Documentary

Synopsis
Featuring a justly infamous, even startling opening sequence with a tilted camera pointed out the window of a moving car that keeps driving and driving around a famous traffic circle (forget the name) in Paris for 10 odd minute – a continual 360 that never catches a glimpse of its axis, too perfect – TOO EARLY, TOO LATE is a singular meditation and extended visual metaphor on the theme of revolution (get it??) shot in a variety of locations and cities with a Marxist voice-over reading from famous selections on the subject. Quite unlike anything else you’ll see and while obviously not what you’d call entertainment, some of the shooting once you get outside the city is breathtakingly beautiful. Are they trying to implicate us in this collective indifference to social ills by growing absorbed in the natural beauty of the surroundings? I’m not sure, but certainly Straub/Huillet’s subtle avant-garde combo filmwork is among the most underappreciated in German and, indeed, international cinema.Read More »

A documentary circling the origin of the death myth from the Chinookan people in the Pacific Northwest.Read More »

Natalie Dessay prepares to take on the role of Violetta in this documentary about the staging of Verdi’s masterwork at the Aix-en-Provence Festival in France.Read More »

Synopsis:
GLOW: THE STORY OF THE GORGEOUS LADIES OF WRESTLING is the true story of what happened behind the scenes of one of the most outrageous television shows in history. From 1986-92, the airwaves were ruled by GLOW—a neon and glitter-soaked reimagining of the World Wrestling Federation with an all-female cast . . . only with more skits, chainsaws, and personalized rap songs. This documentary, which inspired the hit Netflix series GLOW, chronicles the rise and fall of the iconic show through the stories of those who lived it. Produced DIY-style by filmmakers Brett Whitcomb and Bradford Thomason (THE ROCK-AFIRE EXPLOSION), GLOW: THE STORY OF THE GORGEOUS LADIES OF WRESTLING pays tribute to the incredible women who made it all possible. AGFA is thrilled to bring GLOW to Blu-ray for the first time, complete with enough extras to fuel three-thousand suplexes.Read More »

Film Description
Visionary film about the M25. A road movie (literally) and a cinematic excursion into the difference between driving and walking, film and tape, time and memory, sound and image. Also a look at covert arms deals, Essex gangsters, drug dealing and Thatcher and Pinochet as vampire-lovers.

Iain Sinclair’s territory has long been the hidden geography and psycho-geography of Britain. He is adept at drawing out the character of place, and in 2001 he walked the perimeter of the M25 in an attempt to understand its true nature and influence. This resulted in his recently published book, London Orbital.Read More »

Quote:
In the early 90’s, women left Moldova in large numbers to provide for their families. Unable to return home, they found a peculiar way to stay in touch: sending large cardboard boxes filled with gifts and food you could only dream about in those days. In return, their children would send videotapes. This exchange became a ritual among thousands of families. Video cameras and presents allowed these mothers and children to share glimpses of their realities while being apart. As time passed, it became clear that the mothers’ return was an increasingly distant prospect. Children turned into teenagers and, disillusioned, they stopped recording. Through these intimate private archives, Otilia Babara, a Moldovan filmmaker living in Brussels, depicts the fragility of family bonds through the eyes of a generation of mothers and daughters who were forced to live apart in order to survive. While doing so, she portrays a post-soviet country caught in a crossroads of history. A country whose women were unwittingly put in charge of making the transition from communism to capitalism.
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Quote:
The documentary feature ARAKIMENTARI explores the work of popular and controversial Japanese photographer Nobuyoshi Araki in a style designed to match Araki’s own. Araki’s fame and the debate around his photography derive mostly from his work with nudes, which blur the lines normally established between art, erotica, and pornography. The photographs have often been credited with reversing the Japanese ban on the visual representation of pubic hair, and Araki has been seen by his supporters as one of the artistic champions of free speech and social criticism in Japan. Some of Araki’s celebrity fans–Bjork, Takeshi Kitano, Richard Kern and others–are interviewed to explain the appeal and importance of his photography. Liberally peppered with images of the photography and presented in a manner designed to imitate the combination of titillation and estrangement Araki’s work engenders, ARAKIMENTARI goes beyond the biographical documentary to the realm of artistic portrait.Read More »

DI is a 13-year-old girl living in a village lost in the mist of North Vietnamese mountains. She is fortunate in that she is part of the first generation of kids whom have the opportunity to have access to education, but she must convince her parents that studying is not a waste of time and money. If she can’t achieve this challenge, she would be trapped in the village her entire life, “just like a frog in a well”. DI belongs to the Hmong ethnic minority, where traditionally women get married very young, some of them from the early age of 12. In this society, marriage is linked to a very particular and controversial tradition: the “bride-kidnapping”. When a boy is interested in a girl, he organizes her kidnapping before forcing her back to his own home.Read More »

Bill Nye is a man on a mission: to stop the spread of anti-scientific thinking across the world. The former star of the popular kids’ show “Bill Nye the Science Guy” is now advocating for the importance of science, research and discovery in public life. With intimate and exclusive access—as well as plenty of wonder and whimsy—this behind-the-scenes portrait of Nye follows him as he takes off his Science Guy lab coat and takes on those who deny climate change, evolution and a science-based worldview. The film features Bill Nye, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Ann Druyan and many others.Read More »