Documentary

Synopsis
The Chinese documentary movement continues to evolve, reaching new levels of awareness of issues complicating its mission to objectively capture the reality of its society. Among these issues is that of performance in its subjects; this is especially critical given that an increasing number of documentaries are personal portraits that delve into subjective experiences. Perhaps the most memorable instance of the past year is Qiu Jiongjiong’s stark black-and-white series of interviews with transsexual cabaret singer Madame Bi Langda. Madame Bi’s recollections of past experiences explicitly touch on how she performs her way through life, whether interacting with friends, lovers or her audience. More than a document of the increasingly complicated gender identity politics in China, it’s also a poignant testimony of a life dedicated to articulating the aesthetics of living.Read More »

At home at her Virginia farm, photographer Sally Mann reflects on the controversy surrounding her earlier collections while forging ahead with new work in this intimate portrait of an artist. Also offering insights into the photographer’s career are Mann’s husband and her now-grown offspring Emmett, Virginia and Jessie, whom Mann famously photographed nude when they were young children in her career-making collection Immediate Family.Read More »

In contrast to the oppressive rigour of Wiseman’s earlier subjects – including High School (1968) and Basic Training (1971) – this investigation into an organised social structure is tender and serene, revolving around the activities of a Benedictine monastery. In one beautiful scene we hear a Japanese monk asking his brothers to pray for the innocents in Hiroshima; later, a plain-clothes monk heads into town to buy a potato peeler.Read More »

Céline G. Arzatian wrote:
A photo shoot on the roofs and in the streets of Paris, under the astonished eyes of the inhabitants.

“The gaze is the way to be amazed again,” says François Reichenbach. A filmmaker of the moment, this intuitive, sometimes instinctive, explains that when you have to prepare a scene to film it, it is already too late. What happens will never happen again, you have to seize the moment. It is spontaneity that interests him: “I only like things that are not prepared, that are done, just like that, in the rush”, he says.Read More »

Synopsis:
‘Giancarlo Soldi’s docufilm […] focuses on the mysterious disappearance of the first designer to give a face to the famous Italian comic book hero.
Despite being the first designer to give Diabolik a face (the hero of the famous 1962 comic book created by Angela and Luciana Giussani) the man himself has no face of his own. The person behind the very first Diabolik comic book (entitled The King of Terror) is in fact shrouded in mystery, a bit like the mystery that surrounds the character he designed, clad in a pair of black tights. And so, with his captivating docufilm Diabolik sono io, Giancarlo Soldi flits between reality and fantasy, archival footage, interviews and imaginary reconstructions, as a means of deliberating on what might have come of Angelo Zarcone, who quite literally disappeared into thin air after delivering the initial boards for the first issue of what would go on to become a leading Italian noir comic.Read More »

Film offers an unexpected perspective on the everyday life of Russian soldiers during the Chechen war. Not far from Grozny, an old steam locomotive and several wagons standing on the reserve tracks have been converted into a camp bathhouse where the soldiers wash their clothes. In conditions of war, the bathing room takes on a special meaning. It is both a piece of peaceful life and a camp. At the same time, the bathhouse on wheels symbolizes the beginning of a new road. It is an occasion to wash not only the body but also the soul, because everyone who has been through the bitterness of war will return home a completely different person…Read More »

Quote:
On 11 June 1965, the Royal Albert Hall played host to a slew of American and European beat poets for an extraordinary impromptu event – the International Poetry Incarnation – that arguably marked the birth of London’s gestating counterculture. Cast in the role of historian, as a man-on-the-scene, and massively elevating his limited resources, Whitehead constructed the extraordinary Wholly Communion from the unfolding circus. As Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Gregory Corso, Harry Fainlight, Alexander Trocchi and others took to the stage, Whitehead confidently wandered with his borrowed camera, creating a participatory and anarchic film that is as much a landmark as the event itself, and launched his career.Read More »

Hackers ’95 is a 90 minute part documentary, part spoof.

Phon-E and R.F. Burns cover the hacker related goings on of 1995. SummerCon 95, Defcon 3, Operation Cyber Snare, Area 51, and more are covered.Read More »

Quote:
In this radically unconventional television series, Godard and Miéville analyze the political economy of personal and mass media communications in relation to society, culture, family and the individual. Their inquiry focuses “on and beneath” communications in a provocative critique of the power of media images in contemporary culture and everyday life.Read More »