Man of Three Worlds: Luchino Visconti

An intimate portrait of the superb actress Gena Rowlands, icon of independent cinema. Together with her husband, legendary director John Cassavetes (1929-89), she lived an unusual life beyond the dream factory, a life in which reality and fiction were so perfectly intertwined that it made possible films that still today seem incredibly real.

Actor/director Sidney Poitier discusses his life and career. He tells of his upbringing in Jamaica; the difficulties he encountered in New York City at the start of his career; his involvement in the US civil-rights movement; and efforts to end apartheid in South Africa. Friends and acquaintances, as well as other performers, give their insights about what makes him so special.

The adventurous life of Natacha Rambova (1897-1966), an American artist, born Winifred Kimball Shaughnessy, who reincarnated herself countless times: false Russian dancer, silent film actress, scenographer and costume designer, writer, spiritist, Egyptologist, indefatigable traveler, mysterious and curious; an amazing 20th century woman who created the myth of Rudolph Valentino.

The Parténope is a baroque opera directed by the prestigious opera and theatre director, Gustavo Tambascio. This documentary tells the story of the preparations and premieres in various cities of this production, which won the Campoamor prize for the best lyric production of the year.

The film follows the staging of the opera Olimpiade while at the same time exploring the dramatic life of its composer Josef Mysliveček, a friend and teacher of W. A. Mozart.

Brought to life through archival material and the reflections of over 40 colleagues, friends and fans, BLOOD & FLESH is much more than the story of a moviemaking life most unusual. It beautifully captures the worlds of outsider filmmaker communities that existed in California in the ’70s, and the weird ways they intersected with Hollywood mainstream and union indies. On Adamson shoots, regular Orson Welles crew and cinematographers like Gary Graver, Vilmos Szigmond and Lazlo Kovaks worked alongside Bud Cardos — and at one point, Charles Manson! Director David Gregory (founder of Severin Films, director of LOST SOUL: THE DOOMED JOURNEY OF RICHARD STANLEY’S ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU) spent years making this film, speaking to everyone down to the cops who investigated Adamson’s murder, vividly encapsulating both a bold life and tragic demise, with alien conspiracies, go-go dancers and Colonel Sanders coming in along the way. If you’ve got even a passing interest in cinema, you want to see this

Jeff Wall is one of the most important and influential photographers working today. His work played a key role in establishing photography as a contemporary art form.

Director Scheffer registered a performance of the Tea Opera by Chinese composer Tan Dun (who won an Oscar in 2001 with his score for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon). Scheffer interlaces the images with interviews with Dun, stage director Pierre Audi and librettist Xu Ying, about the opera and the role tea and oriental philosophy play in this work. Using monochrome, sometimes abstract images (in yellow, blue, red and green), close-ups of plants and flowers and images of the Chinese nature and people (sometimes accelerated or decelerated, sometimes in black-and-white), he mirrors the stylised opera performance and Dun's reflective music.

The Paris Opera trained them from childhood and offered them an extraordinary life, shaped by rigor and passion. At 42, it is time to leave this prestigious institution. As new talents take the stage, Alice Renavand, Stéphane Bullion, and Aurélia Bellet prepare their farewell performance. Yonathan Kellerman’s camera gently captures this transition to a new life.

Film journalist and critic Rüdiger Suchsland examines German cinema from 1933, when the Nazis came into power, until 1945, when the Third Reich collapsed. (A sequel to From Caligari to Hitler, 2015.)

Previously a central part of communal life, the movie palaces of New York’s Chinatown are now extinct. This documentary short takes us inside the title theater located on the Bowery, as it’s about to close its doors, with its caretakers ruefully looking back at the life that once was. Eric Lin’s poignant first film serves as a glimpse into the usually private—and, according to the Music Palace’s projectionist, “lonely”—operations of a theater, and mourns the loss of a once-vital movie-going locale.

A 2003 documentary study of mainstream Cyberpunk films of the 1980s created by director Andrew J. Holden. The film uses the structure of literary theorist Northrop Frye to describe the common, repeating stories in Western culture, and how Cyberpunk can be defined and understood according to that analysis, with a focus toward American film industry portrayal of race, gender, and government.

Documentary about Nicholas Ray's film "In a Lonely Place" (1950).

Documentary about the making of Lars von Trier's 1991 film.

Documentary about the making of Nagisa Oshima's 1976 film.

Documentary about Spanish director Luis García Berlanga's "The Executioner" (1963)

Documentary about the Parisian locations for the film by Louis Malle.

Behind-the-scenes documentary about a fundraiser which was staged for Robert Altman's film "The Player" (1992).

The intricate history of UFA, a film production company founded in 1917 that has survived the Weimar Republic, the Nazi regime, the Adenauer era and the many and tumultuous events of contemporary Germany, and has always been the epicenter of the German film industry.

In 1967, Canadian documentarian James Beveridge traveled to Kolkata to film director Satyajit Ray at work. The resulting program, produced for the American public television series “The Creative Person,” features interviews with Ray, several of his actors and crew members, and film critic Chidananda Das Gupta.