Documentary

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 »

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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 »

A sociological essay on a Bavarian region where the economic miracle is left out. The documentary emphasises the declining populations due to migration and notes how such places come with “a lot of past [but] not much present or future”.Read More »

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Presentation of a commited State Party (Socialist Unity Party of Germany) secretary at the Chemicals Combine in Buna. A former miner and small farmer rises to a leading political position – symbol of a typical Party career.Read More »

This cinematic essay posits science fiction (with tropes such as alien abduction, estrangement, and genetic engineering) as a metaphor for the Pan-African experience of forced displacement, cultural alienation, and otherness.

Included are interviews with black cultural figures, from musicians DJ Spooky, Goldie, and Derek May, who discuss the importance of George Clinton to their own music, to George Clinton himself. Astronaut Dr. Bernard A. Harris Jr. describes his experiences as one of the first African-Americans in space, while Star Trek actress Nichelle Nichols tells of her campaign for a greater role for African-Americans in NASA. Novelist Ismael Reed and cultural critics Greg Tate and Kodwo Eshun tease out the parallels between black life and science fiction, while Delaney and Butler discuss the motivations behind their choice of the genre to express ideas about the black experience.Read More »