This documentary interweaves celluloid and voice recordings by Maya Deren, and colleagues who knew her firsthand: Jean Rouch, Jonas Mekas, Alexander Hammid, Cecile Starr etc. Maya Deren (1917-1961) was an experimental filmmaker. In the 1940s and 1950s she made several influential avant-garde films, such as Meshes of the Afternoon (1943). Images from this and her other work are used in this documentary. You can also hear her voice, as well as accounts by contemporaries such as Jean Rouch and Jonas Mekas.
Friends and admirers of iconoclastic film director Sam Fuller read from his memoirs in this unconventional documentary directed by Fuller's only child, Samantha.
Emir Kusturica views himself as a rock musician and believes that he became a world-famous filmmaker by pure chance, as he shoots his movies only in between concert tours with the “No Smoking Orchestra” band. At these little pinpoints of time he gets “Palms d’Or” at Cannes, “Golden Lions” in Venice, builds his own villages, a power plant and a piste and regrets not becoming a professional football player. Kusturica’s own living is very much similar to his movies, where shoes are polished with cats, death is treated like a story from tabloid press, and life is a miracle...
Documentary about a bankrupt Jordanian entrepreneur and an unemployed Irish actress who hatch a plan to scam £2.5m off the British taxman by faking the production of a £20m movie. But they are found out, arrested and then bailed. While out on bail, they decide to prove their innocence by actually making a film. They hire a former nightclub bouncer, now a self-made micro-budget gangster film director. In 2011, Paul Knight makes their movie for under £100,000 with a cast of soap and gangster movie stars including Danny Midwinter, Marc Bannerman and Loose Women's Andrea McLean. The film's title is A Landscape of Lies. But the cinematic alibi does not convince the jury when the trial runs in 2013. The producers are convicted of tax fraud and given long sentences.
A fascinating glimpse into Truffaut’s creative process and how his life informed his art, told from the perspectives of those who knew him best.
Within the framework of the “Half a Century of Locarno, Thoughts on the Future” project, seven directors, Idrissa Ouedraogo among them, have the chance to express their vision of the future of the film industry by means of a short film. “The state of the film industry the world is a vast issue,” says the director from Burkina Faso. “I would rather speak about my films, about African films and their relationship with the world”.
A documentary of uncompromising, outlaw, cult underground filmmaker Jim Van Bebber, covering his life from 2010-2015 while he tries to make a comeback and make a new exploitation film after years of struggling to work.
BRAKHAGE explores the depth and breadth of the filmmaker’s genius, the exquisite splendor of his films, his magic personal charm, his aesthetic fellow travelers, and the influence his work has had on generations of other creators. While touching on significant moments in Brakhage’s biography, the film celebrates Brakhage’s visionary genius, and explores the extraordinary artistic possibilities of cinema, a medium mostly known only for its commercial applications in the form of narratives, cartoons, documentaries, and advertising. BRAKHAGE combines excerpts from Brakhage’s films and films of other avant-garde filmmakers (eg, George Kuchar, Jonas Mekas, Willie Varela, Bruce Elder, and others); interviews with Brakhage, his friends, family, colleagues, and critics; archival footage of Brakhage spanning the past thirty-five years; and location shooting in Boulder, Colorado and New York.
A look at avant-garde filmmaker Marie Menken.
A Rooster Teeth documentary by Mat Hames following podcaster Nick Scarpino as he works to reinvent himself as a standup comedian working comedy clubs in San Francisco.
Brother Howie is a Jamaican Rastifari who dreams of the land of his ancestors: Africa. On a journey in search of his roots and his identity he travels through three continents and (with great humor and sensitivity) discovers the world and Africa.
Discovering that sharks are being hunted to extinction, and with them the destruction of our life support system - activist and filmmaker Rob Stewart embarks on a dangerous quest to stop the slaughter. Following the sharks - and the money - into the elusive pirate fishing industry, Stewart uncovers a multi-billion dollar scandal that makes us all accomplices in the greatest wildlife massacre ever known.
During the early 1970s, hundreds of peasants in a remote region of El Salvador began to emulate the early Christians, working the land together and building communities based on solidarity. By the late 1970s, thousands of peasants in northern Morazan organized to resist National Guard repression which often involved torture and executions. In 1980s, the military engaged in scorched earth operations against their villages, inaugurating a 12-year civil war. The Word in the Woods tells their stories. The film's protagonists must reflect upon their struggles in the light of current reality.
Based on testimonies from residents of the communities of Miskibamba and Huayao of the district of San Miguel and Tambo in the province of La Mar, Department of Ayacucho, the film illustrates some of the main conclusions of the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, a group created with the purpose of clarifying the crimes and human rights violations that occurred during the internal armed conflict between 1980 - 2000.
A documentary about the world of portuguese cinema, with interviews with some critics and directors.
Two years since her arrest made her an accidental superhero of the Umbrella Movement, the infamous 'Chalk Girl', now 16, must decide whether to rejoin the battle for Hong Kong's democracy.
The film was shot as the final part of the play "Drink the sea, Xanthos" theatre-Studio "NEO" (St. Petersburg 1987-1989). As a result, the performance was changed and the film gained independence. He became an allegory of acting.
43 young male students were abducted from a Mexican college on September 26, 2014. They have yet to resurface. This documentary probes the disturbing event, how it shook a community, and the troubling search for the missing students.
An Important and relevant portrait of America's early years! Embark on an exciting, historical journey through the battles and victories surrounding America's pursuit for freedom. This poignant documentary series is comprehensively presented through narration, photographs and paintings to create a visual history of America's founding ideals of liberty and freedom. This ten-part documentary series examines the people and events that led up to our nation's battle for independence against the world's largest military power during the Revolutionary War through the presidencies of freedom fighters Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln who were forever dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.