Documentary

  • Nina Hedenius – Det speglar i mitt öga AKA My Eye Is Reflecting (1992)

    1991-2000DocumentaryExperimentalNina HedeniusSweden

    Independent filmmaker Nina Hedenius Det speglar i mitt öga [My Eye Is Reflecting] is a poetic film on the act of seeing and on the details that rarely gets our attention. The film is a collage of diverse scenes depicting life, death, objects and people; a Swedish crayfish party, a classroom, cows in the meadow, the Stockholm subway… With musical effects by Ralph Lundsten.Read More »

  • Shinsuke Ogawa – Sanrizuka: Gogatu no sora Sato no kayoiji AKA Sanrizuka: The Sky of May (1977)

    1971-1980DocumentaryJapanShinsuke Ogawa

    The seventh and final film in Shinsuke Ogawa’s groundbreaking Sanrizuka Series chronicling the agrarian resistance to the construction of Chiba Prefecture’s Narita International Airport.Read More »

  • Fernando Birri – El siglo del viento AKA Century of the Wind (1999)

    Documentary1991-2000ArgentinaFernando Birri

    Synopsis
    The book EL SIGLO DEL VIENTO, the third part of a trilogy about the history of Latin America, is not a traditional historical work. The Uruguayan writer and journalist Eduardo Galeano (1940) was even exiled for a long time to prevent his headstrong and critical style from becoming too famous. His style, which combines dry facts about the exploitation, the oppression and the violence in South America with individual anecdotes and literary creativity, is preserved in the documentary that Fernando Birri adapted from the book. In ‘chapters‘, each dealing with a certain period in the history of this century, an image is created of a continent that is constantly afflicted by setbacks and misery. Read More »

  • Wim Wenders – Buena Vista Social Club (1999)

    1991-2000DocumentaryGermanyMusicalWim Wenders

    Plot:
    Aging Cuban musicians whose talents had been virtually forgotten following Castro’s takeover of Cuba, are brought out of retirement by Ry Cooder, who travelled to Havana in order to bring the musicians together, resulting in triumphant performances of extraordinary music, and resurrecting the musicians’ careers.Read More »

  • James Benning – On Paradise Road (2020)

    2011-2020DocumentaryExperimentalJames BenningUSA

    Filmed at Benning’s home in Val Verde during the first month of the pandemic, the film is a portrait of that time.Read More »

  • Pierre Creton – Va, Toto! (2017)

    2011-2020DocumentaryExperimentalFrancePierre Creton

    Toto est un marcassin accueilli par Madeleine. La bête va grandir, dans les cœurs, mais sur ses pattes aussi. Vincent affectionne les singes, dont il part retrouver les facéties en Inde. Et le pauvre Joseph souffre de cauchemars causés par la machine artificielle à respirer qu’il est contraint d’utiliser. C’est Pierre qui se trouve à nouer toutes ces aventures. Pierre Creton, ouvrier agricole et cinéaste, qui vit à Vattetot, et qui retrouve ici la veine de L’Heure du Berger (Grand Prix FIDMarseille 2008). Autrement dit avec l’autobiographique teinté de fantastique, avec l’extraordinaire pêché dans l’ordinaire, avec l’affection et l’amour portés aux êtres, humains et animaux confondus, avec l’humour saupoudrant chaque amorce de drame. Read More »

  • Agnès Varda & Laura Obiols – Les plages d’Agnès AKA The Beaches of Agnes (2008)

    2001-2010Agnès VardaDocumentaryFranceLaura Obiols

    Synopsis:
    At nearly 80, Agnès Varda explores her memory – growing up in Belgium, living in Sète, Paris, and Noirmoutier, discovering photography, making a film, being part of the New Wave, raising children with Jacques Demy, losing him, and growing old. She explores her memory using photographs, film clips, home movies, contemporary interviews, and set pieces she designs to capture a feeling, a time, or a frame. Shining through each scene are her impish charm, inventiveness, and natural empathy. How do people grow old, how does loss stay with them, can they remain creative, and what do they remember? Memory, she says, is like a swarm of confused flies. She envisions hers for us.Read More »

  • Abel Ferrara – The Projectionist (2019)

    2011-2020Abel FerraraDocumentaryUSA

    Synopsis
    This documentary portrait of theater operator Nicolas “Nick” Nicolaou moves from 1970s Times Square adult film houses through decades of city regulation, chain takeovers, and cultural shifts, charting a charming odyssey through the history of film exhibition and New York City. Abel Ferrara traces the life and work of friend and fellow cinephile Nicolas “Nick” Nicolaou, a Cypriot immigrant who began working as a teenager in small neighborhood movie theaters around Manhattan, defying gentrification, changing viewing habits and corporate dominance in the 1980s, only to emerge decades later as one of New York City’s last independent theater owners. A moving tribute to friendship, tenacity and the love of cinema, THE PROJECTIONIST is also a timely paean to what going to the movies is all about.Read More »

  • Jocelyne Saab – Beyrouth, Ma Ville AKA Beirut, My City (1983)

    Documentary1981-1990FranceJocelyne SaabWar

    Quote:
    Beirut, My City finds Saab and her collaborator, the playwright and director Roger Assaf, returning to the shell of her former home following Israel’s 1982 invasion, finding small glimmers of hope in the chaos of refugee camps and the rubble of decimated neighborhoods.
    “I consider this to be my most important film, the one that is the closest to my heart. In 1982, my house was burning. That’s not nothing. It was a very old house. 150 years of history went up in flames and disappeared. All of that is suddenly destroyed. The family home, wiped off the map, gone from the city, having become a pile of ruins.”Read More »

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