A 91-year-old Polish Holocaust survivor donates his violin of 70 years to a local instrument drive, changing the life of a 12-year-old schoolgirl from the nation’s poorest congressional district, and unexpectedly, his own.
The Democratic People's Republic of Korea is a country with a very strong social cohesion and the unprecedented admiration of the people for their leader, which is absolutely unique and incomprehensible especially from a Western point of view. The native Korean director Sung-Hyung Cho tries to understand this by accompanying several Koreans from different backgrounds in their daily lives. The film shows the country and its people in a way, as it is rarely done in Western media, non-judgmental and respectful towards the people.
We live in a new age. We are always rushing, rushing for no reason, rushing for nothing. As though time had sped up. Everything implies speed, urgency. But ultimately, why does time seem so short? This film is about the director’s conflict about time and the lack of it in today’s world; she reflects on civilization and the future of existence.
In 1971, author and film scholar Donald Richie published a poetic travelogue about his explorations of the islands of Japan’s Inland Sea, recording his search for traces of a traditional way of life as well as his own journey of self-discovery. Twenty years later, filmmaker Lucille Carra undertook a parallel trip inspired by Richie’s by-then-classic book, capturing images of hushed beauty and meeting people who still carried on the fading customs that Richie had observed. Interspersed with surprising detours—a visit to a Frank Sinatra-loving monk, a leper colony, an ersatz temple of plywood and plaster—and woven together by Richie’s narration as well as a score by celebrated composer Toru Takemitsu, The Inland Sea is an eye-opening voyage and a profound meditation on what it means to be a foreigner.
TV series directed by Varda in which she gives thoughts to her favorite images and why she is drawn to them (in short one minute segments per image)
Former child bride Selvi escapes her child marriage to become South India's first female taxi driver.
Vleesverlangen
What lies beyond the art of giving and receiving? Ellie, a liberal Democrat and kind-hearted masseuse, decides she wants to share the gift of life with a stranger. Five hundred miles away, Kathy loses hope of receiving a transplant until she hears from Ellie. Over the course of four years, both women face unexpected challenges.
General shots of Edinburgh City Centre taken by film-maker Margaret Tait, focussing on the Royal Mile, Holyrood House and Princes Street Gardens.
This first-person documentary provides an inside look into the terrifying and bloody events that shook Central Europe in the 1990s, as the filmmaker takes a trip along the road that once united the disparate states of Yugoslavia, from Slovenia to Macedonia. A film about memory, hatred, love and hope.
The Inner and Outer World of Shahrukh Khan is the release title for a pair of documentaries about Bollywood superstar Shahrukh Khan, both directed by the London-based writer and producer/director Nasreen Munni Kabir, an authority on Hindi cinema.
After his participation in filming of “Kenedi Goes Back Home," Kenedi Hasani decided to illegally go to EU countries where his father, mother, brothers and sisters still are. The documentary recounts Kenedi's experience of his two-year refugee status.
When a feminist filmmaker sets out to document the mysterious and polarizing world of the Men’s Rights Movement, she begins to question her own beliefs. Chronicling Cassie Jaye’s journey exploring an alternate perspective on gender equality, power and privilege.
It’s not uncommon for a film to have a moving love story at its core. Yet this particular set-up is unusual. The lovers here are Ingeborg Bachmann and Paul Celan, both important representatives of post-war German-language poetry. The story of the relationship between the Austrian and the Jew from Czernowitz is told through their nearly 20-year correspondence (1948–1967). Or, more precisely, by a young woman and a young man reading from their letters in a studio in Vienna’s venerable Funkhaus.
As French kindergarteners pour forth for recess, play takes on epic proportions. In every corner, some miniature drama is unfolding. Violence, love, jealousy, treachery are all here! This is human society in the making.
Chantal Akerman meets with elderly Jewish women in Paris, all of them survivors of the Shoah, and listens to their family stories. Between interviews, Akerman's mother Natalia speaks of her own family. Made for a French miniseries on grandmothers.
Pescenica is an old industrial suburb of Zagreb. As a satirical depiction of Croatia's recent politics, it has been declared independent republic. What's it like there today? Over a year, the film crew was combing streets, avenues, parks and backyards, focusing on the lives of four Pescenica inhabitants: its self-proclaimed president, a teacher in a Roma school, a cleaning lady in a film distribution company and a young stage director. All that in order to portray Pescenopolis, the film's protagonist that floats between mud and clouds.
War is a compelling stimulus to the imagination, creating some of our richest and most powerful artistic inspiration. Oscar-winning actor Eddie Redmayne takes an intensely emotional journey, visiting artists’ studios, museums and travelling to battlefield locations to shine a powerful light into the abyss of warfare, where War Artists have left a unique legacy.
Tales of Two Who Dreamt is set in a housing block in Toronto and pivots on representation and self-representation. Here, a Roma family rehearses the stories of their past for the upcoming hearing on their residency status.
Jakub, The Old Believers, and Piemule are three documentaries about forgotten people by director Jana Sevciková. All three are distributed on the same DVD under the name Old Believers. Piemule offers a close look at the descendants of Czech immigrants in Romania.