Documentary

Throughout history, women have survived the stifling strictures of patriarchy by using their own codes of communication — be it intergenerational secrets, whisper networks or gestures legible only to other women. Several centuries ago, in Jiangyong County in southern China, women went a step further, inventing an entire language that they used to write songs, poetry and furtive missives to one another.

This fascinating language, Nushu, is the subject of the documentary “Hidden Letters,” though if you’re expecting an illuminating deep dive into its history, you’ll be disappointed. The director, Violet Du Feng, uses Nushu mostly as a cursory framing device for a broad portrait of gender relations in modern China, structured around the stories of two Nushu practitioners: a divorced museum guide, Xin Hu, and a soon-to-be-married musician, Simu Wu.Read More »

Dives deep into the art of storytelling by examining the defining principles and inner workings of the most popular and memorable American films of all time.Read More »

IMDB:
Conceived as an electronic road movie, this documentary investigates cutting edge technologies and their influence on our culture as we approach the 21st century. It takes off from the idea that mankind’s effort to tap the power of Nature has been so successful that a new world is suddenly emerging,an artificial reality. Virtual Reality, digital and biotechnology, plastic surgery and mood-altering drugs promise seemingly unlimited powers to our bodies, and our selves. This film presents the implications of having access to such power as we all scramble to inhabit our latest science fictions.Read More »

“Der Sog des Krieges” is a film about the destructive power of war, about mental destruction and the effects on future generations.
I have had my father’s war diaries and his field letters to my mother since the 1980s. From 1943 until the end of the war, he was a trusted officer in the 999 Penal Division and saw himself as a “tool in a mighty machine”. His notes are unfiltered documents from the immediacy of war. They convey how he felt, thought and experienced it. They show how propaganda seduces and how the laws of war destroy humanity. Read and understood in today’s context, my father’s notes are warnings for those born later.
Christoph BoekelRead More »

Quote:
A fugitive, a fetishist and a detective walk through a mansion built in the 19th century on the banks of the River Plate. Within its walls, there are resonances, portraits of illustrious or unknown people, books, souvenirs, furniture from different periods and styles. At the heart of this secret order is a woman who has been portrayed throughout her life by painters of the Belle Epoque, by neoclassical sculptors, by avant-garde photographers. To reconstruct the history of these women, each of the visitors will create a fable, in which the essential names of the 20th century culture are intertwined. Among the visitor to Victoria Ocampo’s mansion we can mention the architect Le Coubusier, the composer Igor Stravinsky, the writers Graham Greene, Aldous Huxley, Waldo Frank, Albert Camus… You will also hear the whisper of two young writers cementing what will be a bond that will last for decades: Adolfo Bioy Casares and Jorge Luis Borges…Read More »

Quote:
Five broken cameras—and each one has a powerful tale to tell. Embedded in the bullet-ridden remains of digital technology is the story of Emad Burnat, a farmer from the Palestinian village of Bil’in, which famously chose nonviolent resistance when the Israeli army encroached upon its land to make room for Jewish colonists. Emad buys his first camera in 2005 to document the birth of his fourth son, Gibreel. Over the course of the film, he becomes the peaceful archivist of an escalating struggle as olive trees are bulldozed, lives are lost, and a wall is built to segregate burgeoning Israeli settlements.Read More »

Quote:
This visually magnificent and poetic city symphony of Paris in the late 1920s earned Sauvage the admiration of Jean Renoir and Jean Vigo. Sauvage maps the metropolis through its street life, monuments, ports, and automobile traffic.Read More »

Eccentric comedian Andy Kaufman in one of his brightest moments–performing live at Carnegie Hall. The wild eyed “confrontainer” performs some of his best-known acts; Foreign Man, Elvis, Tony Clifton, the wrestler, and then finishes with what is arguably the sweetest ending in showbiz! Includes a cameo by Robin Williams.
Read More »

Temenos explores the phenomenon of visionary experience, taking the viewer to locations where the Virgin Mary is said to have appeared, including Lourdes, Fatima and Medjugorje in Croat-occupied Bosnia, where the visions continue. Nina Danino films the landscapes that have witnessed these transcendental appearances, imbuing them with a powerful sense of the sacred.Read More »