Dance for All
"Sleep Paralysis" dives in to the little-known phenomenon of the same name. Affected people from different cultures tell of their frightening experiences, while scientists try to find explanations.
Christopher Kerr is a hospice doctor. All of his patients die. Yet he has cared for thousands of patients who, in the face of death, speak of love and grace. Beyond the physical realities of dying are unseen processes that are remarkably life-affirming. These include dreams that are unlike any regular dream. Described as "more real than real," these end-of-life experiences resurrect past relationships, meaningful events and themes of love and forgiveness; they restore life's meaning and mark the transition from distress to comfort and acceptance.
THE NIGHTMARE, documentary filmmaker Adam Gray sets out on a journey to understand this terrifying phenomenon. From the foggy shores of Newfoundland to the steaming jungles of Zanzibar we will see where the Nightmare has left its mark. Hear from those who have survived the experience, and the families of those that did not. Meet the scientists, psychologists, and folklorists on the front lines of the battle for understanding how something without material form can traumatize and even kill those that encounter it. THE NIGHTMARE is a fascinating exploration of a phenomenon that suggests that the only difference between hallucination and the supernatural...is belief.
When facing a path with no future or precedent success, will we ever choose to stay? Cheuk Cheung’s My Way explores the Cantonese Opera tradition of male Dan performers, men who play female roles, against the backdrop of a Hong Kong society increasingly putting less value on art. Although female performers have long been part of the mainstream of Cantonese Opera, the film follows the stories of two young men who are still fascinated by the art of the male Dan, striving to find their own way to carry on the practice. A moving and searching look at the struggle for identity, My Way is a colourful, musical and moving film which offers a unique and highly personal look at perseverance in the face of a changing society.
This is an artificial intelligence (AI)-generated film that envisions the Middlesbrough Collection as a sleeping repository of the past and present. Perks and Stewart used the Collection and displays as source material, asking three groups to imagine the dreams of the Collection through creative writing, meditation, observation exercises and karaoke. The resulting material was inputted into ChatGPT to generate a script and then fed into an AI moving image platform, Pictory AI, which translated it into a sequence of moving images from existing databases.
On the age of 51, a father leaves his family to live as a carpenter. Away from the family and house burdens, he spends his last 15 years living alone. From the point of view of his child, the idealistic father then changes his mind to let go of everything and lives his dream of traveling.
Little kids, big dreams and smashingly good music – Dixieland follows the amazing progress of four members of a Ukrainian children’s brass band from Kherson. Through steady practice under the wildest of conditions, Roman (12, trumpet), Polina (10, trombone, drums and many other instruments), Nikita (12, drums) and Nikita (14, piano) produce magical music with ancient, wobbly instruments. Not least due to their wit and good humor, they persevere together, helped along by their 80+-year-old conductor and a young teacher. These children of the post-Soviet provinces use American tunes to achieve their dream – to become someone in the world and make something of their lives, no matter how dire the circumstances. From the authors of an awards winning documentary film Ukrainian Sheriffs.
If you think shopping malls are crowded, you probably haven’t experienced a Prague canteen in the late 1940s. Two thousand hot dogs sold every day, two thousand human faces and destinies. This film essay presents Prague’s vending machines, snack bars, and cheap cafeterias as a mini-zoo crowded with human specimens. They fight for space, food, or a loving embrace under the microscope of a comically touching director, searching for a theme.
Growing up in poverty as a child, Dylan dreamt of travelling the world on a motorcycle. Many years later he broke the shackles of a normal life and took to the road. After journeying 200,000km across four continents, the road from Panama to Colombia comes to an end, swallowed up by an impenetrable jungle. Dylan has no choice but to take to the sea, building a raft powered by his motorcycle engine in the hope of reaching Colombia's road network 700km away. He must brave strong ocean currents and storm batterings in his journey from Central to South America.—Journeyman Pictures
A young accountant finally pursues her dreams of becoming a painter.
On a Summer afternoon, Pedro packs the last few boxes before having to leave his apartment in New York. 12 years ago, Pedro and Ana had arrived in America from Portugal, in search of a dream. Now, Ana's voice describes, from the other side of the ocean, that same country to which they are returning. As the rooms are emptied, Pedro bids farewell to one life, welcoming another. But the dream that brought him will remain forever in the city that never sleeps, awaiting his return.
In September 1957, the philosopher Carl Gustav Jung was interviewed in Houston. Part of that interview was filmed in 16mm. After reviewing the images obtained, the footage was censored in many countries, ending up in oblivion, lost in a warehouse in Central America. Just 50 years later, after several years of searching for images around the world and a difficult reconstruction and restoration, the director Shang Solomon offers us on the big screen almost all of the interview with Jung, known as the main opponent to the theories of Freud and an eminence of the Philosophy and the History of Psychology.
Incredible optical illusions in a story in a story in a story helps the surprised viewer finally to find out that he has been watching himself all along.
A small town ice hockey team fights through their first season in an upper division. The players' dreams might have changed from childhood but their love for the sport does not fade.
Documentary about Finnish film theaters - about their past, disappearance and future. And at the same time universal story how cinema is undeniably connected with life.
18 seniors living in retirement homes get the chance to go on a holiday to Greece. In addition to old age, many suffer from diseases such as dementia, cancer and permanent lung disease, but with the help of their companions and Dimitrios "Tackis" Sahpekidis, they get to realize their dreams. In Greece, they are allowed to eat melon on the beach, dance the zorba, drink retzina on the balcony until late at night and swim in the Mediterranean. The motto is that there are no obstacles and that life should be lived all out, until the end.
After getting caught in a fight, Vahid needs to sell one of his kidneys to avoid a prison sentence of many years. While waiting for the liberating call from a buyer, a wish for a better life starts to grow within him.
Leonie’s dream is to become a pig farmer, just like her parents. She wanders happily around the farm, helping out in any way possible. She tends to the pigs, and is present from the fertilisation of the sows to the moment the truck leaves for the slaughterhouse. The family farm teaches her about the circle of life. However, new laws on nitrogen emissions have undermined the economic viability of the farm, and bankruptcy looms. Together with her cat Skeet, Leonie watches the last pigs disappear from the farm, and she realises that her dream of becoming a pig farmer might not come true.
This audio-visual tone poem uses the language of filmmaking to offer a first-hand evocation of the turbulent psychological effects one can experience due to prolonged lack of sunlight.