The history of the Yakuza Eiga at the TOEI studio is roughly outlined. Real Yakuza and also their connections to the movie business are discussed, and many important actors and directors of the genres are interviewed. Former real yakuza boss turned actor Noboru Ando, Takashi Miike, Sonny Chiba and many more get a chance to speak.
A nostalgic journey through ’80s Sci-Fi-films, exploring their impact and relevance today, told by the artists who made them and by those who were inspired to turn their visions into reality.
"Actor" is China's first documentary film to explore the virtues and skills of actors. The film takes the "Twenty-Two Big Movie Stars of New China" as the starting point. It will explore the film experience and artistic achievements of the older generation of artists, explore their insights and thinking about the profession of actors for more than half a century, and pay tribute to the century-old Chinese film with the classic film images they created.
Documentary short regarding the preservation and restoration of the worldwide remains of the Keystone films.
A new light on American filmmaker Steven Spielberg, Hollywood’s greatest director, offering a unique perspective on his work and digging into his personal influences.
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.
The history of Frankenstein's journey from novel to stage to screen to icon.
For the first 50 years of film history, the newsreel was a fixture in American movie theaters. From 1911 to 1967, these shorts proved an influential source of information – and misinformation – for generations of American moviegoers. Television news and public affairs programs became a great improvement over the scanty information offered by the newsreels. This documentary offers insight into a medium which has disappeared.
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.
French documentary on the Spaghetti Western genre, with numerous interviews.
Act of Violence Upon a Young Journalist is a film shot in 1988 and released on VHS in 1989; a mysterious cult work of Uruguayan cinema surrounded by strange theories about Manuel Lamas, its unknown creator. Until now.
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.
Documentary about Barrandov studios.
He is the most sought-after man in Europe in the 1960s. Lex Barker embodies the flawless hero in his films and, as Old Shatterhand, becomes a role model for generations of fans. Revered in Europe, misunderstood and almost forgotten in his native America. But who was this American who rode through Yugoslavia in a leather costume for the European audience? In 1973, Lex Barker died of a heart attack on the streets of Manhattan in New York. But no one recognizes the man who was Tarzan in Hollywood. Nobody knows him or cares about that he, as Winnetou's friend, is revered as an icon in Europe. Lex Barker's European western adventures are just a footnote in American film history. On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of his death, the documentary tells the story of one of the most beautiful men who ever flickered across Europe's cinema screens, for whom European cinema proved to be a stroke of luck and for whom a failed Hollywood career took him via Italy to Germany.
Drama, Tanz und Beine
Writer Adam Rockoff provides a basic overview of the slasher movie genre.
In 1964, Henri-Georges Clouzot's production of L'Enfer came to a halt. Despite huge expectations, major studio backing and an unlimited budget, after three weeks the production collapsed. This documentary presents Inferno's incredible expressionistic original rushes, screen tests, and on-location footage, whilst also reconstructing Clouzot's original vision, and shedding light on the ill-fated endeavor through interviews, dramatizations of unfilmed scenes, and Clouzot's own notes.
France, 1974. The erotic film Emmanuelle, directed by Just Jaeckin, breaks all records for cinema attendance: the story of the creation of a sensual epic that marked a turning point in the struggle for sexual emancipation.
Spain, early 20th century. As a child, Leocadia Cantalapiedra was dazzled by a new art: cinema; but she lives in a society where directing films is something only men can do.
Cameramen and women discuss the craft and art of cinematography and of the "DP" (the director of photography), illustrating their points with clips from 100 films, from Birth of a Nation to Do the Right Thing. Themes: the DP tells people where to look; changes in movies (the arrival of sound, color, and wide screens) required creative responses from DPs; and, these artisans constantly invent new equipment and try new things, with wonderful results. The narration takes us through the identifiable studio styles of the 30s, the emergence of noir, the New York look, and the impact of Europeans. Citizen Kane, The Conformist, and Gordon Willis get special attention.