At a lakeside hotel, Michel Piccoli discusses the centennial of cinema with Jean-Luc Godard. Godard asks why should cinema's birthday be celebrated when the history of film is a forgotten subject. Through the remainder of his hotel stay, Piccoli tests Godard's hypothesis.
The life and work of German political philosopher of Jewish descent Hannah Arendt (1906-75), who caused a stir when she coined a subversive concept, the banality of evil, in her 1963 book on the trial of Nazi war criminal Adolph Eichmann (1906-62), held in Israel in 1961, which she covered for the New Yorker magazine.
Short documentary made under lockdown that looks at the crisis for renters during the pandemic.
In 2007, Gillian Wearing placed an advert – in newspapers, online, in job centers, and elsewhere. It read: “Would you like to be in a film? You can play yourself or a fictional character. Call Gillian.” Of the hundreds of people who replied, seven – chosen through an extended process of auditions, interviews, and workshops – ended up appearing in Self Made. Of those seven, five in particular use the acting technique known as Method to delve into their memories, impulses, anxieties, fears, fantasies, and inner resources to create a series of individual performance vignettes, their personal ‘end scenes’, that reveal with particular intensity and clarity who they really are deep down – or who, in another version of their lives, they might easily have been.
The recession of the 1980s split the country into the haves and have-nots, from family farmers to factory workers and homeless people forced to live in decrepit welfare hotels. On the verge of losing everything, courageous Americans discover the power of community organizing to fight injustice.
An intimate portrait of a Chinese-European couple in New Zealand, and their journey to get a blessing for marriage from traditional Chinese parents. The story that led to the film, My Wedding and Other Secrets.
Short about the daily life of the Apaches, including their ceremonies.
We Iranian Women
Through the hauntingly beautiful lure of Jason deCaire's Taylor's underwater, life-like statues we witness the birth of an artificial coral reef, learn how we are inextricably connected to the ocean and everything in it, and are left to consider how our choices will determine what we leave to future generations.
Jeju-do is the largest of Korean islands and lies between Korea and Japan. There, for hundreds of years, women dive without breathing apparatus, to the ocean floor and collect shellfish, octopus, and urchins that they sell. The divers are in their sixties and seventies and their daughters do not want to inherit their work, lifestyle, and health problems that go with diving. As a filmmaker I was privileged to meet many of these women and dive with them. Their stories of hardship and pride confirmed my desire to record this unique and ancient tradition.
Malegaon, a small town tucked away near the heart of India geographically, is fraught with communal tension and under severe economic depression. To escape the harsh reality of their world, its people seek refuge in the fantastical world of cinema. This passion for cinema has spurred a group of cinema enthusiasts to make their own films-quirky, low budget, socially aware and notoriously funny spoofs of Bollywood films.
"Behind Jim Jarmusch" is an intimate an intriguing portrait of director Jim Jarmusch, at work on the set of his movie "The Limits of Control" (starring Isaach de Bankolé, Bill Murray, Tilda Swinton, John Hurt...)
Every year hundreds of people - mostly women - are attacked with acid in Pakistan. Follow several of these survivors, their fight for justice, and a Pakistani plastic surgeon who has returned to his homeland to help them restore their faces and their lives.
The film features 85-year-old Mr. Armstrong, an African American barber in Birmingham, Alabama, as he experiences the manifestation of an unimaginable dream: the election of the first African American president. This colorful and courageous activist of the Civil Rights era casts his vote, celebrates Obama's victory and proudly unfurls the American flag as he is inducted into the Foot Soldiers Hall of Fame. Mr. Armstrong links the magnitude of the present paradigm shift with challenges he faced in the past: from his sons' integration into an all white school to the Bloody Sunday march for voting rights. The documentary raises questions about democracy and patriotism in the face of adversity, and the vigilance and action required to ensure continued forward movement to end racial injustice.
'OG' is a film about a legendary, Brazilian born, NYC skateboarder, Harry Jumonji. In the course of telling his story, through his triumphs and travails, Jumonji emerges in this portrait as an adolescent innocent, much like skateboarding itself. He is irrepressible, manically energetic and ultimately, pure. He has a transcendent presence, well beyond charm or charisma, of such unalloyed joy that nothing he does is unforgiveable. This is fortunate because, as a drug addict, unsurprisingly, he lies, cheats and steals. Harry is rendered as the poet, the sprite, the artist and the street saint he is.
Dive into more than a century of decadence with this tantalizing look at the evolution of burlesque. Cabaret star Leslie Zemeckis traces the art form from vaudeville-style variety show through its extinction and contemporary rebirth. Vintage photos, film clips and ads illustrate burlesque's resilient history and how the public's sexual appetite kept it alive amid moral and legal ado.
Hotel Monterey is a cheap hotel in New York reserved for the outcasts of American society. Chantal Akerman invites viewers to visit this unusual place as well as the people who live there, from the reception up to the last story.
A mixture of documentary and fiction examines the new god of Capitalism offered to the Serbs with the ending of state socialism. We look at a number of strikes in Belgrade during the late 2000s and these introduce us to several characters playing themselves. Employees dressed in American football helmets and pads square up with employers' heavies in their bullet-proof vests, resulting in explosive situations. A visit from the Russian tycoon's representative and vice president Joe Biden's arrival further complicates the proceedings.
On April 22, 2010 the Deepwater Horizon offshore drilling rig run by BP sunk into the Gulf of Mexico, creating the worst oil spill in history. Two documentarians set out to find the root cause of it all…
Follows the Boston Red Sox' Tim Wakefield and the New York Mets' R.A. Dickey - the only two major league pitchers who use the unpredictable knuckleball - during the 2011 season.