Documentary

SYNOPSIS:
An assignment from the Ministry of Education, this documentary from the last years of the Pahlavi dynasty includes interviews with government officials who predictably praise teaching as a sacred, noble, and honorable profession. The teachers who are also interviewed are less starry-eyed: one speaks of ungrateful students and the job’s poor pay. The contrasting views reflect Kiarostami’s interest in education while registering some of his reservations about how it is practiced.Read More »

Citizen Kane was an American saga about a giant who brings ruin to all, including himself. As fate would have it, it is through this film that both Orson Wells and William Randolph Hearst are remembered today. In telling the tale of these two flawed and fascinating men, The Battle over Citizen Kane also sheds light on the masterpiece over which they fought, the fiction that fuses them both: the enduring film character of Charles Foster Kane.Read More »

Quote:
Kiarostami’s fascination with both Tehrani car culture and the uses of power in post-revolutionary society come together in this documentary about a traffic officer assigned to enforce driving restrictions in central Tehran (a locale near the director’s Kanoon office). The officer, a rock star in his own world, remains coolly authoritative as he faces a steady stream of exasperated motorists.Read More »

This startlingly personal documentary presents a moving yet unsentimental view of motherhood and adoption. It explores the feelings surrounding the reunion of a young woman with her birth mother twenty years after being given up for adoption. The reunion is between filmmaker Camille Billops and her own daughter, Christa. Facing the re-encounter with mixed emotions, Billops interrogates her family and friends as well as her own motivations. The result is an original and daring work that challenges social biases about adoption and offers new insight into mother-daughter relationships.

Winner of the 1992 Grand Jury Award for Best Documentary at Sundance.Read More »

An unpredictable documentary from a fascinating storyteller, Agnès Varda’s next film sheds light on her experience as a director, bringing a personal insight to what she calls “cine-writing,” traveling from Rue Daguerre in Paris to Los Angeles and Beijing.Read More »

Is being hit by lightning a random natural occurrence or a predestined event? Accidents, chance, fate and the elusive quest to make sense out of tragedy underpin director Jennifer Baichwal’s captivating new work, an elegant cinematic meditation on the metaphysical effects of being struck by lightning. To explore these profound questions, she sought out riveting personal stories around the world–from a former CIA assassin and a French storm chaser, to writer Paul Auster and improvisational musician Fred Frith. The philosophical anchor of the film, Auster witnessed his friend get struck dead by lightning as a teenager, and has been wrestling with its import on destiny ever since. In a neurological experiment, Frith improvises with his guitar to demonstrate the ubiquity of electricity in our bodies and the universe. Visually dazzling and aurally seductive, Act of God singularly captures the harsh beauty of the skies and the lives of those who have been forever touched by their fury.Read More »

Nasrin is an immersive portrait of one of the courageous human rights activists and political prisoner, Nasrin Sotoudeh, and of Iran’s remarkably resilient women’s rights movement. Featuring acclaimed filmmaker Jafar Panahi (Soutoudeh appeared in his film Taxi), Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi, journalist Ann Curry, exiled women’s rights activist Mansoureh Shojaee, and Nasrin’s husband Reza Khandan. In the courts and on the streets, Nasrin has long fought for the rights of women, children, LGBT prisoners, religious and ethnic minorities, journalists, artists, and those facing the death penalty. She was arrested in June 2018 and sentenced to 38 years in prison, plus 148 lashes.Read More »

“Marx can wait” was something Camillo Bellocchio said to his twin Marco the last time they met before the former died at a young age in the heated days of 1968. This documentary is dedicated to his memory.

A personal documentary centered around the suicide of the director’s twin brother, Camillo Bellocchio, in 1968.Read More »

This four hour documentary looks for the exotic in the everyday life observed in just one city, the filmmaker’s own Amsterdam.Read More »