Documentary

Acclaimed mixed-media artist Chong Gon Byun uses found and discarded objects to create intricate, surrealist sculptures that explore the clash between postindustrial civilization and our contemporary consumerist culture.Read More »

This is a nice tv adaptation of Peter Weiss ground-breaking documentary drama the Investigation which is based on the Ausschwitz trials that were held in Frankfurt.Read More »

Walden, Jonas Mekas’ first completed diary film, is an epic portrait of the New York avant-garde art scene of the 60s, and also stands as a groundbreaking work of personal cinema.Read More »

From the Pole to the Equator (1987)
By JANET MASLIN
April 6, 1988
New York Times

LEAD: To watch ”From the Pole to the Equator” is to feel that one has seen a ghost – many ghosts, human and animal, from places all over the globe. The spectral quality of this documentary is overwhelming. Two Italian film makers, Yervant Gianikian and Angela Ricci Lucchi, have drawn upon turn-of-the-century film from regions that were then fabulously exotic – the Arctic, India, Africa and less remote but equally striking settings in the Dolomites and the Caucasus – and assembled it at a sleepwalker’s pace, with changeable color tints and a humming electronic score.Read More »

An exploration into the mysterious life of the late jazz vocalist Jackie Paris, which examines the question of how much we need to know about an artist’s life to appreciate their art.Read More »

The book IN SEARCH OF DRACULA, by Raymond T. McNally and Radu Florescu, was one I checked out of school libraries multiple times. The book proposed a link between the character of Dracula created by author Bram Stoker and the real-life Transylvanian historical figure Vlad Tepes. In the early 1970s it was adapted into a film of the same name, with appearances and narration by none other than Christopher Lee. Kino has released the project on Region A Blu-ray.Read More »

Dziga Vertov records the achievements, and some failures, of the Moscow soviet.Read More »

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A documentary on China, concentrating mainly on the faces of the people, filmed in the areas they were allowed to visit. The 220 minute version consists of three parts. The first part, taken around Beijing, includes a cotton factory, older sections of the city, and a clinic where a Cesarean operation is performed, using acupuncture. The middle part visits the Red Flag canal and a collective farm in Henan, as well as the old city of Suzhou. The final part shows the port and industries of Shanghai, and ends with a stage presentation by Chinese acrobats.Read More »

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DreaMinimalist (2008) offers an insightful and hilarious encounter with Conrad as he sings, dances and remembers his youth and his association with Jack Smith.

“Marie Losier is the most effervescent and psychologically accurate portrait artist working in film today. Her film wriggle with the energy and sweetness of a broken barrel full o’ sugar worms!” Guy MaddinRead More »