Documentary

  • Mani Benchelah & Patrick Tombola – Frontline: Ukraine: Life Under Russia’s Attack (2022)

    2021-2030DocumentaryMani BenchelahPatrick TombolaUSAWar

    A dramatic and intimate look inside the Russian assault on Kharkiv. FRONTLINE follows displaced families trying to survive underground, civilians caught in the war and first responders risking their lives amid the shelling of Ukraine’s second largest city.

    When Mani Yassir Benchelah and Patrick Tombola set out to film a documentary on Ukraine, in the days after Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion, they weren’t sure if they would focus solely on Kharkiv.Read More »

  • Mischa Hedinger – African Mirror (2019)

    2011-2020DocumentaryMischa HedingerSwitzerland

    Comprised entirely of archive material, drawing on a rich seam of documents to reveal how Swiss filmmaker and travel writer René Gardi left his mark on how a whole generation viewed Africa from the 1950s onward.Read More »

  • Masato Hara – MI TA RI! (2002)

    2001-2010DocumentaryExperimentalJapanMasato Hara

    Quote:
    Film director Masato Hara welcomes MAORI as a partner and begins a new life. The two of us routinely turn the 8mm camera and make songs while the days go by. The time between the two will soon be the time for the three with their newborn eldest son, KOBOH. And a small family trip. Head south from Kyoto to Hiroshima, Kyushu, and Okinawa. Put enough luggage, shooting equipment and accordion in a small car.Read More »

  • David Alvarado & Jason Sussberg – We Are As Gods (2021)

    2021-2030David AlvaradoDocumentaryJason SussbergUSA

    “We are as gods and might as well get good at it,” Stewart Brand wrote in ’68. The pioneer of LSD, cyberspace, futurism, and modern environmentalism now urges people to use our god-like powers to fight extinction by reviving lost species.Read More »

  • Daniel Eisenberg – The Unstable Object (2011)

    2011-2020ArthouseDaniel EisenbergDocumentaryUSA

    Daniel Eisenberg’s THE UNSTABLE OBJECT juxtaposes the production of luxury automobiles in Dresden, clocks in Chicago and cymbals in a town outside of Istanbul. These detailed observations of modern factories reveal the distance between the creation and consumption of objects within our globalized economy. This results in a rich visual experience made all the more ironic by the fact that the workers in Chicago assembling the clocks are blind (and therefore never experience the scenes which the filmmaker presents). Although clearly referencing early industrial films, Eisenberg cleverly and attentively recorded all the sound entirely on location, creating a heightened esthetic universe all his own.Read More »

  • Zelimir Zilnik – Cosmo Girls (2000)

    Documentary1991-2000HungaryShort FilmZelimir Zilnik

    This is a series of portraits of women from different fields of work who find new occupations and ways to support their families in the transitional period. The following women give us their views of the relationship between men and women – a Chinese woman who owns a beauty salon and hairdresser’s studio; women who work for the first privately owned shoes factory; women who participate at the Erotic Fair in Budapest; a manager of an exclusive fish restaurant and successful business women.Read More »

  • Cristina Perincioli – Für Frauen. 1. Kapitel AKA For Women Chapter 1 (1972)

    1971-1980Cristina PerincioliDocumentaryGermany

    Quote:
    Equal pay for equal work! Four female employees at a West Berlin supermarket, who feel heavy pressure both at work and at home, go on strike to demand the same salary that their male colleague gets. The band Ton Steine Scherben sings along that “Everything changes if you change it / But you can’t win as long as you’re alone!” With a lay cast, the film fulfills the demand for solidarity that it preaches – “this film was made by saleswomen and housewives. They came up with the story and acted themselves. The film students helped them”.Read More »

  • Patrick Montgomery – The Man You Loved to Hate (1979)

    1971-1980DocumentaryPatrick MontgomeryUSA

    Erich von Stroheim was an director of silent movies, as well as an actor in both silents and talkies. Uncompromising and rigid, he battled the studio system for control over his pictures’ content, and his career had many ups and downs as a result. Through interviews, photos, and archival footage, The Man You Loved to Hate explores von Stroheim’s career. The title refers to von Stroheim’s frequent casting as a German villain in films of the early 1940s. Von Stroheim’s last famous acting role was in Billy Wilder’s Sunset Blvd.Read More »

  • Payal Kapadia – A Night of Knowing Nothing (2021)

    Documentary2021-2030ExperimentalIndiaPayal Kapadia

    Through fictional love letters found in a cupboard at the Film and Television Institute of India, we meet L, a film student writing to her estranged lover while he is away. Gradually we’re immersed in the drastic changes taking place at the school and in the lives of young people across the country as they take to the streets to protest widespread discrimination.

    In her debut film, Payal Kapadia deftly merges reality with fiction, weaving together archival footage with student protest videos to create a vital tapestry of the personal and the political. With its dreamlike editing rhythms and a revelatory use of sound, A Night of Knowing Nothing is both an essential document of contemporary India and a nostalgic look at youth fighting the injustice of their time.Read More »

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