Documentary

Documentary about the effects of market economy and globalization on director Raoul Peck’s homeland, Haiti.

Icarus Films wrote:
Who said that the economy serves mankind? What is this world where one third of the population, in the rich countries, or more precisely the wealthiest two percent in these countries, control everything? A world where the economy is law, where this law of the strongest is imposed on the rest of humanity? Why do we accept this cynical and immoral state of being? What happened to Solidarity? And to the militants? These are the questions Profit & Nothing But! asks.Read More »

Twenty five years ago, Jem Cohen completed Lost Book Found, a semi-fictional diary film that draws from his experience as a pushcart vendor in lower Manhattan. The work is crafted from what such a vendor might have seen and heard: bits of paper and plastic swirling ghostlike in eddies of wind; weathered storefronts; window displays crowded with tchotchkes; enigmatic notes taped to streetlights; disassociated recordings of sales pitches, passing conversations, and the sounds of machines at work; unlovely aggregations of cardboard; evening skylines glowing in fog.Read More »

Most cinephiles pick up on larger trends in filmmaking. As new artists enter the industry, they bring aspects of their favorite works back into the mainstream. For good or ill, each new generation of artists showcase common themes and concepts with those who came before. To some, this cycle creates derivative art. Yet, as Professor Howard Suber points out, it’s only memorable films that shape popular culture. Pulling from his lectures, his 2006 book, and dozens of films, Suber’s new documentary series, The Power of Film, provides an excellent foundation for audiences to begin a deeper appreciation of the art form.Read More »

Quote:
Hotel Monterey is a cheap hotel in New York reserved for the outcasts of American society. Chantal Akerman invites viewers to visit this unusual place as well as the people who live there, from the reception up to the last story.New York City’s Monterey is a residence hotel; the residents we see are older, most live alone. The camera, usually stationery, begins with a look into the lobby. The film ends with a panorama from the hotel’s rooftop. There’s no soundtrack. The lobby is clean with granite floors. Men wear hats. People enter and exit an elevator. The camera looks out from within the elevator as doors open and close. People sit alone and motionless in their apartments. There are long shots of empty halls. Paint peels. The flooring on upper levels is linoleum. Hall lights are florescent. Doors open a crack then close. The film provides the feeling of what it’s like to live there.Read More »

Synopsis:
This is the two-part film “Noon in Tunisia” by Peter Lilienthal, a meeting of jazz and Arabic music at various public or open-air venues in Tunisia. Under the direction of George Gruntz, European and US jazz musicians play his suite-like composition “Maghreb Cantata”, which is based on original Bedouin dances, together with Arab performers. The highlight is the Fazani, a rhythm of Bedouin tribes from the desert region of the Libyan-Tunisian border. The recording took place from 5.5. – 24.5.1969 in and around Tunis.Read More »

An investigation of the evidence for Hitler’s Final Solution, together with a dramatic reconstruction of key courtroom exchanges in the libel case lost by the historian David Irving, who was accused of being anti-Semitic and a Holocaust denier.Read More »

Variety’s Robert Koehler:
Martin Rejtman takes a break from his droll contempo comedies and applies his sharp eye to the docu form with “Copacabana,” a largely non-verbal film about Bolivian emigres living in one of Buenos Aires’ poorest districts. Expectedly for Rejtman watchers, pic (helmer’s first in HD) is exquisitely composed and paced, but what surprises is work’s strong ethnographic qualities — docu records Bolivian folkloric dance performed for the annual Virgin of Copacabana celebration. With a prestigious fest and awards tally, doc’s content, under-hour playing time and Rejtman’s rep makes it a natural for tube play worldwide.Read More »

Hartley’s conscientious assistant in Berlin receives weekly letters from her boss and sends him the books he needs as he struggles in Amsterdam to create the staging for Dutch composer Louis Andriessen’s opera, “la Commedia.”Read More »

An intimate, affecting portrait of the life and work of ground-breaking performance artist and music pioneer Genesis Breyer P-Orridge (Throbbing Gristle, Psychic TV) and his wife and collaborator, Lady Jaye, centered around the daring sexual transformations the pair underwent for their ‘Pandrogyne’ project.Read More »