Documentary

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Starting in 1964 with Seven Up, renowned director Michael Apted has explored this Jesuit maxim. The original concept was to interview 14 children from diverse backgrounds from all over England, asking them about their lives and their dreams for the future. Every seven years, Apted has been back to talk to the same subjects, examining the progression of their lives. From cab driver Tony to East End schoolmates Jackie, Lynn, and Susan and the heart-breaking Neil, we see, as they enter their 40’s, how close these subjects are to realizing their ambitions. An extraordinary look at the structure of life in the 20th century, The Up Series is, according to Roger Ebert, “an inspired, almost noble use of the film medium. Apted penetrates to the central mystery of life.”Read More »

A personal and lyrical vision of Cracow presented by Wojciech Jerzy Has. The nostalgic tone of the narrator/protagonist talks about a city he regrets having to leave.Read More »

Unlike many of the filmmaker’s subjects, John le Carré knows who Errol Morris is, and more importantly, the author of spy literature also knows Morris’ techniques of getting to some core of the person whom he’s interviewing. Le Carré, the pen name of former intelligence agent David Cornwell, has been on Morris’ side of an interview many, many times, too, but if he was talking to a subject in an enclosed room, that discussion was usually an interrogation.Read More »

Apolonia Sokol was born in 1988 to a French father and a Polish mother, the two of whom owned a Paris theater, Lavoir Moderne Parisien. This was a hub for all kinds of subversive plays, cabaret acts, and other performances, a space that was constantly running into rent troubles. Here Apolonia was surrounded by bohemian figures (artists, writers, performers) who were integral to her upbringing. Though she came and went from Paris after her parents split up (she left with her mother for Denmark), this theatre was her actual home when she caught the attention of young film student Lea Glob.Read More »

Another in the series The Director’s Place.

Filmmaker John Boorman pulls an “8 1/2”-and a good one-in I Dreamt I Woke Up. In this rambling reflection on Boorman’s life and career, the director appears as himself, while John Hurt shows up as his alter ego. Boorman’s son Charley plays “The Green Man,” a far-from-veiled reference to his starring appearance in his dad’s The Emerald Forest. And Janet McTeer rounds out the cast as an “everywoman”, essaying all sorts of hallucinatory roles. Short (1944) and bittersweet, I Dreamt I Woke Up was filmed in County Wicklow, Ireland; it was first shown in the US at the Telluride Film Festival ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie GuideRead More »

The filmography of John Ford, most specifically his westerns for which he is arguably best known, is presented, those movies which largely made western stars out of John Wayne and James Stewart as two sides of the hero or antihero as the case may be, but also the majestically beautiful landscape of Monument Valley. The films are discussed as a reflection of him as a man – which is arguably the best representation of him as he was a highly private man who often answered evasively or flippantly in interviews, even about his work – and as a commentary on or his hope for American society. That hope largely was for a better world for the disenfranchised, especially the ethnic minority with Native Americans the usual stand-in as ubiquitous to the genre. Those movies in relation to politics, either his own are that of others who want to capitalize on very specific messages, is also discussed. As an interlude to his Hollywood life, his military service in WWII where he used his filmmaking.Read More »

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Based on the struggle of young people in Goma (Northeastern Congo) against the prevailing Western reporting about war and misery, Stop Filming Us investigates how these Western stereotypes are the result of a skewed balance of power. Stop Filming Us creates a cinematic dialogue between Western perceptions and the Congolese experience of reality. While the Congolese perspective becomes increasingly clearer in the film, questions arise about the perspective of the film itself; is a white director able to make a film about the new Congolese image or is it primarily a story created by his own Western perspective?Read More »

Synopsis
A biographical drama film about Kurt Josef Waldheim, former UN Secretary General and the controversy of his participation and role in the Nazi regime during WW II .Read More »

Pachamama is another fine example of Peter Nestler’s extraordinary documentaries. He takes us on an expedition to Ecuador, to the heart of an ancient Indian culture. Although heavily damaged by the Spanish conquerors, many of the old treasures and, more remarkably, many of the old traditions and customs have survived and are still in practice today. It’s a film of quiet beauty and sadness, but of a sadness that is friendly and not bitter; a film about the cultural wealth of a fascinating country. (Ted Roth, -viennale.at)Read More »