Documentary

Campaign provides a startling insider’s view of Japanese electoral politics in this portrait of a man plucked from obscurity by the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) to run for a critical seat on a suburban city council. Kazuhiko “Yama-san” Yamauchi’s LDP handlers are unconcerned that he has zero political experience, no charisma, no supporters and no time to prepare. What he does have is the institutional power of Japan’s modern version of Tammany Hall pushing him forward. Yama-san allows his life to be turned upside down as he pursues the rituals of Japanese electioneering — with both tragic and comic results.Read More »

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In this film, Marrakech is filled with music, from women singing, dancing and drumming in their homes, to shopkeepers in the old market of Jamaa El-Fna, leaving their shops to follow groups of musicians through the allies of the old city.Read More »

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Alternately distressing, instructive, contestable, and fascinating, Juliet Bashore’s 1986 documentary about a lesbian couple working in the porn industry—a cynical older woman (Sharon “Mitch” Mitchell), who is a seasoned porn star, and her lover (known as Tigr), who is an uneasy newcomer to this world, where drugs play a significant role—offers a disturbing glimpse of the modification of bodies, feelings, and lives.Read More »

from allmovie.com

This concise documentary, available only in Blue Underground’s Mondo Cane Collection box set, offers unique insight into an area of cinema with which few historians would ever bother. It does so by telling the story of Gualtiero Jacopetti and Franco Prosperi, a pair of filmmakers whose desire to create an “anti-documentary” that explored hidden truths led to the creation of the exploitation film world’s most notorious bastard child — the “mondo” film. Any good documentary lives or dies by its subject matter, and director David Gregory hits pay dirt with his subjects here — Jacopetti and Prosperi are intelligent, feisty, and compelling storytellers. Read More »

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The Movie

“Divine was my close friend and fearless muse. Who else could convincingly turn from teenage delinquent to mugger, prostitute, unwed mother, child abuser, fashion model, nightclub entertainer, murderess, and jailbird? All in the same movie? That’s why I am giving my full blessing to a new documentary feature film, I AM DIVINE, to be directed by award-winning filmmaker Jeffrey Schwarz.” — John WatersRead More »

“Filmmakers Andrew Monument and Joseph Maddrey offer a comprehensive history of the American horror film with this documentary that opens with a reflection on Thomas Edison’s Frankenstein, and traces the progression of the genre straight through to the 21st Century. Narrated by Lance Henriksen and based on the 2004 tome of the same name, Nightmares in Red, White, and Blue highlights the many intriguing parallels between the turbulent social history of the United States, and the ways in which filmmakers have continually used fiction to further explore the most pressing issues of the day. Interviewees Roger Corman, George A. Romero, John Carpenter, Larry Cohen, Brian Yuzna, Darren Lynn Bousman, Tony TImpone, and John Kenneth Muir speak at length about the connections between history and horror cinema, revealing that many genre filmmakers have secret agendas that go far beyond giving us goosebumps.”
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“Monte Verità (Der Traum vom alternativen Leben)” tells the untold story of the birth of the alternative movement and unfold the uncanny similarities between our time and what they revolted against in the early 1900s.
Long-haried barefoot people. Free love! Veganism! Experiments with drugs… The sixties, right? Not quite. In 1900 a group of middleclass kids revolted against their time and started the original alternative community – Monte Verità, the mountain of truth, located in Ascona (Swiss canton of Ticino). A community based on veganism, feminism, pacifism and free love.

This creative documentary mixes interviews, archive and animation in a beautiful combination bringing you straight back to the early 1900 as seen through the eyes of theese young radicals.Read More »

A portrait of the world as lensed through the works of farmer, writer and activist Wendell Berry.Read More »

Marilyn Waring is the foremost spokesperson for global feminist economics, and her ideas offer new avenues of approach for political action. With persistence and wit she has succeeded in drawing attention to the fact that GDP has no negative side to its accounts–such as damage to the environment–and completely ignores the unpaid work of women. “Why is the market economy all that counts?” Ms. Waring asks.

In 1975, when she was just 22 years old, she was elected to the New Zealand parliament. She was re-elected three times, and eventually brought down the government on the issue of making New Zealand a nuclear free zone.Read More »