Documentary

Marker’s concern with war’s effect on civilians has been a feature of his work since the 1960s. This politically direct tape looks at the function of media for a viewership that has been stripped of a homeland. In the vandalized ruins of an army barracks in Roska, Slovenia, lives a community of Bosnian refugees. What they know of world events comes from a unique video workshop run by fellow refugees who pirate signals from CNN, Radio Sarajevo, and Sky News. The young production team, most of whom had no prior experience with program making, underline how the warring factions’ abuses of media make them suspicious of all news output; at the same time, they exhibit sincere aspirations to provide a genuine documentary of refugee life.Read More »

A personal and vibrant coming of age story about a young artist’s determination never to surrender to the bleakness of her surroundings. At 15, Inocente refuses to let her dream of becoming an artist be caged by being an undocumented immigrant forced to live homeless for the last nine years. Color is her personal revolution and its sweep on her canvases creates a world that looks nothing like her own dark past. ‘Inocente’ is both a timeless story about the transformative power of art and a timely snapshot of the new face of homelessness in America: children. The challenges are staggering, but the hope in her story proves that the hand she has been dealt does not define her, her dreams do.Read More »

7.4 million Hongkongers have lost their freedom and the younger generations that protested were beaten, battered, and arrested without just cause by the Hong Kong police. Yet, it has all been remarkably well documented, for those who have not chosen to turn a blind-eye. Recent documentaries like Days Before Dawn and We Have Boots have done excellent work recording the street protests and the violent tactics used to suppress them, but the shocking brutality exposed in this film surpasses them all. Your heart will ache and your jaw will drop after watching Kiwi Chow’s Revolution in Our Times, which opens Friday in New York and Los Angeles.Read More »

Documentary shorts film directed by Luc Moullet
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PLOT:
How to film war? «War and Peace» tells the story of the century-old relationship between cinema and war, from the time of their first encounter, way back in 1911 with the Italian invasion of Libya, up to the present day. Forging ahead from the images captured by the pioneers of cinema to today’s twitter feeds, following young soldiers as they are trained to film war, the alliance between cinema and war appears to be a powerful one.Read More »

Synopsis:
Volunteers from a German non-profit risk the waves of the Mediterranean to pluck refugees from sinking rafts pushing off from Libya in the middle of the night. LIFEBOAT puts a human face on one of the world’s greatest contemporary global crises and provides a spark of hope surrounding how civil society can intervene in the refugee crisis in a meaningful way.Read More »

Schaub and Schindelm’s documentary follows two Swiss star architects on two very different projects: the national stadium for the Olympic summer games in Peking 2008 and a city area in the provincial town of Jinhua, China. Architects Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron are literally building bridges between two cultures, two architectural traditions, and two political systems. Their work doesn’t simply enhance China’s great international debut, but serves the everyday needs of the Chinese population. “Bird’s Nest” presents the Basle architects as they find solutions not in the comfort of an ivory tower but in encounters and friction on the ground.Read More »

Quote:
There is not much that Ruth Beckermann brings to her film: An empty former coffin factory, a few lights and reflectors, a camera, a piano and a huge rose-gold canapé in the style of the Belle Epoque, as well as the wickedly titled book – and, of course, above all, men. Lots and lots of men. Old, young, middle-aged. Bourgeois and civil servant types, pensioners and washed-up people of indeterminate age, students and “young professionals”, people who have lost their way and smart up-and-comers. In between, the former director of the Austrian Film Museum, an ex-bodybuilder or martial artist, a linnet and various other specimens of the male species.Read More »

LYNCH/OZ explores one of the most fascinating puzzles in the history of motion pictures: the enduring symbiosis between America’s primordial fairytale, THE WIZARD OF OZ and David Lynch’s singular brand of popular surrealism.

Contributors include from Karyn Kusama, John Waters, David Lowery, Rodney Ascher, Amy Nicholson, and Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead.Read More »