in his own magical inner world. The animals and creatures that play a major role in his imagination also populate the landscapes he creates with his special painting technique. It results in scenes that are both enchanting and ominous.

We get up, go to work, eat and go to bed. Is our life about daily rituals or is there a deeper, more inscrutable meaning of life? Kjeld lives surrounded by nature in his small house and soon becomes a father. He seeks satisfaction in the simplicity of life in nature. Anna is a young artist looking for answers in her poetry and music. A philosophical documentary essay in which the search for the core of life is central. How should we live if there are no answers anywhere?

Kim and Bob have been inseparable since childhood. Does puberty end their friendship?

Virgin School follows the emotional and physical journey of 26-year-old virgin James as he embarks on a unique four-month course for sexually inexperienced men in Amsterdam

This 2005 documentary film chronicles the life of Daniel Johnston, a manic-depressive genius singer/songwriter/artist, from childhood up to the present, with an emphasis on his mental illness and how it manifested itself in demonic self-obsession.

This Traveltalks entry looks at the sights, sounds, people, and art masterpieces in the capital of the Netherlands.

An exploration of immigration in Britain over the half century since Conservative MP Enoch Powell made his controversial speech. Issues surrounding race, religion, integration and multiculturalism are examined.

Shows the detailed steps necessary to achieve a high standard of cleanliness in a public restroom and presents the opinions, attitudes and personal feelings of the men who do the job, giving voice in particular to a janitor in a university building. Director: James W. Hall. Janitor: Hance Nelson.

Found footage anti-war film comprising film documents of the Austro-Hungarian and Italian army on the Alpine front, and from first generation picture material by war-film pioneer Luca Comerio.

Working from archives of private film footage from a trip to India by the upper class of the late 1920s, a period of strong anti-colonial outbreak, Yervant Gianikian and Angela Ricci Lucchi deconstruct the images and analyze the attitude and behavior of Westerners in the East.

Memory mechanisms are mysterious: we only see the stories we choose in order to construct our own reality. Every mark is a message in time, the invocation of an absence. To travel in the memory is to walk in time, zigzagging, a long road permeated by a dark, indecipherable logic… if we could choose seven moments to sum up our entire life, which ones would they be? The Dance of the Memory is a documentary-essay that guides us in that autobiographical search, where image and memory intertwine. It mixes archive material with an aesthetic and subjective tone.

American: The Bill Hicks Story is a biographical documentary film on the life of comedian Bill Hicks. The film was produced by Matt Harlock and Paul Thomas, and features archival footage and interviews with family and friends, including Kevin Booth. The filmmakers used a cut-and-paste animation technique to add movement to a large collection of still pictures used to document events in Hicks' life. The film made its North American premiere at the 2010 South by Southwest Film Festival. The film was nominated for a 2010 Grierson British Documentary Award for the "Most Entertaining Documentary" category. It was also nominated for Best Graphics and Animation category in the 2011 Cinema Eye Awards. Awards won include The Dallas Film Festivals Texas Filmmaker Award, at Little Rock The Oxford American's Best Southern Film Award, and Best Documentary at the Downtown LA Film Festival. On Rotten Tomatoes, 81% of the first 47 reviews counted were rated positive.

The Death of 'Superman Lives': What Happened? feature film documents the process of development of the ill fated "Superman Lives" movie, that was to be directed by Tim Burton and star Nicolas Cage as the man of steel himself, Superman. The project went through years of development before the plug was pulled, and this documentary interviews the major filmmakers: Kevin Smith, Tim Burton, Jon Peters, Dan Gilroy, Colleen Atwood, Lorenzo di Bonaventura and many many more.

In Amsterdam-Zuidoost, residents built vegetable gardens in their deserted, dangerous inner garden. While gardening, they not only tackle their own problems, but also those of the neighborhood. In Venserpolder, a neighborhood in Amsterdam-Zuidoost, residential block 10 is built around a courtyard. For years, that garden has been considered too dangerous because of criminal activities and it is deserted. Until the residents, mostly single mothers, decide to create vegetable gardens. Meli, Talita, Gilma and Maureen rarely came out before and hardly knew of the other's existence. Now they meet in the garden.

Hitler's invasion of Russia was one of the landmark events of World War II. This documentary reveals the lead-up to the offensive, its impact on the war and the brinksmanship that resulted from the battle for Moscow. Rare footage from both German and Russian archives and detailed maps illustrate the conflict, while award-winning historian and author John Erickson provides insight into the pivotal maneuvers on the eastern front.

An overview of the works of French film pioneers Louis and Auguste Lumière from 1895 to 1897.

Documentary about four maffia-like friends based in Amsterdam.

Bas Jan Ader rides his bike into a canal in Amsterdam.