Documentary

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In the powerful documentary “Mahmoud Darwich,” Simone Bitton interviews the famed Palestinian poet about his art, life, and relationship with his homeland. Bitton explores the connection between the poet and the land of which he writes but has not been allowed to visit. His life and the development of his art is retraced, from his experience as a young man living in Jerusalem, to exile in Beirut and Tunis, where he became an active supporter of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, and finally to Paris, where he currently resides and cloisters himself in his work.Read More »

Synopsis
A film autobiography of Mao Tse-tung, leader of China from 1947 through until his death in 1976, drawn exclusively from his own writings, diaries, speeches and personal notes. Incorporates footage never before seen outside of China.

A film-détournement biography of Mao Tse-tung in which the life of the recently deceased Great Helmsman is told in his own words, using quotes culled from various Red Guard publications. The rise to power of the film’s namesake appears as the inevitable outcome of a dialectical logical. Or so the voice-over might lead one to believe. If the usual practice of détourned films is for the soundtrack to undermine the image, here the reverse occasionally takes place. The images critique Mao’s words. They show that which, even in the official visual record of the times, the narrative elides. The film is dedicated to Li Yhi Zhe, the nominal author of a famous Democracy Wall critique of the Maoist state.Read More »

Bernardo Bertolucci’s first and only documentary, La via del petrolio consists of three episodes produced by the director in October-November 1965 to recount the complete “oil journey”, from exploration to extraction, shipment and transportation to the refinery in pipelines.Read More »

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In 2003, the ambitious renovation of one of the world’s greatest museums began. The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, home to a glorious collection including masterpieces by Rembrandt and Vermeer, was supposed to reopen its doors in 2008 after five years of construction. But from the start, the project was opposed by unyielding bureaucrats and public resistance. The museum directors battled politicians, designers, curators and even the Dutch Cyclists Union as they struggled to complete the renovation and put its massive collection back on public display. Five years late, with costs exceeding half a billion dollars, the museum finally reopened.Read More »

Two months before his death, the central figure of “The Guildford Four” Gerry Conlon meets Lorenzo Moscia to recount his remarkable life, from falsely imprisoned to world-famous human rights activist.Read More »

A complex portrait of a city and its inhabitants, THE HOTTEST AUGUST gives us a window into the collective consciousness of the present. The film’s point of departure is one city over one month: New York City, including its outer boroughs, during August 2017. It’s a month heavy with the tension of a new President, growing anxiety over everything from rising rents to marching white nationalists, and unrelenting news of either wildfires or hurricanes on every coast. The film pivots on the question of futurity: what does the future look like from where we are standing? And what if we are not all standing in the same place? THE HOTTEST AUGUST offers a mirror onto a society on the verge of catastrophe, registering the anxieties, distractions, and survival strategies that preoccupy ordinary lives.Read More »

This is a brilliant short documentary made by the infamous Peter Greenaway for Thames Television program “Take 6” in 1980. For this project, Greenaway tackles the task of interviewing British subjects that have been struck by lightning…and survived to talk about it. The documentary displays Greenaways signature touches, such as the element of Dark Comedy (Greenaways editing, the Monty Pythonesque narrator, the witty writing, that transitory music, and the nature of their stories in general) and, of course, his trademark attention to detail regarding mise-en-scene and framing. First Greenaway gets his subjects to reflect upon their experiences. He also interviews friends, family, doctors and other witnesses whom fill in the blanks where the strikee may have been unable to remember or recollect.Read More »

Colombian filmmaker Theo Montoya opens his latest doc, Anhell69, with an extreme juxtaposition. There is grainy video footage of politicians signing the landmark peace agreement in 2016, which meant years of civil violence would be put to an end. But we also see an image taken in a car, something so dark it’s unclear to understand precisely what it is. After a few moments it becomes clear it is an open casket, and we see the face of a corpse.Read More »

“Man or monster? That’s one of the most frequent questions film-makers dealing with the rise of Hitler have had to ask themselves. Humanise him and you risk serving up a trite explanation for the horrors he committed against the world. Treating him like the Devil risks transforming him into a symbol that undermines mankind’s sickening capacity for evil. When the documentary Swastika was first screened at the Cannes film festival in 1973 it caused such outrage that the screening had to be stopped. The reason? It was made up of archive footage of Hitler engaging in banal, normal, everyday activities such as playing with children on a holiday retreat – footage that showed a human side difficult to reconcile with his unspeakable crimes.”Read More »