Documentary

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My Mexican Bretzel opens with black-and-white clips of pilots during World War II in Switzerland, subtitled with excerpts from – so we are told – the diary of Vivian Barrett. She talks about herself and her husband Léon, who partly lost his hearing in an accident with his plane and could no longer fly. The couple’s glamourous life then unfolds in diary excerpts and footage shot by Léon, about whom we also learn that he developed a successful anti-depressant, and had an obsession with many different forms of transportation.Read More »

“Documentary series charting the change in attitudes to homosexuality during the 20th century.. Archival footage and interviews with 22 lesbians and gay men give an overview of gay history in the UK from the 1920’s. Clause 28, the Well of Lonliness, AIDS, the Pet Shop Boys, it’s all there in some form or another.”Read More »

A remote village in southwest China is haunted by traces of its cultural past while its residents piece together their existence.

Zhiziluo is a town barely clinging to life. Tucked away in a rugged corner of Yunnan Province, Lisu and Nu minority villagers squat in the abandoned halls of this remote former Community county seat. Divided into three parts, this epic documentary takes an intimate look at its varied cast of characters, bringing audiences face to face with people left behind by China’s new economy. A father-son duo of elderly preachers argue over the future of their village church. Two young lovers face a break-up over harsh financial realities. A twelve year-old boy, abandoned by his family, scavenges the hillside to feed himself.Read More »

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Before the Panama Canal was dug in 1911, Valparaiso was one of the main seaports on the passage around Cape Horn. Over the centuries, the city fell into the hands of different conquerors, and natural violence repeatedly destroyed it for the greater part. In cooperation with the university of Santiago de Chile, Joris Ivens made a semi-documentary about the daily life in Valparaiso, where the contrasts between poor and rich immediately strike the eye. Ivens chose realistic, but also poetical images. The abrupt shift from black-and-white to colour in the film marks the transition from the initial pessimistic part to the later, more hopeful images.Read More »

Plot/Description: from IMDB
This documentary tells of the struggles during the Spanish Civil War. It deals with the war at different levels: from the political level, at the ground military level focusing on battles in Madrid and the road from Madrid to Valencia, and at the support level. With the latter, a key project was building an irrigation system for an agricultural field near Fuentedueña so that food could be grown to feed the soldiers.Read More »

Synopsis:
An old mining town on the Arizona-Mexico border finally reckons with its darkest day: the deportation of 1200 immigrant miners exactly 100 years ago. Locals collaborate to stage recreations of their controversial past.Read More »

The film explores the past, present, and future relationships between technology, vision, and power. From arcane theories of sight to the emergence of virtual reality and police body camera programs, the film takes a kaleidoscopic investigation into how the reality of what we see is constructed through the tools that we use to see.Read More »

Filmmaker Jia Zhangke chronicles his local literature festival in Shanxi, China which includes a multi-generational roster of the country’s most esteemed writers.Read More »

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A documentary on Jacques Vergès, the controversial lawyer and former Free French Forces guerrilla who has defended unpopular figures such as Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie and Holocaust denier Roger Garaudy.
Communist, anticolonialist, right-wing extremist? What convictions guide the moral mind of Jacques Vergès? Barbet Schroeder takes us down history’s darkest paths in his attempt to illuminate the mystery behind this enigmatic figure.
A brilliant study in the link between moral corruption and narcissism.Read More »