The Curse of the Elephant Man

The life of Joseph Merrick, who's deformities garnered him the name, "The Elephant Man".

A tribute to the cartoonist and filmmaker Chaval, aka Yvan Francis Le Louarn.

A fantasia of post-indoctrination, immigration, and iconography. A pageant of wanderers and searchers: Mormon missionaries, a pioneer, polygamists, scouts, hunters, church-goers, and an aspiring prophet walk and walk and walk. A pilgrimage of memory, history, ancestry, and place.

Teem Nov 20, 9:53 min. Teem Nov 21, 22:38 min. Teem Nov 22, 27:31 min. Each projection in this work is a daily morning portrait of Teem, the artist’s partner. As winter approached in late 2007, Teem informed Weerasethakul that he would hibernate until February 2008. As a result, he slept a lot during this time while Weerasethakul observed and sometimes disrupted his partner’s mission with his mobile phone.

BeSound took a chance to film one of these factories during our factory inspections and surveys in Dongguan - the so called manufacturing center of China. We met and interviewed a few factory workers there. Most of them are incredibly young, and belong to the so called ‘post-90s generation’ (born later than 1990). This generation, as a result of China’s one child policy, has traditionally been claimed as ‘the little emperors’, spoiled hugely by their parents. But when they come to work and live in the factory, what is there waiting for them? Difficulties, hope, helplessness, or a better future?

The remarkable life story of the pre-war Polish artist Stanislav Szukalski, documented by the American friends he made late in life.

The fascinating story of Jiyan, a female guerrilla fighter who devoted twenty years of her life in the Kurdish militant struggle, reveals women’s determination for freedom not only against another oppressive regime, but also against the patriarchy. Jiyan Tolhildan is a young Kurdish woman living in the Kurdish region of Syria. After years of oppression by her family, her teachers and the society as a whole, Jiyan decides to go to the mountains to join the Kurdish struggle for freedom. When the Arab Spring breaks out Jiyan and her friends decide to go into the cities in Syria to join the protests. They also set out to educate Syrian women on women’s rights in the Rojava region. Now, six years after the Arab Spring, Kurdish forces have a semi-autonomous region in Syria. For the first time in history, women have an autonomous political organisation and an army in Syria. The women named creating this organisation “the women’s revolution.”

The same route after three and a half centuries... A creative documentary following the footsteps of the Ottoman-Armenian intellectual and traveler Eremya Celebi Komurciyan into the cosmopolitan Istanbul of the 17th century. Long before the invention of cinema, Komurciyan situates himself as a subject who observes the city of Istanbul as if he had a camera in hand. Borrowing Komurciyan’s timeless cine-eye, we delve into contemporary Istanbul to capture what is “inaccessible to the human eye” through the remnants of his route.

CNN's team of female journalists and embeds pack up and leave their families to fan out across the country and report on the president and his would-be rivals as the candidates launch campaigns and contend for voters.

Raw and intimate, this documentary captures the struggles of patients and frontline medical professionals battling the COVID-19 pandemic in Wuhan.

The NHS is seriously ill. Ugly self-interest, corruption and deceit are slowly bleeding the NHS dry; this film exposes the true severity of this disease. It’s a frightening diagnosis of society as a whole.

If it were necessary to describe the history of independent rock music in Russia in one word, then this word would be Gorbushka. It is a password that has not needed explanation for more than 30 years. This is the Feelee music company, a celebration of the open-air free industry and a true portal to world music, ranging from Nick Cave and Coil to Sonic Youth and Rage Against the Machine. The film, based on archival footage and eyewitness accounts, tells how Feelee has come a long way, changing with the country and changing the country, and as a result has taken its special place in Russian culture.

Tens of thousands of years ago man stood upright; looked around and discovered existence. He was suddenly conscious of himself and the universe. And soon he needed to explain everything he saw and experienced. He embarked on a journey of discovery so profound it gave rise to the religions of the globe and even modern science. What is the meaning of life; is there life after death; and is there a God? These were the most fundamental questions anybody has ever dared to ask. Today, after thousands of years of searching and the development of modern science, we are moving closer to the answers than ever before. What we have discovered is that existence in the macro world matches that of the micro world. As it is above, so it is below and this understanding unlocks the answers we are searching for. Through quantum physics we can now finally look upon the face of God and see the meaning of existence.

This is Denmark. This is Denmark’s most sold car. This house’s worth has doubled over the last 3 years. A measuring tape and some hedges. So begins Max Kestner’s story on Denmark. With an even-keeled narrative, this film takes us on a kaleidoscope tour around Denmark— from an editorial meeting at a magazine, to dictation in an Elementary school; from singing in a kindergarten, to a family planning their vacation; from a meeting with Pia Kjærsgaard, to a real estate agent in front of a newly sold house and a Danish landscape seen from above. These everyday situations tell universal stories about us. These are contemporary stories. This is Denmark’s world. With speed we shift through each story from up close to far away. This film is a mix of studio recordings with Denmark as its setting. This story is linear with a system of coordinates and a range of colors on repeat. Pseudo-scientific scenes are instruments that make it possible to isolate and compare objects and people.

Documentary about Italian musician and lawyer Paolo Conte.

The World Chess Championship is a juicy battle, rife with passion, power and money. Boris Gelfand has spent his entire life getting ready for this moment; he was raised to become a champion since the age of six. His father devoted all his life to cultivating Boris' talent while obsessively documenting the process. The photo albums tell the father's story as much as that of the son, revealing a simple truth about a man living his own dreams through his son under the Soviet regime. Can any child, given fine Soviet education, become a genius? And is becoming a genius worth the price?

An essay film in which filmmaker Rosa von Praunheim interviews "the willing victims of Rainer Werner Fassbinder."

"The operations that dislocate a film like Summer Solstice– I hope irreparably– from being a movie about the locomotion and eating habits of cows, a dairy farm document, or what have you, are finally of a whole lot less concern to me than the following things: how it looks, the sense that probably it was done deliberately, the pleasure or displeasure– the intrigue, possibly– of attempting to retrieve the manner in which it was done while one is watching." -HF

A famed criminologist reexamines the evidence in this powerful interview with murderer Bert Spencer, suspected in the killing a paperboy in 1978.

A look at the poorest district of Warsaw. Targówek looks as if the war ended just yesterday - the place is full of rubble and misery, and devoid of any perspectives for a better future.