Documentary

On the stage of Paris’s legendary Opéra Bastille, 30 dancers from non-traditional genres reprise and remix Jean-Philippe Rameau’s baroque masterpiece Les Indes galantes, offering a dynamic take on the landmark opera.Read More »

This documentary explores the life and work of the Austrian novelist, playwright and political activist, Peter Handke. The director managed to meet and stay with Handke in his house in the country side near Paris. Director Corinna Belz also did a portrait on the artist Gerhard Richter.Read More »

Following the life of artist Nan Goldin and the downfall of the Sackler family, the pharmaceutical dynasty who was greatly responsible for the opioid epidemic’s unfathomable death toll.Read More »

A cinematic homage to Peter Rice, one of the most distinguished engineers of the late 20th century. Tracing Rice’s extraordinary life and career, from his Dundalk childhood to his work on the Sydney Opera House,The Pompidou Centre and the Lloyd’s Building, to his untimely death in 1992, Marcus Robinson uses stunning time-lapse photography and revealing interviews to tell the story of a genius who stood in the shadow of architectural icons. Until now.Read More »

(auto-translated: ) An attempt to present, played by an actor, the mental universe of a schizophrenic, i.e. a patient whose inner life is supposed to be unable to distinguish between the dream world and reality. Description of the particularly rich oniric production of the subject (associative images, visual reminiscences, feelings of influence, strangeness) and its dramatic outcome.Read More »

The mesmerizing, utterly unclassifiable science films of Jean Painlevé (1902-89) must be seen to be believed: delightful, surrealist-influenced dream works that are also serious science. The French filmmaker-scientist-inventor had a decades-spanning career in which he created hundreds of short films on subjects ranging from astronomy to pigeons to, most famously, such marine-life marvels as the sea horse and the sea urchin. This definitive three-disc Criterion collection brings together the best of these, and includes more than two hours of interviews with the filmmaker, drawn from the eight-part French television series Jean Painlevé Through His Films, directed by Denis Derrien and Hélène Hazera. Also included is The Sounds of Science, an original score by Yo La Tengo to Jean Painlevé’s films, plus an interview with the band.Read More »

Synopsis from IMDb: An absorbing and chilling documentary about the National Socialist aesthetic, and how attempts to create the Aryan Ideal caused the extermination of millions. Aspects covered include: Hitler’s epiphany while viewing Wagner’s opera ‘Rienzi’, the rise of the homo-erotic Grecian/Nordic ideal, the parallels drawn between the ‘degenerate’ art of the cubists and dadaists and the mentally ill/physically deformed, the Nazi obsession with purity and cleanliness, and, finally, the descent of the Jewish people to the level of a virus/vermin.
(by IMDb)Read More »

Since its premiere on PBS in September 1996, The West has rightfully assumed its place as a milestone event in television history, and remains the single most ambitious and authoritative audio-visual history of the American West. Spanning centuries but focusing primarily on the period of 1800 to 1915, when America was virtually redefined by westward expansion, this outstanding 12.5-hour film is itself a triumphant effort to redefine Americans’ collective understanding of the West and its impact on national identity. Directed by Stephen Ives and executive produced by Ken Burns (The Civil War, Baseball, Jazz), the film follows the theory adopted by previous Ken Burns productions–namely, that “history is biography”–and unfolds through a wealth of personal anecdote and intimate documentation.Read More »

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This documentary film explores the spread of nationalism according to the concept of “Homogeneous, Empty Time” by Walter Benjamin, a German Jewish philosopher and cultural critic. The theory as referenced in the book Imagined Communities by Benedict Anderson stated that nationalistic ideologies originated from emptiness within an area where people have homogenous consciousness. This film, therefore, explores people in a variety of communities in Thailand, such as high school students, religious people, nationalistic right-wingers, military cadets, and people in the Southern border, in an attempt to find what foundation the Thai nation is formed upon.Read More »