Documentary

Tsering Woeser, the subject of Chinese filmmaker Zhu Rikun’s extraordinary documentary, is a Tibetan writer now based in Beijing. Through her writing and online voice, she has become one of the most eloquent voices on Tibet. Zhu Rikun’s sharply designed, formally innovative documentary is completely in Woeser’s own voice: Zhu alternates formally photographed scenes of Woeser reading excerpts from her secret government “dossier” (which she has somehow gained access to) with scenes of her speaking in her own soft but powerful, eloquent, passionate voice. Woeser’s moving account of her political awakening and current activism makes for a powerful document of a Tibetan woman finding her voice and insisting on her freedom to use it.
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Starting in the 1960s in the Bay Area, artist Bruce Nauman made sculptures from nonart materials like dirt, neon, polyester resin and burlap. With a fertile, almost frenzied creativity, Nauman also pioneered video installations and body art. Now something of a recluse, living in New Mexico, Nauman continues to exert art-world influence. Last year, UC Press published a comprehensive volume about his early period, A Rose Has No Teeth. The book, however, lacked a companion DVD—too much of Nauman’s art depends on time and movement to be captured in static illustrations. Bruce Nauman: Make Me Think, a 66-minute 1997 film by Heinz Peter Schwerfel, now available from Facets, provides that missing link. Read More »

Un film poème en 18 vagues, comme autant de scènes pour décrire Paris et ses paysages urbains traversés par un “jeune mineur étranger isolé”, les attentats, les roses blanches, l’état d’urgence, le bleu-blanc-rouge, l’océan atlantique et ses traversées, les volcans, la beat-box, la révolte, la colère, la violence d’Etat, un chant révolutionnaire, le silence, et la joie…, rien que la joie.Read More »

The filmmaker and film preservationist Shivendra Singh Dungarpur (who, according to his IMDB page, also belongs to the former royal family of Dungarpur State in Rajasthan, India) fell in love with Jirí Menzel’s Czech new wave classic Closely Observed Trains (a.k.a. Closely Followed Trains) back when he was a film student. He longed to meet the man behind this wonderful film and many years later his dream came true.Read More »

Sur le pont d’Avignon, Franju shortest film apart from the prewar Le Metro, was shot as something of an afterthought to Le Theatre national populaire, during the fortnight in July 1956 when Franju and his crew had to wait between the two Avignon theatrical performances that were to feature in the longer film.Read More »

Synopsis
Juliet Stevenson (TRULY, MADLY, DEEPLY) narrates this documentary account of the life of composer Ludwig von Beethoven, covering all the major highlights from his birth in 1770 through his death in 1827. Writer-director Phil Grabsky opts for an impressionistic approach, building much of the film around the basic foundational material of interviews and studio performances of the great man’s work by artists including Ronald Brautigam, Emanuel Ax, and The Mahler Chamber Orchestra. Grabsky also offsets Stevenson’s traditional chronicle of Beethoven’s life with letters from the composer, read by David Dawson, that unveil an intense and almost belligerent side to the musical giant, leavened with offbeat humour.Read More »

From Gulf to Gulf to Gulf (Kutchi Vahan Pani Wala), 2013, India/United Arab Emirates, 83 min.
Directors: CAMP (Shaina Anand and Ashok Sukumaran)

CAMP’s From Gulf to Gulf to Gulf describes a journey on the high seas. A group of sailors from the Kutch district in western India—along with fellow seafarers from southern Iran and the Pakistani provinces of Sindh and Balochistan—transport goods and livestock in wooden vessels across the Persian and Aden gulfs.Read More »

Documentary that explores actor/director Clint Eastwood and his art by juxtaposing each major stage in his life with a corresponding stage in the thematic development of his work. Clint Eastwood tells his own story, from his childhood in Depression-era Northern California, to life in the stratosphere of fame and fortune. He’s torn up the wild West, patrolled the mean streets of San Francisco, and even gone into outer space. Follow the on-screen and off-screen life of the Oscar-winning film icon in this retrospective co-production from BBC’s Arena and PBS’s “American Masters”, filled with film clips, archival material and interviews. Clint’s “Unforgiven” co-star Morgan Freeman narrates.Read More »

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3 AMERICAN LP’S was the first film I did with Peter Handke. It was a film about American music, about three pieces of three LP’s. There was a song by Van Morrison, another by Harvey Mandel, and one of Creedence Clearwater Revival.

It was mainly the music and some shots out of a car, landscapes out of the car window. And it had a little bit of commentary – dialogue between Peter and me about American music and about how American rock music was about emotion and images instead of sounds. That is to say, about a kind of phenomenon, that it was in a way a kind of film music, but without a moving picture.Read More »