Documentary

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Shot in Grand Teton National Park, this immersive film essay draws together the distinct sensibilities of filmmakers Peter Mettler and Emma Davie and philosopher David Abram to encounter the spaces where humans and animals meet. Images are overlaid with a soundscape of shivering leaves and animal murmurs, rushing rivers and electronic voices, insects and automobiles. In order to capture all this Becoming Animal embraces the sensory tools of cinema. Various tableaus of the wilderness and urbanity are set up: inquisitive antelope and digital billboards are seamlessly contrasted, Buffalo block traffic, moose clash antlers, and a snail’s body becomes a landscape of its own. Conscious of their own complicity with the animal world, the filmmakers invite us to explore this ‘more than human world’. The viewer is given permission to navigate this exquisitely intricate system in which everything is alive and expressive, humans, animals and landscapes are inextricably interdependent, and there is no such thing as empty space.Read More »

Mr. Bachmann and his pupils (aged between 12 and 14) live in Stadtallendorf, formerly the site of a secret Second World War munitions factory and now an industrial town that’s home to generations of economic migrants. The class is representative of this history, with several recent arrivals still struggling with the language of their new home. All the while, their sexagenarian, rock band T-shirt wearing teacher’s effortlessly egalitarian approach encourages students to develop empathy for one another through openness and listening. Shot over six months, Reinhold Vorschneider’s patient cinematography works with the spontaneity of the classroom environment to lend emotional weight to even the most fleeting moments. The pacing and observational method call to mind the work of Frederick Wiseman, yet Speth’s intimate approach creates an engaging and tender drama.

Silver Bear Jury Prize and Audience Award (Berlin 2021)Read More »

Cinema meets art critic. In this film commissioned by the Ministry of Education, Paul Haessaerts is responsible for ensuring that the screenplay (which he wrote together with Henri Storck) and the voice-over are intelligently informative. He provides a definition of Baroque, talks about the images’ composition, refers to Rubens’ life and makes a thematic analysis of his work, its evolution and it’s influence. The content is entirely in line with the demanding guidelines that André Bazin praised when explaining the education role of cinema. The form is innovative and inventive. The animation emphasizes the paintings’ key elements and structure and visualizes the composition. The split screen makes it possible to make comparative analyses of paintings and styles. Notwithstanding this textbook virtuosity Storck develops his own method, using the camera’s movements to enter into the drama of the painting. Tracking shots, exploring the painting, stopping at a detail, fragmentation, the closeness of the bodies and the faces. The first part of the film is analytical and biographical, the second part takes us, lyrically, into the paintings and into Rubens’ world “that the film recreates before our eyes” (Paul Davay). Both parts feature a very prominently present orchestral score.Read More »

”As a break from most other documentaries as of late, the camp-glam filmmaking team of Randy Barbato and Fenton Bailey (Party Monster: The Michæl Alig Story) bring you The Eyes of Tammy Faye, focusing on the overly-made up visage of fallen televangelist Miss Tammy Faye Baker, instead of overly-drugged up ravers or overly-f***ed up porn stars. The film takes a peek behind the foundation to show the real life and times of Tammy Faye, best-known as the now 80’s excess ex-wife of preacher Jim Bakker, the other woman to Jessica Hahn-o-rama, and the single-driving force behind the mascara and fake-eyelashes industries. As a whole, The Eyes of Tammy Faye funnily and lively serves to show that sometimes the best movie characters are real ones and sometimes the best Christians are ones who look like crack-whores.Read More »

I Want to Live is a documentary on the lives of Kurdish Refugees from Syria, living in refugee camps in Kurdistan. Shot on location, it is set against the Syrian civil war and the ISIS (Islamic State) attacks upon Kurdistan. Told through the eyes of a young boy, Shndar, living with Thalassemia disease, he searches for an immediate treatment as he ages without losing hope, leaving his home amid simmering ethnic and religious hatred to live the life of a refugee. The film tells stories of daily life on the camp and outside of it. More than being a film on the life of refugees, it is an intimate character study and gripping tale of innocent lost amides wars, a meditation on life, death, war, peace, and tolerance.Read More »

“Falling is a transition. It is a movement from one position to another. In as much as it suggests failure or ruin, to love is also to fall. It is corruption, revolution and abandonment. It implies a relationship. Hito Steyerl’s In Free Fall charts a singular object, the Boeing 707-700 4X-JYI airplane, in this process of falling. Less the story of an object’s production and eventual obsolescence, In Free Fall documents a life made visible through consecutive moments of destruction.”
— Gil LeungRead More »

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When Shakespeare Must Die, a Thai film adaptation of Macbeth is banned by the Thai government as a threat to national security, the film’s producer treks through the corridors of power to un-ban his Shakespearean horror movie–from the Cultural ministry to the Senate and the National Human Rights Commission, all the way to the Administrative Court where he is suing the government for abuse of power. Wherever he went, amidst political upheaval, his director followed with a camera. The resulting reality cinema is the living story of a struggle for justice and human dignity, for freedom of expression, which Thai filmmakers do not have. A dark cinematic record of democracy in action, in all its farcical, obscene and heartbreaking details.Read More »

Synopsis
Turtle Rock is a tiny mountain village of seven households with uncontaminated natural beauty. But grandma, her son and grandson, being isolated from the modern world, are experiencing evolving dilemmas and struggles…Read More »

David Lynch prepares a delicious meal of quinoa, with enchanting stories, wonderful fun and wine.

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Just like Laura Palmer’s favourite food, Garmonbozia, in Twin Peaks (1990), and Twin Peaks (2017), David Lynch’s culinary delicacy is quinoa: a high-protein pseudo-cereal. Rich in fibre, minerals, and all nine essential amino acids, this gluten-free seed pairs perfectly with vegetables, and, especially, organic broccoli. In his dimly-lit kitchen, David Lynch prepares his one-medium-pan meal, using 1/2 cup of antioxidant-rich quinoa, a cube of vegetable bouillon, extra-virgin olive oil, and a pinch of sea salt. This delicious, easy-to-make dinner takes only seventeen minutes to make, and in the meantime, as David Lynch describes his cooking technique over a glass of red wine, he also recounts a bizarre story of moths, sugar-water, copper coins, and famous carbonated soft drinks. -Nick RiganasRead More »