Take a front row seat as we sit down to chat with some of the creators and stars of the best and most beloved exploitation and grindhouse films of the 1970s and 80s. Featuring interviews with John Dugan (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre), Craig Reed (The Re-Animator), John Russo (Night of the Living Dead), Lynn Lowry (The Crazies), Carl Crew (Blood Diner), and many more independent horror veterans.
The life and legacy of Marlon Brando and how he changed acting.
A documentary on the creation of Lars von Trier's fascinating drama Dogville starring amongst others Nicole Kidman, Paul Bettany, Stellan Skarsgård, Ben Gazzara, Lauren Bacall and James Caan. Showcasing behind-the-scenes footage and providing a much deeper look inside the world of filmmaking including some moments of insight that are hard to believe.
Australian-born filmmaker George Miller offers a personal view of Australian films. He suggests that they can be regarded as visual music, public dreaming, mythology, and song-lines. In extrapolating the idea of movies as song-lines he examines feature films under the following categories: songs of the land; the bushman; the convicts; the bush-rangers; mates and larrikins; the digger; pommy bashing; the sheilas; gays; the wogs; blackfellas; and urban subversion. He then concludes that these films can be thought of as "Hymns that sing of Australia."
A retrospective on the 1969 classic "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid," its impact on the careers of the filmmakers and cast, and how the film made a distinct impact on the Western genre.
A retrospective documentary on the making of Cape Fear (1991) and Cape Fear (1962).
Documentary about the making of 20th Century Fox's 1963 film "Cleopatra," then the most expensive film of all time.
The story of how the classic epic "Ben-Hur" was made.
Sylvester Stallone's 90-minute video diary, covering the making of "The Expendables".
A biodoc about the first female filmmaker and her relative disappearance from the history of cinema after directing, producing, and writing more than 700 films.
An autobiographical short film by Werner Herzog made in 1986. Herzog tells stories about his life and career. The film contains excerpts and commentary on several Herzog films, including Signs of Life, Heart of Glass, Fata Morgana, Aguirre, the Wrath of God, The Great Ecstasy of Woodcarver Steiner, Fitzcarraldo, and the Les Blank documentary Burden of Dreams. Notable is footage of a conversation between Herzog and his mentor Lotte Eisner, a photographer. In another section, he talks with mountaineer Reinhold Messner, in which they discuss a potential film project in the Himalayas to star Klaus Kinski.
Petra heads to New York in search of her older sister after a long time of being separated. They are both movie actresses and heirs of the wounds of the Brazilian dictatorship. But Petra has only a few clues: home movies, newspaper clippings, a diary...
A hysterical documentary which uses footage of Ed Wood's movie to tell the story of his life. It may not be a deep analysis, but shows distinctly how Ed's life strongly influenced his own films.
Handbook of Movie Theaters’ History is a documentary about the history, the development in the present days and the future of movie theaters in the city of Turin, Italy. It mixes the documentary language with comedy and fiction, and is enriched by interviews to some of the most important voices of Turin cinematography. The film follows the evolution of movie theaters by enlightening its main milestones: the pre-cinema experiences in the late 19th Century, the colossals and the movie cathedrals of the silent era, the arthouse theaters, the National Museum of Cinema, the Torino Film Festival, the movie theaters system today and the main hypothesis about its future.
A look at the parallel lives of Charlie Chaplin and Adolf Hitler and how they crossed with the creation of the film “The Great Dictator,” released in 1940.
The story of three men with a shared dream: James Bond franchise producers Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman, and Bond creator and author Ian Fleming. It’s the thrilling and inspiring narrative behind the longest running film franchise in cinema history, which began in 1962.
The epic story of how the film The African Queen (1951), directed by John Huston and starring Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn, was shot on real African locations, barely overcoming all kinds of hardships and disasters.
Matthew Sweet explores his rules of 1940s and 50s American film noir thrillers.
Dreaming the Quiet Man’ includes interviews with aficionados of Ford like, Martin, Scorsese, Peter Bogdanovicz, Jim Sheridan, William Dowling, and Joe McBride. There is mesmeric archive and rare photographs of the making of the film. The main location of the documentary is Ford’s ancestral homeland of Connemara, on the west coat of Ireland, where his parents were born. We meet Ford’s cousins, the Feeney’s who tell the story of Ford’s parent’s departure from Ireland after the Great Famine and the young Ford’s return to Ireland in 1922 to visit his cousins the Thornton’s and saw their house being burned down by the infamous Black and Tans. Ford, under the pretense of scouting locations for a movie, gave money to the IRA. We travel to Portland Maine where Ford grew up and went on to become a director in the first bloom of Hollywood. The boy made it good but Ireland was always on his mind.
Marking Play for Today’s 50th anniversary, Drama Out of a Crisis is a compelling exploration of the series, its origins, achievements, controversies and legacies. Featuring a rich and surprising range of archive extracts and original interviews with many who created the series, including producers Kenith Trodd, Margaret Matheson and Richard Eyre, and directors Mike Leigh, David Hare and Ken Loach.