Likely in June 1897, a group of people are standing along the platform of a railway station in La Ciotat, waiting for a train. One is seen coming, at some distance, and eventually stops at the platform. Doors of the railway-cars open and attendants help passengers off and on. Popular legend has it that, when this film was shown, the first-night audience fled the café in terror, fearing being run over by the "approaching" train. This legend has since been identified as promotional embellishment, though there is evidence to suggest that people were astounded at the capabilities of the Lumières' cinématographe.
Documentary about a bankrupt Jordanian entrepreneur and an unemployed Irish actress who hatch a plan to scam £2.5m off the British taxman by faking the production of a £20m movie. But they are found out, arrested and then bailed. While out on bail, they decide to prove their innocence by actually making a film. They hire a former nightclub bouncer, now a self-made micro-budget gangster film director. In 2011, Paul Knight makes their movie for under £100,000 with a cast of soap and gangster movie stars including Danny Midwinter, Marc Bannerman and Loose Women's Andrea McLean. The film's title is A Landscape of Lies. But the cinematic alibi does not convince the jury when the trial runs in 2013. The producers are convicted of tax fraud and given long sentences.
The 1950s were a time marked by an idealistic feeling. The atomic age, with its promise to save humanity, revolutionized the world, technologically, socially and politically. All these factors gave birth to one of the most prolific film genres in the history of cinema: science fiction, which delighted the audience. Only a few years later, these same spectators saw on their television screens how the Russians launched the Sputnik into space.
Metalanguage and irony about what makes a film, film.
A documentary of uncompromising, outlaw, cult underground filmmaker Jim Van Bebber, covering his life from 2010-2015 while he tries to make a comeback and make a new exploitation film after years of struggling to work.
Within the framework of the “Half a Century of Locarno, Thoughts on the Future” project, seven directors, Idrissa Ouedraogo among them, have the chance to express their vision of the future of the film industry by means of a short film. “The state of the film industry the world is a vast issue,” says the director from Burkina Faso. “I would rather speak about my films, about African films and their relationship with the world”.
Four lives that could not be more different and a single passion that unites them: the unconditional love for their cinemas, somewhere at the end of the world. Comrades in Dreams brings together six cinema makers from North Korea, America, India and Africa and follows their efforts to make their audiences dream every night.
The premiere of The Dark Knight Rises was the big event in Aurora, Colorado. So popular with young cinema-goers, the city's theatre complex put on an extra showing. But minutes into the film, lone gunman James Holmes, dressed as the Joker, entered the room and started firing indiscriminately. Twelve people died, many more were injured. This documentary tells the life story of Holmes, of his victims and speaks to survivors.
The hard-working cinema owners and operators of the small towns found in BC's southern interior are doing more than showing movies and selling popcorn––they are bringing their communities together.
BRAKHAGE explores the depth and breadth of the filmmaker’s genius, the exquisite splendor of his films, his magic personal charm, his aesthetic fellow travelers, and the influence his work has had on generations of other creators. While touching on significant moments in Brakhage’s biography, the film celebrates Brakhage’s visionary genius, and explores the extraordinary artistic possibilities of cinema, a medium mostly known only for its commercial applications in the form of narratives, cartoons, documentaries, and advertising. BRAKHAGE combines excerpts from Brakhage’s films and films of other avant-garde filmmakers (eg, George Kuchar, Jonas Mekas, Willie Varela, Bruce Elder, and others); interviews with Brakhage, his friends, family, colleagues, and critics; archival footage of Brakhage spanning the past thirty-five years; and location shooting in Boulder, Colorado and New York.
A documentary on the life and career of Victor Fleming, director of such iconic movies as The Wizard of Oz and Gone with the Wind.
A look at avant-garde filmmaker Marie Menken.
Highlighting one of the most innovative American directors, this film reveals the path traveled by the auteur from his small-town Texas roots to his warm reception on the awards circuit. Long before he directed Boyhood, Richard Linklater’s intense desire to create fueled his work outside the Hollywood system. Rather than leave Texas, he chose to collaborate with like-minded artists crafting modest, low-budget films in a DIY style. His ability to showcase realistic characters and tell honest stories was evident from his films, and others soon took notice of his raw talent.
Rarely in the history of the cinema, a company films productions will have marked the history and the culture of its country like "Svensk Filmindustri". Since its creation in 1919 by Charles Magnusson, Svensk Filmindustri have produced 1200 films including the major works of Mauritz Stiller, Victor Sjöström and Ingmar Bergman. The uncontested talent of the actresses Greta Garbo and Ingrid Bergman have given Swedish cinema a world recognition, a cinema that celebrates the power of the forces of nature, and where the inner life of its characters remains in our memories.
Discovering that sharks are being hunted to extinction, and with them the destruction of our life support system - activist and filmmaker Rob Stewart embarks on a dangerous quest to stop the slaughter. Following the sharks - and the money - into the elusive pirate fishing industry, Stewart uncovers a multi-billion dollar scandal that makes us all accomplices in the greatest wildlife massacre ever known.
A short documentary about the rapidly disappearing era of heritage movie palaces and the film going experience once offered within those hallowed walls.
Kirby Dick's provocative documentary investigates the secretive and inconsistent process by which the Motion Picture Association of America rates films, revealing the organization's underhanded efforts to control culture. Dick questions whether certain studios get preferential treatment and exposes the discrepancies in how the MPAA views sex and violence.
This movie is about an Iranian filmmaker called Davood Roostayi, whose all movies ( more than 100 movies ) have been banned both before and after the Islamic revolution of Iran and none of his movies have been screened.
A documentary about the cinema Kriterion Roetersstraat en Studio K in Amsterdam.
A documentary film about cult director José María Zabalza. How he made pictures with very little money and was granted little recognition.