Documentary

Gordon Parks (1912-2006) was a Renaissance man talented in many mediums, from photography and film to writing, music, and painting. He may be best known for directing the movie Shaft (1971) and creating moving works of documentary photojournalism with social justice themes. In many ways, Parks was an artist ahead of his times. His first film, The Learning Tree (1969, based on his autobiographical novel), was the first major motion picture with a Black director. In the 1980s, he made a film for PBS called Solomon Northup’s Odyssey based on the 1853 slave narrative that later inspired the movie 12 Years a Slave (2013). Parks also co-founded Essence magazine, published more than a dozen books, composed music for a ballet about Martin Luther King Jr., and received the Library of Congress’ “Living Legend” award.Read More »

In the heart of Paso Robles Wine Country there is a concentrated village-a wine region within a wine region-populated by rebellious, creative winemakers, brew and cider masters and distillers working at the razor’s edge of their craft.Read More »

Blood Ties: The Life and Work of Sally Mann is a 1994 short documentary film directed by Steven Cantor and Peter Spirer. It was premiered at the 1994 Sundance Film Festival and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Short.

The documentary looks at some of the controversy surrounding Sally Mann’s book Immediate Family, which contains non-sexual photographs of her pre-adolescent children in various states of dress. Some religious groups had accused her of making child pornography, and the film focuses on Mann’s defense of her art. Filmmaker Cantor followed up this short with a full-length documentary about Mann in 2005: What Remains: The Life and Work of Sally Mann.Read More »

From Amos Vogel’s Film as a Subversive Art:
This secret Nazi film – unforgettable documentary of a vanquished world – was photographed just before the Ghetto’s total destruction and either never completed or not intended for public release. For once, the Nazis – albeit unintentionally – revealed the truth about an event, though it was a truth distorted by their presence; the only Jews who did not know that they were being photographed were the dead; the others, depending on degree of desperation, indifference, or nearness of death, attempted to smile or otherwise co-operate with the photographer/director (representative of unlimited power over life or death), an obscene spectacle difficult to bear. Read More »

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What is this piece of SOV madness? A not entirely convincing special effects how-to video? A fake documentary on a zombie/mutant sleazefest set in the year 2002? Who knows!Read More »

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One of the few examples of Polish film production of the operation of entering Warsaw by the Soviet troops (with the Polish Army units)

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This short film depicting Bolesław Bierut and Michał Rol-Żymierski visiting the troops of the 1st Polish Army was produced by the Polish Army Film StudioRead More »

Gregory Crewdson is a photographer, yet once you’ve encountered his work, it’s hard not to think of him as a film director. That’s because each and every one of Crewdson’s photographs has the production value and emotional sweep of the highest quality cinema (directors Douglas Sirk and David Lynch most quickly spring to mind). While Ben Shapiro’s Gregory Crewdson: Brief Encounters might itself not necessarily qualify as great cinema, it nonetheless opens a revealing window into Crewdson’s fascinating process.Read More »

Storyline
Li Baicheng is a charismatic fortune teller who services a clientele of prostitutes and marginalized figures whose jobs, like his, are commonplace but technically illegal in China. He practices his ancient craft in a village near Beijing while taking care of his deaf and dumb wife Pearl, who he rescued from her family’s mistreatment. Winter brings a police crackdown on both fortune tellers and prostitutes, forcing Li and Pearl into temporary exile in his hometown, where he revisits old family demons. His humble story is told with chapter headings similar to Qing Dynasty popular fiction. Written by AnonymousRead More »

Another fantastic Süha Arın documentary, lovingly in-depth, about various types of ancient craftsmanship that are dying out in the modern world. It’s an episode from the series Old Houses, Old Masters. As the title indicates, this is all about wood, from construction to grave markers to prayer beads to violins.Read More »