The Dreamers (1985) is a posthumous short film assembled by Oja Kodar from unfinished footage directed by Orson Welles in 1982. Edited after Welles’s death, the film derives from fragmentary material intended for an uncompleted adaptation of stories by Isak Dinesen. The 1985 version represents an editorial assembly rather than a completed work authored by Welles, presenting selected footage in a reconstructed form for archival circulation. (Note: This is a posthumous editorial reconstruction. The original 1982 project exists separately as an unfinished Welles work and was never completed or released by him.)
This documentary profiles contemporary artists Wangechi Mutu, Barron Claiborne, and Sanford Biggers. Each monologue is a reflection of their life experiences, letting the viewer discover how their observations have shaped the art they create.
A Short film about a contemporary milliner in NYC.
This historical drama tells the story of Qin Shihuang, who unified China's vast territory and declared himself emperor in 221 B.C. During his reign, he introduced sweeping reforms, built a vast network of roads and connected the Great Wall of China. From the grandiose inner sanctum of Emperor Qin's royal palace, to fierce battles with feudal kings, this film re-creates the glory and the terror of the Qin Dynasty, including footage of Qin's life-sized terra cotta army, constructed 2,200 years ago for his tomb.
Coming back during Winter, Alex Powell explores both the places and personal connections found in his hometown and how they've changed. “Guide to a Midwest Hometown” explores what makes the barren places at home feel sentimental and special, and the good and bad feelings that come when being back home. Inspired by "How To With John Wilson".
Two young singers rehearse Eisler's "Ernste Gesänge", his last work, in which the prompt for the film's title can also be found. What is decisive in this film is the encounter with Eisler and his music, the consistency with which he thought about art and people. You can hear tape recordings of Hans Bunge in conversation with Hanns Eisler.
A one minute short film showcasing the sights, sounds, and people that characterizes Singapore's nightlife.
One Saturday morning, filmmaker Madison Thomas has a revelation: she’s just like her mother. As she thinks about a friend going through tough times, she feels the sudden urge to clean. Through the scrubbing and wiping and rinsing, Madison's thoughts drift to her mother — and her obsessive need to tidy. Madison’s mother survived a traumatic childhood: her own mother never reconciled what she went through at residential school. Cleaning offers moments of control that she didn’t have as a child. She’s fought hard, against all odds, to become a strong woman. They say trauma is in the genes, that it’s passed from one generation to the next. But strength is inherited too. Through rituals as simple as spending time together and smudging, Madison and her mother are beginning to mend the cycle of pain in their family. Declutter is an intimate look into a private moment between mother and daughter and the strength that carries them both.
Beginning with Noam Chomsky's response to a college student who role-plays "Jane U.S.A."--someone who naively believes she lives in a democratic society in which she can create her own destiny--the viewer is presented with a cross-section of typically lively Chomsky encounters. Central to a functioning democracy is the necessity of free access to information, ideas and opinions. But what should be our democratic right turns out to be limited and shaped by the biases of insitutions and ideologies within the mass media. Chomsky shows how governments, corporations and other elites manufacture the consent of the public to serve their interests.
Life After opens the dialogue surrounding grief and how we experience it. Through conversations with Nicola Winstanley and Carmen Galavan about what grief is and how it affects us, we learn what it really means to live a life after.
Legendary drag performer Ocaña in performance with a cardboard Marilyn on the west side of the Berlin Wall.
Set to a classic Duke Ellington recording "Daybreak Express", this is a five-minute short of the soon-to-be-demolished Third Avenue elevated subway station in New York City.
This video focuses primarily on the implications of the structure and format of television, especially the consequences of concision, and how these factors can shape the messages of the medium. In addition, other issues, such as how democracies handle dissenters, and how the mainstream media have treated the challenges of Noam Chomsky's media critiques are explored. The media construct reality, and in the conclusion we see the author participating in that very process.
In this video, Noam Chomsky concentrates on the contemporary institutions and powers which have set limits on human progress and offers us some concrete ways of challenging them; in effect, he presents a vision of a future society. Chomsky's work is directed at developing intellectual self-defense for "ordinary people" who are often isolated in their struggles. States are seen to be violent through such strategies as the near-genocide of aboriginal peoples. Ultimately, Chomsky feels we must move beyond the myths of modern industrial civilization and the privileged elites who dominate mass communication, and instead foster the interests of a truly global community.
For the 750 dogs that live in a Moroccan shelter, the daily routine consists of eating, resting, a bit of fighting and eating again. Could they possibly expect more from life? A pointed, cinematic commentary on mass confinement.
Documentarian Jon Boorstin follows architect Frank Gehry and his sister, Doreen Gehry Nelson, as they attempt a new method of teaching elementary school children in Los Angeles. With funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, the siblings work together on a pilot program of “design-based learning” that would restructure the typical classroom curriculum, replacing rote math or civics lessons with an imaginary city designed and built entirely by the students themselves. Restored in 2018 by the Academy Film Archive.
Documentary on the former border patrol sergeant Klein. Klein deserted in 1961, defected to the enemy and betrayed state and military secrets. He was caught by the security forces.
In 2005 Beverly Charpentier declared an oath of allegiance to French writer Catherine Robbe-Grillet. In doing so she gave up her freedom for the rest of her life. The Contract portrays two strong women's unconventional love story, two women who have chosen to explore their love in a unique way, without compromise.
This short documentary produced by the University of Oregon Multimedia Journalism graduate program explores memories of Portland's Japantown – Nihonmachi – and the thriving Japanese American community in Oregon prior to World War II. The film features Chisao Hata, an artist, teacher and activist, and Jean Matsumoto, who was incarcerated at the Portland Assembly Center and in the Minidoka concentration camp as a child.
A look at the horror movies of the 1980's.