Documentary

One of the greatest if all-too-often overlooked landscape films in American cinema, Larry Gottheim’s HORIZONS displays a sensitivity to the seasons that seems more in keeping with Henry David Thoreau’s “Walden” than the typical nature documentary. HORIZONS was not only Gottheim’s first feature-length work, it was also his first film to deploy rhythmic editing after several single-shot works. Working with Virgil’s four-part poem “Georgics” and Antonio Vivaldi’s concertos “The Four Seasons” as models, Gottheim arranged his painterly compositions into four distinct sections, each edited according to its own exacting pattern. The seasonal flux thus informs both the form and content of the image, with the basic elements of trees, sky, hills and the occasional crisscrossing clothesline filmed in every imaginable light. The resulting work is at once rigorous and meditative: a film that demands repeated viewings but captures the eye from the first. – Max GoldbergRead More »

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When this epic series was first broadcast in 1973 it redefined the gold standard for television documentary; it remains the benchmark by which all factual programming must judge itself.

Originally shown as 26 one-hour programmes, The World at War set out to tell the story of the Second World War through the testimony of key participants. The result is a unique and unrepeatable event, since many of the eyewitnesses captured on film did not have long left to live. Each hour-long programme is carefully structured to focus on a key theme or campaign, from the rise of Nazi Germany to Hitler’s downfall and the onset of the Cold War.Read More »

In January 1990, at the age of 33, the artist José Leonilson starts registering an intimate journal in a tape recorder. His views on events that shook both Brazil, such as the resignation of former president Collor, and overseas, such as the fall of the Berlin Wall, permeate his confessions. He also talks about his impressions on the various movies he used to watch. The records of this sensitive artist in tune with modern life did not intend, at first, anything more than register the harmony that existed between his life and his peculiar and intimate work. However, J.L. suffers the unexpected blow of the discovery that he himself is HIV positive. The uncertainty and urgency in his life begin to permeate his reports.Read More »

Synopsis
A document of one of the most famous 66 miles of railroad track in the world including the Tehachapi Loop.

Review
After his 2007 RR, filmmaker James Benning set his camera up by the railroad again. This time, instead of observing various types of trains, he watches trains passing the 66-mile railroad from Bakersfield to Mojave. The endless train tracks look as if the trains were transporting us to somewhere. Watching the tracks, we gaze at the moment of trains passing through the track. We also find the heritage from the past, cargo trains, reminding us of scenes from classic western movies that today’s cinema almost forgot. From Bakersfield to Mojave forms a delightful contrast with On Paradise Road, which was exclusively filmed inside the house during the shutdown. Showing us the wild and vast nature of the United States, it delivers us some sense of freedom in this moment where nobody is really allowed to travel freely around the world.Read More »

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This short film is only thirteen minutes long, but it is a razor-sharp depiction of civilization pushing out Europe’s last wilderness in Northern Sweden. The white man is hunting ptarmigan, enormous exer-tions are being expended, watercourses are running dry and forests are being devastated. Thirteen minutes about a world in change. But un-fortunately not for the better.
stefanjarl.comRead More »

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According to Hernández, the banner of the Cannes Festival shows its three premises: glory, money and politics. He presented a film on that date and makes Citron pressé au Blue Bar as a critic and a newspaper at the same time.

If you film the banal, the naive and the superficial of the atmosphere in Cannes at that time, it is for nothing more than to rescue the beauty of the water of its sea.Read More »

The life of Pedro Manrique Figueroa, a pioneer of collage in Colombia, is like an adventure novel that is both incomplete and contradictory. Taking his life and work as a pretext, this mockumentary takes the viewer on a journey through history from the year 1934 up until 1981, when the artist mysteriously disappeared from view. Un tigre de papel is itself a collage, where art and politics rub shoulders, and where truth and lies are placed side by side.Read More »

Synopsis
In 1974, the French erotic film “Emmanuelle” broke audience records: almost 350 million viewers worldwide and a twelve-year run on the Champs Elysées in Paris. After the success of the sexually explicit Last Tango in Paris, Emmanuelle appeared at a turning point in French society: The sexual emancipation following May ’68 in France.
(arte.tv)Read More »

STYLE WARS has become an emblem of the original, embracing spirit of hip hop as it exploded into the world from underground tunnels, uptown streets, clubs and playgrounds. New York’s legendary kings of graffiti own a special place in the hip hop pantheon. This film is regarded by many as the definitive document of the emerging hip hop culture, and the continuing struggle to keep its authentic spirit alive.Read More »