Suzan Pitt: Persistence of Vision

Reveals the history of camerawomen around the world, celebrating not only the survival of pioneer women in a male-dominated field, but a new generation of camerawomen's visions.

Of all the great ballerinas, Tanaquil Le Clercq may have been the most transcendent. With a body unlike any before hers, she mesmerized viewers and choreographers alike. With her elongated, race-horse physique, she became the new prototype for the great George Balanchine. Because of her extraordinary movement and unique personality on stage, she became a muse to two of the greatest choreographers in dance, George Balanchine and Jerome Robbins. She eventually married Balanchine, and Robbins created his famous version of Afternoon of a Faun for her. She had love, fame, adoration, and was the foremost dancer of her day until it suddenly all stopped. At the age of 27, she was struck down by polio and paralyzed. She never danced again. The ballet world has been haunted by her story ever since.

Lost and Found depicts a life of a man with no homeland. 10 years ago Konstantin G fled the persecutions of homosexuals from Moscow to Finland. He lives now in Helsinki, living the different roles of his life: he is a nurse and a friend of the aged, a bright personality of the nightlife in Helsinki's gay-world, a solitary figure of the Russian community and the Orthodox Church, and as well as an intensive cabaret performer. Film is a mosaic-like journey to the loves and lives of Konstantin, where poems, songs and encounters form a picture of one passionate and unusual life. In the roles of his own life Konstantin Gontcharev.

Documentary that follows the lives of two pirates and their community on the Somali coastline; what are the incentives of the pirates, why did they become pirates, how did they grow up in a country with political chaos, war and extreme poverty? The narrative structure is built around two interweaving story-lines; one depicting the "present", the daily lives of the pirates and their community, and the second in the "past", revealing through epic animation, the unfolding of a recent hijacking.

In early 1970s, the graphic designer Tuulikki Pietilä had seen enough of stative visual art and purchased a film camera from Japan. She filmed the games and chores of the artist couple in their beloved hideout, the island of Klovharun.

A film made by Victress Hitchcock and Ava Hamilton in 1989 on the Wind River Reservation for Wyoming Public Television.

A portrait of three generations of wonderfully eccentric Italian American women living in a small town near Boulder.

A documentary about the Friends of the Western Buddhist Order in London.

The story of the native people of Guam, the Chamorros, who remained loyal to the U.S. under a brutal Japanese occupation only to be stripped of much of their ancestral lands to build military facilities after World War II. Through rarely seen archival footage, as well as testimonies of survivors and their descendants, War for Guam explores the experience and enduring legacy of World War II on the island.

Dance for All

Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing taught millions globally, but the software's Haitian-born cover model vanished decades ago. Two DIY detectives search for the model while posing questions about identity and artificial intelligence.

The gripping story of legendary American actor John Travolta: his rise to stardom in the 1970s; his agonizing fall in disgrace in the 1980s; and his stunning artistic rebirth in the 1990s.

Sylvia Kristel – Paris is a portrait of Sylvia Kristel , best known for her role in the 1970’s erotic cult classic Emmanuelle, as well as a film about the impossibility of memory in relation to biography. Between November 2000 and June 2002 Manon de Boer recorded the stories and memories of Kristel. At each recording session she asked her to speak about a city where Kristel has lived: Paris, Los Angeles, Brussels or Amsterdam; over the two years she spoke on several occasions about the same city. At first glance the collection of stories appears to make up a sort of biography, but over time it shows the impossibility of biography: the impossibility of ‘plotting’ somebody’s life as a coherent narrative.

For decades, American touring ice shows dominated family entertainment with their dazzling production and variety acts. This documentary honors them through interviews and archival footage, and depicts one skater's quest to keep this history alive.

A document of the Riot Grrrl and Queercore scene in the 1990s, the film has been screened at film festivals around the world, written about in zines and academic books and has been included in the curriculum of a number of university courses.

In 1993, Bikini Kill toured the UK with grrrl associates Huggy Bear. Lucy Thane made a documentary about the trip, also featuring appearances from the Raincoats, Sister George, and Skinned Teen.

Afro-Cubans played a leading role in the fight to free Cuba from Spanish domination; as part of that struggle, slavery was abolished. Nevertheless, as African descendants began to achieve a semblance of social and economic parity, the plantocracy, backed up by the US army, sought to undo their gains. Determined to resist, veterans of the Mambi army formed the Party of Independents of Color, gaining wide popular support and ultimately threatening the domination of the white Cuban rulers. Their response was savage, and 6,000 Afro-Cubans were massacred; until this film, these events have been shrouded in silence.

Virgie's family feeds on the fishes that lurk under the industrial ships of North Harbor. Their alternatives are packs of tasteless gelatin found in the same waters. One morning when the fishes are dead and the sea's color is that of milk, uncertainty is born.

Russian Poet Boris Ryzhy was handsome, talented and famous. So why did he end his own life at the age of 26? A quest to find the answer takes the filmmaker to the notorious neighbourhood in the cold industrial city of Yekaterinenburg where Boris grew up...

"Touches on elemental images; air, water, (and snow), earth and fire (and smoke) all come into it." - MT