Rites of winter, rites of peyote. A creative documentary based on texts by Antonin Artaud read by Jean Rouch, and the words of the last shaman’s peyote, translated by Raymonde Carasco.
Filmed in New York in the summer of 2006: a march across the Brooklyn Bridge in support of the Palestinian and Lebanese populations. Habibi means "beloved" in Arabic.
This film was shot during Easter 1985. It shows the preparation and staging of the Passion in the village of Norogachic, Mexico. The initiation rites of two Pascoleros, filmed for the first time, form the center of this document.
An animated history of American health care provider, Planned Parenthood.
‘Podwórka’ captures six groups of neighbourhood youth as they play in seemingly deserted yards, offering an intimate portrait of daily life in Łódź, Poland. Shot with a fixed camera, this single-channel video projection highlights American artist Sharon Lockhart’s concern for the interrelationship between the still and the moving image.
They Made the Land (1938) is a documentary showcasing how land in Scotland was reclaimed and cultivated for agriculture. It explores the challenges of making a living from the land while highlighting the contributions of agricultural research and animal breeding. Produced as part of a series of seven documentaries for the 1938 Empire Exhibition, the film was created under the supervision of pioneering documentarian John Grierson.
The life of Marie and Peter seems perfect, but their greatest wish remains unfulfilled: a family of their own. After several painfully failed attempts to have a child by natural means, Marie and Peter decide to try adoption in Russia. Carried by their longing and after many months of preparation and waiting, they set off to get to know their future daughter Nina in a children's home thousands of kilometers away from Germany. They still have no idea that they are only at the beginning of a tour de force against the Russian authorities – and they are facing the biggest challenge for their relationship, because while Marie and Peter are fighting for their future child, the question is: are we still pursuing the same goal? Each for himself – and especially as a couple?
Four years after a military coup overthrew the Brazilian government in 1964, all civil rights were suspended and torture became a systematic practice. Using a mix of fiction and documentary this extraordinary film is a searing record of personal memory, political repression and the will to survive. Interviews with eight women who were political prisoners during the military dictatorship are framed by the fantasies and imaginings of an anonymous character, portrayed by actress Irene Ravache.
Kristina, a self-named Hungarian female lion tamer, arrives in New York to become a dance choreographer. Kristina, now a middle-class NYC artist concerned about the environment, has a sailor lover named Raoul. The film, a collage work, an essay film, a fictional narrative and a documentary all rolled into one, is one of the most important independent American feminists films made during the 1970's.
Alyssa wakes up in a home that's not hers and discovers a dead body. With no memory of how she got there, and no idea of who he is, Alyssa tries to piece together what exactly happened the night before.
A film about the Tibetan Freedom Concert in San Francisco in 1996.
A girl loses her parents and husband and is left driving a limo trying to get by raising her young son. An interesting but strange rich man hires her limo on Christmas eve and has her drive him to various ice rinks where he gives out $100 bills to the people there. The news media catches on and starts following him.
A short documentary on the chateaux of the Loire in France was commissioned by the French Tourist Bureau.
A very personal and dynamic meditation on the current global refugee crisis through the eyes and voices of campaigners, specially children, where past and present establish a dialogue. A reflection on the importance of human rights.
Twenty-five films from twenty-five European countries by twenty-five European directors.
A somewhat impressionist, at times even slightly surreal miniature about a student (Werner Stocker in a splendid performance) who, out of financial difficulties, starts out as pool attendant at an open air swimming pool in Berlin's district of Neukölln. Escaping from his unpleasant landlord and his lover Patrizia (a very young Martina Gedeck), he soon starts to live at the baths, and as swimmers disappear and the baths are closed for the winter, he turns the grounds into his own, perfect refuge from civilisation and social pressure, becoming increasingly detached from reality. What may sound like an annoyingly gimmicky premise is executed here playfully, yet with admirable simplicity and a subtle, unpretentious poetic sensibility that one would wish for more often in contemporary German cinema.
Anne mourned the loss of her son Lukas, who was born with a genetic disease and died six years ago. With the encouragement and support of her boyfriend Daniel, she decided to sell her house and emigrate to La Palma. But it is not only the dissolution of the former family center that brings back many memories - her grown-up daughter Helen has also returned to Germany from the USA.
A documentary of insect life in meadows and ponds, using incredible close-ups, slow motion, and time-lapse photography. It includes bees collecting nectar, ladybugs eating mites, snails mating, spiders wrapping their catch, a scarab beetle relentlessly pushing its ball of dung uphill, endless lines of caterpillars, an underwater spider creating an air bubble to live in, and a mosquito hatching.
In 1988, Tilda Swinton toured round the Berlin Wall on a bicycle - starting and ending at the Brandenburg Gate - accompanied by filmmaker Cynthia Beatt. As Swinton travels through fields and historic neighborhoods, past lakes and massive concrete apartment buildings, the Wall is a constant presence.
A teenage mother is forced to give up her baby for adoption and, 19 years later, when she tries to contact her son, she learns that he died, under questionable circumstances when he was three years old.