A portrayal of the life of one of the most important samba musicians in Brazil, Bahian sambista Oscar da Penha, popularly known as Batatinha (1924 -1997). Through memories of their father, his nine children share their perspectives, as well as interviews with family, friends and musicians, to tell the story of Batatinha’s life, history and work.
A trip that the author makes to a distant beach trying to find the place where his grandfather made a painting years ago.
Chileans are asked about their definition of the word (and the concept of) "power", as they answer images flash on the screen of powerful and powerless figures in Chilean history.
Cormac McCarthy has spent the last 25 years writing his novels at the mountain top retreat of the Santa Fe Institute (SFI) in New Mexico. An institute dedicated to the formal analysis of complex systems. In this documentary filmed at the library at SFI (and in the desert), Cormac in conversation with his colleague David Krakauer, reflects on isolation, mathematics, character, and the nature of the unconscious
What would your family reminiscences about dad sound like if he had been an early supporter of Hitler’s, a leader of the notorious SA and the Third Reich’s minister in charge of Slovakia, including its Final Solution? Executed as a war criminal in 1947, Hanns Ludin left behind a grieving widow and six young children, the youngest of whom became a filmmaker. It's a fascinating, maddening, sometimes even humorous look at what the director calls "a typical German story." (Film Forum)
When a Mongolian nomadic family's newest camel colt is rejected by its mother, a musician is needed for a ritual to change her mind.
Agricultural scientist and mother Isolde struggles with the dicrepancies between her personal convictions and the political realities in East Germany.
Filmmaker Kimi Takesue captures the cadence of daily life for Grandpa Tom, a retired postal worker born to Japanese immigrants to Hawai’i in the 1910s. Amidst the solitude of his home routines — coupon clipping, rigging an improvised barbecue, lighting firecrackers on the New Year — we glimpse an unexpectedly rich inner life.
A trans Vietnamese woman's deadname being repeated over and over again.
A journey through a century of Ambrosoli family history.
Chelsea Bledsoe and her husband Graig throw a surprise intervention for her old high school boyfriend, Henry, with a mismatched group of acquaintances from back in the day to fill out the guest list.
Searching for life in daily rituals, Losing Touch undertakes a shift in perception and presents the city as an ugly yet ecologically rich landscape. The film depicts the internal dialogue on coping with the grief and fear of ecological degradation, using the local streets of Berlin as a means to materialise and confront these emotions. As both the body and mind begin to wander, encounters with the landscape over a 24 hour period are transformed into an overstimulating and emotionally charged journey. Camcorder footage, film developed in beer and cyanotype create sensational and playful depictions of the surroundings, joining the rats scurrying on the ground and fleeing the night lights with the moths. Creatures of metal and flesh interact within and between the frames, coming together as an ugly yet vibrant community. Subverting the nature-culture dichotomy, a new image of nature is formed, not only as a romantic, distant place, but rather a dirty, omnipresent force.
Set against a vibrant tapestry of music and movement, Tem Fé poetically explores female energy, resilience, and ancestral roots. Through striking visuals and soundscapes, the film celebrates the strength of women and their spiritual bond across generations.
Traces the lives of the Hartings, a blind Montreal family of three who make their living singing in the city's subway stations. The Hartings lost their only sighted child Hassan in a tragic drowning accident, and have since turned to the teachings of Russian mystic Grigori Grabovoi, hoping to resurrect their son. Resurrecting Hassan is an exploration of this family's legacy of grief, tragedy and abuse; the film will follow them on their path to redemption.
An experimental short film about wind and sunlight sweeping across tree leaves.
GONZALO.
An experimental documentary looking at the transgender experience around the world over two hemispheres, three continents and with four interviewees. The film employs limited B roll shots or edits during the interviews, instead opting to have the interviews mostly uncut, with the goal of creating both a level of sincerity and a conversational narrative between any one of the interviewees and the audience.
"Emotional memories that had formed the ambiguous boundaries between reality and fantasy began to divide exactly in two, and at the same time there was no emotion left on either side of reality and fantasy." Chang Gyeong is the name of a palace in central Seoul - a palace that was turned into a zoo by the occupying Japanese.
An exploration of memory after death.
Experimental self portrait