The First VCR

Using testimonies by pioneers and witnesses of the times, delve into the feverish visual culture the media generated – with far-fetched examples of canine television games, seduction manuals, aerobics class while holding a baby, among others.

Filmmakers and collectors lift the curtain on their manic media obsession that is not only a huge part of their lives, but the lifeblood of their existence!

Kassetten-Fernsehen tells the story of the development of video as an entertainment medium in West Germany. The story begins with visions of a revolution and ends with a persistent censorship debate in a climate of intellectual and moral change.

A video store clerk showcases clips from Z-grade horror movies to curious customers.

A video found on a strange tape kept by someone's uncle.

Two twisted young film makers are shocked when a purchase of some new snuff hits a little too close to home.

The video evidence of the murder, which is especially brutal and graphic, that shouldn't be released to the public; a reporter who has access to the prosecutor's office hears about a cursed tape in the video archive and begins reporting on it.

A snooty female production assistant and an eager gopher at a TV station are assigned by their boss to locate a mysterious cassette. They quickly find themselves framed for murder and pursued by government agents.

A portrait of Łódź, Poland that exists in a time-warp of sad memory.

Peter Hutton’s essay on the naturalization of the urban landscape. Voluptuously gray, worn and lived in, the city is like a stage set for an invisible drama.

A film documenting the landscapes of northern Iceland.

In a rare interview, Katharine Hepburn shares her memories and memorabilia.

Six people, one room, one night, one game, a lot of sensuality and much to discover. A Film that shows how bodies and minds might meet when allowed to. Get involved within a stimulating experiment, somewhere between aesthetic statement and real venture, between pornographic art and the attempt to reposition sexuality within dialogue and actions.

Before the Flood is a study of the final weeks of a dying city, as thousand-year-old Fengjie on the Yangtze River is reduced to rubble and its inhabitants uprooted to make way for the new Three Gorges Dam that will flood the entire valley.

Yan Yu follows his groundbreaking documentary Before the Flood with this profile of the residents of Gongtan, a 1700-year-old village soon to be demolished by a hydroelectric dam project.

A day and night in the life of three alcoholic derelicts: "and the meek shall inherit the earth - six feet of it".

Part History Channel, part visual diary, and part mesmerizing abstraction, Allan Sekula’s video, A Short Film for Laos, 2006, takes the measure of day-to-day life in what the narrator describes as “the most bombed place on earth.”…

Both an activist and a documentarian, Valentina Pedicini also brings her background in anthropology to this impressively captured, claustrophobic nonfiction feature. Venturing beneath sea level, From the Depths profiles the lone woman at work in the last coal mine in Sardinia, Italy.

The first film in a Seven Up-like series examining the lives of three teenage girls in South Australia during the 1970s. It looks at issues such as boys and sex, abortion, marriage, pregnancy, career paths, and education.

L'uomo dalla bocca storta