Several key words emerge from Hugo Pratt's work, inseparable from his life: travel, adventure, erudition, esotericism, mystery, poetry, melancholy... and of course, Corto Maltese, his hero and alter ego, who established him as one of the greatest names in comic books. Born in Italy in 1927 and dying in Switzerland sixty-eight years later, Hugo Pratt, born without an H and with only one T, grew up in the shadow of a fascist father who took him at a very young age to Ethiopia, which was occupied by Mussolini's forces. The teenager developed a fascination for the wide-open spaces of Africa, soon followed by an irresistible attraction to the Indian world. This was the starting point for a life of travel, success, conquests, rare failures, and marked by his veneration for the American cartoonist Milton Caniff, his absolute master.
In this tribute to the eternal allure of an ancient myth, colourful fins and swimming pools fill the lives of five modern-day women who strive to embody the mysterious siren as part of a growing “mermaiding” subculture.
Four talented alien musicians are kidnapped by a record producer who disguises them as humans. Shep, a space pilot in love with bass player Stella, follows them to Earth. Reprogrammed to forget their real identities and renamed The Crescendolls, the group quickly becomes a huge success playing soulless corporate pop. At a concert, Shep manages to free all the musicians except Stella, and the band sets out to rediscover who they really are — and to rescue Stella.
"This Is Spinal Tap" shines a light on the self-contained universe of a metal band struggling to get back on the charts, including everything from its complicated history of ups and downs, gold albums, name changes and undersold concert dates, along with the full host of requisite groupies, promoters, hangers-on and historians, sessions, release events and those special behind-the-scenes moments that keep it all real.
A double story of music and companion; this documentary portraits two different and itinerant social bands.
Echo of the Mountain takes a look at the life and work of Santos de la Torre, a great Huichol artist who, like his people, lives in oblivion. Despite having made a great mural for the metro station Palais Royal – Musée du Louvre, Santos lives isolated and ignored in his country. This documentary follows his pilgrimage to Wirikuta, where he asks gods for permission to make a new mural; his journey across 385 miles of the Peyote Route, and Santos's creative process during the making of a new mural which aims to illustrate the history, mythology and religious traditions of the Huichol people.
The Road Forward is an electrifying musical documentary that connects a pivotal moment in Canada’s civil rights history—the beginnings of Indian Nationalism in the 1930s—with the powerful momentum of First Nations activism today. Interviews and musical sequences describe how a tiny movement, the Native Brotherhood and Sisterhood, grew to become a successful voice for change across the country. Visually stunning, The Road Forward seamlessly connects past and present through superbly produced story-songs with soaring vocals, blues, rock, and traditional beats.
After bassist Jason Newsted quits the band in 2001, heavy metal superstars Metallica realize that they need an intervention. In this revealing documentary, filmmakers follow the three rock stars as they hire a group therapist and grapple with 20 years of repressed anger and aggression. Between searching for a replacement bass player, creating a new album and confronting their personal demons, the band learns to open up in ways they never thought possible.
Zombies are part of pop culture, but what are they? Where do they come from? To find real zombies we visit Haiti where Zombies are an integral part of the island's cultural and religious roots.
In the 1920s, former coal miner Harry Hoxsey claimed to have an herbal cure for cancer. Although scoffed at and ultimately banned by the medical establishment, by the 1950s, Hoxsey's formula had been used to treat thousands of patients, who testified to its efficacy. Was Hoxsey's recipe the work of a snake-oil charlatan or a legitimate treatment? Ken Ausubel directs this keen look into the forces that shape the policies of organized medicine.
Talented teen musicians from around the USA spend a week working with Grammy nominated professionals
This is a 1991 documentary film about the legendary artist and filmmaker, Joseph Cornell, who made those magnificent and strange collage boxes. He was also one of our great experimental filmmakers and once apparently made Salvador Dali extremely jealous at a screening of his masterpiece, Rose Hobart. In this film we get to hear people like Susan Sontag, Stan Brakhage, and Tony Curtis talk about their friendships with the artist. It turns out that Curtis was quite a collector and he seemed to have a very deep understanding of what Cornell was doing in his work.
New York based artist, Cindy Sherman, is famous for her photographs of women in which she is not only the photographer, but also the subject. She has contributed her own footage to the programme by recording her studio and herself at work with her Hi-8 video camera. It reveals a range of unexpected sources from visceral horror to medical catalogues and exploitation movies, and explores her real interests and enthusiasms. She shows an intuitive and often humorous approach to her work, and reflects on the themes of her work since the late 1970s. She talks about her pivotal series known as the `Sex Pictures' in which she addresses the theme of sexuality in the light of AIDS and the arts censorship debate in the United States.
Tells the stories of four students who are turning their lives around at the Ithuteng Trust School.
"Manabiya Xstasy" was a school festival tour held in November 1999. Amateur musicians who were Sheena's friends were appointed as band members. In addition, half of the songs played were unreleased songs, including cover songs.
Lola lives in a public nursing home where everything is shared: the clothes, the showers, the only coffin and the endings. Her only personal belonging is the memory of her two great loves: her mother and husband. Thanks to them Lola has something to do every day, going to the main door’s window to check on her husband who lives across the street and to the phone, where she tries to call her mother. Both died long ago, but they are Lola’s only strength to reach her end in a world that, otherwise, is very impersonal for her.
Born in 1918 in San Diego, Williams was a latchkey child from a broken home, raised by a mother more dedicated to the Salvation Army than to her two sons, and by a father who spent more time away from home than in it. Williams found salvation by doing the one thing he loved most: hitting baseballs. In his rookie season with the Red Sox, where he would spend his entire career as a player, Williams batted .327, socked 31 homers and led the league with 145 RBI. Over the next 21 years, despite losing five seasons of his prime to active service as a U.S. Marine Corps pilot, Williams hit 521 home runs, twice captured the Triple Crown, and became the oldest man ever to win a batting title. He finished his career with a .344 lifetime batting average, was the last man to hit over .400 in a full season, batting .406 in 1941, and was a first-ballot inductee into the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Capturar (Las 1001 novias)
A film that evokes the period between the end of the First World War and the Great Depression of 1929. For some, it was the golden age of pleasure and the easy life, with memories of Charleston, short-haired tomboys, wild races in a Torpedo, and the dizzying banks of Deauville. For the rest of us, it was a time of illusions, when the carefree post-war era did little to conceal the profound upheavals that were shaking the world: the Soviet Revolution, the establishment of Fascism in Italy, German rearmament, a changing China, and finally the great economic depression of 1929, which took on the proportions of a global catastrophe.
In 1971 September met four young men in a garden in Gentofte. They wanted to make a band. And they soon found out that they could joke his way to one hit after another. A handful of years later had their playful approach made them Denmark's largest orchestra. But if success came easily to them, it was also their biggest problem. For besides they were hit by alcoholism and stage directing, they faced one overriding dilemma: Should they stick to the happy drengerøvs tone (young men who appear to be young, immature or inexperienced or who behave childishly), they had so much luck, or trying to become adults?