In the life of Mr. Lai Man-wai, he had seen the most turbulent times of recent Chinese history. From the fall of the Qing Dynasty to the founding of the Republic, from the Sino-Japanese War to the founding of the People’s Republic. With a patriotic spirit, he joined the revolution and used the theatre to promote the revolutionary course. For a ‘stronger China’, and ‘education for all’, he chose film as his life long goal and career. Lai was more than the father of Hong Kong cinema was; he was also one of the pioneers of the Chinese cinema. He made Hong Kong’s first short fiction film ‘Zhuangzi Tests His Wife’. He opened the first Chinese owned cinema, the New World Cinema, in Hong Kong…. In the several decades, Lai had devoted his life and fortune in writing this glorious inaugural chapter in early Chinese film history. The technical enhancement, the introduction of foreign techniques and equipment were all part of his contribution to the Chinese cinema.
An exploration of Chinese cinema and its relationships with gender and sexuality, which the film argues has been more frankly and provocatively explored than in any other national cinema. Utilizing both film excerpts and interviews with many leading directors and academics, the film examines topics such as male bonding in kung fu movies, depictions of same-sex bonding and physical intimacy, the emphasis on women's grievances in melodramas, and the career of Yam Kim-Fai, a Hong Kong actress who spent her life portraying men on and off the screen.
Documentary about new chinese cinema.
A police sniper teams up with a hot-headed rookie to take down his former friend and teammate, who is exacting revenge on the police force.
Part two of A comedy film set on Shanghai film studio. The background events frequently involve the shooting of other films being made at Mingxing Film Company at the time. This includes a sequence of the 17th episode of the silent wuxia film series Burning of the Red Lotus Temple, which is the only known footage from this historic series to exist.
Su Jin meets Li'er. As their bond grows, the weight of Su Jin being the crowned prince and Li'er as a cat spirit grows heavy.
Based on the beloved children's book, elementary schooler Wang Bao discovers a wish-granting gourd that gives him the ability to make his dreams come true. Due to the gourd's erratic nature, Wang Bao confronts his own dishonesty amongst his peers and family, and realizes that you might not get everything you wish for.
Apartamento 62
A beautiful session between dancer Tanaka Min and director Wim Wenders that illustrates something before we started speaking with words.
In 2015, a Magdalene in Ecstasy was discovered in the modest collection of an Italian family. Was it the original by Caravaggio, who disappeared after his death in 1610, or one of the many copies made subsequently? After an expert appraisal, Mina Gregori, one of the greatest specialists on the artist, was convinced of the authenticity of the work. On her advice, the owners searched their archives and unearthed three documents: two inventories of paintings, dating from 1842 and 1864, as well as an old paper mentioning a "Madeleine inverted by Caravaggio". Starting from these pieces of evidence, an expert in ancient archives and an Italian art historian then launched into a vast investigation to try to retrace the route of the painting.
Hockney talks about his 40 year love affair with photography.
Intimately following 1st and 6th graders at a public elementary school in Tokyo, we observe kids learning the traits necessary to become part of Japanese society.
To fill the absence of his six-year-old daughter living in Berlin, a Montreal filmmaker keeps a film diary which takes him back to his relationship with his adoptive father and his biological father, whom he never knew. His diary also becomes a reflection on cinema by revisiting the work of filmmakers who influenced him such as Ingmar Bergman and Wim Wenders. Diary of a Father is a poetic response to making the separation between a father and his child bearable.
A weary-looking middle-aged couple shuffle around their cluttered loft in Yangon, Myanmar. There is stuff everywhere, and a mountain of pills in blister packs lie haphazardly on top of a glass case. The loft turns out to be a clinic and the couple are qualified doctors. They are also artistic: she paints and draws, he is making a feature film, and their patients receive creative therapy in addition to regular treatment. This might not be a sterile, efficient hospital full of white coats, and the treatment rooms might look shabby, but there is real time and attention for people here.
Abdurrahman Keskiner is one of the big guns of Turkish cinema. In Türkiye's national productions' history, his working method distinguishes him as a producer from the rest. Even though it may seem contradictory at first glance, he never gives up on investing in subtlety. Other producers have not pursued the same hope over and over and invested all of their earnings in shooting films ambitiously after making a loss. Yet, Abdurrahman Keskiner was an exception to this. He took great strides in promoting Türkiye's cinema to the world.
Who and why shot Hungarian and German infants and young children in the head and exterminated entire families near the town of Prerov (Prerau) in Moravia on the night of June 18, 1945? Why did the bodies of the women and children killed here had to be cremated two years after this massacre - after these bodies were disinterred by army units - in the crematorium of the also Moravian city of Olomouc? Why didn't the Czech historian, who investigated the fate of the slaughtered Hungarian and German families and who also fought for the last honors to be paid to them, receive no praise or medal from Budapest? And what was the fate of the 90 Hungarian leventes handed over to the soldiers of the Slovak army by the soldiers of the Soviet army occupying Austria at Ligetfalu below Bratislava? This documentary explores the story of two hitherto unexplored mass murder in Pronov and Bratislava in the village of Bratislava.
In the summer of 2004, audiences looked on in disbelief as the Greek National Football Team, a country that had never previously won a single match or even scored a goal in a major tournament, took down the giants of world football to become the unlikeliest of European Champions. The architect behind this unprecedented triumph was legendary German football coach ‘King’ Otto Rehhagel. After accomplishing every major success in Germany, he made the bold decision to leave all he knew behind and work in a foreign country with the underachieving Greek National Team. This is the story of how these two contrasting cultures came together to speak the same language and write a new chapter of Greek mythology.
Two tons of snow—flown from New Hampshire to Puerto Rico in 1952 in order to “gift” Puerto Ricans a “white Christmas”—become a metaphor for the colonialist paternalism of America’s relationship to Puerto Rico.
A television recital by a singer who can breathe life into poetic lyrics like few other performers. It features a selection of her most famous songs and her memories.
Filmed primarily in Alaska, The Aquarium contrasts the openness of the primeval Arctic landscape with the entrapment of captured sea mammals in aquariums. It speaks of the progressive destruction of these animals’ habitat, seeing beyond the alluring spectacle.