Filmmakers in Action

This is not a documentary about the making of Midnight Cowboy. It is about a humane and groundbreaking masterpiece and the flawed but gifted people who made it. It is about a troubled era of cultural ferment, social and political change, about broken dreams and strivers, then and now. It is about an era that made a movie and a movie that made an era.

This historical drama tells the story of Qin Shihuang, who unified China's vast territory and declared himself emperor in 221 B.C. During his reign, he introduced sweeping reforms, built a vast network of roads and connected the Great Wall of China. From the grandiose inner sanctum of Emperor Qin's royal palace, to fierce battles with feudal kings, this film re-creates the glory and the terror of the Qin Dynasty, including footage of Qin's life-sized terra cotta army, constructed 2,200 years ago for his tomb.

Promotional documentary filmed at the London East End Docklands area and River Thames for the filming of the opening boat chase for The World Is Not Enough (1999).

Explore the first – and only – time “demonic possession” has officially been used as a defense in a U.S. murder trial. Including firsthand accounts of alleged devil possession and a shocking murder, this extraordinary story forces reflection on our fear of the unknown.

Documentary about the making of Marcel Carne's 1945 film Children of Paradise (France), interviewing the director, the actors and production designer, as well as other French directors.

A tribute to the legendary Japanese film director featuring the reflections of filmmakers Lindsay Anderson, Claire Denis, Hou Hsiao-hsien, Aki Kaurismäki, Stanley Kwan, Paul Schrader, and Wim Wenders

This is a documentary about the making of "Wings of Desire" (1987). The director, writer, actors, composer and other contributors speak at length and in detail about how the award-winning film was devised, cast, filmed, scored and edited.

An exploration of the cinematic history of the folk horror, from its beginnings in the UK in the late sixties; through its proliferation on British television in the seventies and its many manifestations, culturally specific, in other countries; to its resurgence in the last decade.

As Hong Kong's foremost filmmaker, Johnnie To himself becomes the protagonist of this painstaking documentary exploring him and his Boundless world of film. A film student from Beijing and avid Johnnie To fan, Ferris Lin boldly approached To with a proposal to document the master director for his graduation thesis. To agreed immediately and Lin's camera closely followed him for over two years, capturing the man behind the movies and the myths. The result is Boundless, a candid profile of one of Hong Kong's greatest directors and a heartfelt love letter to Hong Kong cinema.

In 1966, German film critic Theodor Kotulla — who would go on to become one of the New German Cinema's most uncompromising filmmakers — visited the set of Robert Bresson's "Mouchette" (1967) and created this half-hour documentary about the director. It won the 1967 German Film Award for best short documentary.

Elem Klimov's documentary ode to his wife, director Larisa Shepitko, who was killed in an auto wreck.

A chronicle of the production problems — including bad weather, actors' health, war near the filming locations, and more — which plagued the filming of Apocalypse Now, increasing costs and nearly destroying the life and career of Francis Ford Coppola.

The story of the cult horror empire through interviews with cast, crew, and horror icons such as Don Mancini, Brad Dourif, Jennifer Tilly, Catherine Hicks, Chris Sarandon, John Waters, Fiona Dourif, Perrey Reeves, Gerrit Graham, David Kirschner, and dozens more.

Baltimore City officials asked drug kingpin Melvin Williams to stop the riots happened following Martin Luther King's assassination. After helping the authorities out, Williams was then labeled a threat, framed and incarcerated by a hypocritical society.

The relations between Parma and cinema were so strong for almost the whole of the twentieth century that this city became an early laboratory of ideas and theories on cinema and a set chosen by some of the greatest Italian authors and beyond. Furthermore, a considerable number of directors, actors, screenwriters and set designers were born in Parma who have made their way internationally, testifying to the fact that in this small city in Northern Italy there was a decidedly cinematic air. Red armchairs takes up the thread of this story, wondering why, unique among the Italian provincial cities, Parma has given so much to the cinema, accompanying the viewer on a journey backwards that from the first projections of the Lumière cinema reaches the ultramodern experience of new multiplexes. During this journey we will meet the characters who created the conditions for this diffusion of cinematographic culture in Parma.

Ferruccio Castronuovo was the only authorized eye, between 1976 and 1986, to film the brilliant Italian filmmaker Federico Fellini (1920-1993) in his personal and creative intimacy, to capture the gears of his great circus, his fantastic lies and his crazy inventions.

At 18 hours and 43 minutes long, 'The Complete Story of Film' collects two epic documentaries by Mark Cousins into a stunningly expansive global journey through film history from the birth of cinema to today. The Story of Film: An Odyssey is an inclusive and ground-breaking journey through the history of world cinema and a treat for movie lovers around the globe. Guided by filmmaker and historian Mark Cousins, this wonderfully insightful 15-hour love letter to the movies begins with the invention of motion pictures at the end of the 19th century, continuing through the entire 20th century of moviemaking and concluding with the globalized digital industry of the 21st. In The Story of Film: A New Generation, Cousins picks up where Odyssey left off, returning with a new epic and hopeful tale of modern cinematic innovation in the new millennium, exploring how movies and moviegoing have evolved and will continue to transform to our collective joy and wonder.

In the late sixties, Spanish cinema began to produce a huge amount of horror genre films: international markets were opened, the production was continuous, a small star-system was created, as well as a solid group of specialized directors. Although foreign trends were imitated, Spanish horror offered a particular approach to sex, blood and violence. It was an extremely unusual artistic movement in Franco's Spain.

Co-curated by Jenni Olson and the late Black gay activist Karl Knapper, this entertaining showcase of vintage movie trailers traces the evolution of African American cinema through its most crucial period, 1952-1976. Filled with insights on race and social dynamics, this fascinating compendium of coming attractions explores an extensive range of stylistic approaches—Blaxploitation, Comedy, Music Bio, Plantation Drama and more—offering an outrageous joyride through motion picture history. Beyond mere camp, these marvelously condensed gems crystallize a range of African American identities and personalities, tracking the meteoric careers of Sidney Poitier, James Earl Jones, Billy Dee Williams, Richard Pryor, Pam Grier and others through their bold performances in movies both hugely popular and practically forgotten. Afro Promo provides a compact glimpse at the representation of African Americans through twenty-five dynamic years of American cinema history.

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.)