Documentary

Costa da Morte is a region in Galicia (Spain), which was considered as the end of the world during the Roman period. Its dramatic name comes from the numerous shipwrecks that happened along history in this area made of rocks, mist and storms. We cross this land observing the people who inhabit it, fishermen, gatherers of shellfish, loggers… We witness traditional craftsmen who maintain both an intimate relationship and an antagonistic battle with the vastness of this territory. The wind, the stones, the sea, the fire, are characters in this film, and through them we approach the mystery of the landscape, understanding it as a unified ensemble with man, his history and legends.Read More »

Original Title in Japanese: ざ・鬼太鼓座
This documentary narrates the beginnings of the founding members of ondekoza who are a group of young musician living communally on Sado Island in Niigata Prefecture. They create the taiko drumming, which has gone on to entertain audiences around the world and give spectators kodo drummer. Watch the musicians go from rigorous training and adaptation to early performances.Read More »

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Using their sound and film equipment like musical instruments, the members of the band GUI AIUEO:S create an audiovisual work of art. On their journey, they search for UFOs, meet odd hermits, and are introduced to the sustainable toilet. Go SHIBATA, winner of the 2011 NIPPON VISIONS AWARD, presents an eccentric performance-roadmovie-documentary. Hop on board and step on the gas!Read More »

Gianvito’s portrait of Keller can be seen as a continuation and expansion of his PROFIT MOTIVE AND THE WHISPERING WIND, which recalled certain protagonists of the progressive movement in the US, inspired by historian Howard Zinn.

Helen Keller became both blind and deaf as a child. The film follows some of her most important public appearances and comments, starting with her speech “Out of the Dark” (1913). Gianvito’s narrative visual style has an almost elemental quality, when he crossfades voiceovers and silent written text passages by Keller with ever shifting close-ups of the structure of snowy boughs, ice or timber. It’s another highly idiosyncratic work of poetry, didactics, and agitprop at the service of a bottom-up view of history, at once an appreciation and analysis of Keller’s theses on capitalism. It’s no spoiler to say that they are just as valid 100 years on. (Gunnar Landsgesell)Read More »

Excellent documentary about the history of Yugoslavian Film Festival in Pula and ex-Yu cinema in general. Produced by HTV Croatian Television.

The festival was originally started in 1954 and within a few years it became the centerpiece event of the Yugoslav film industry, with first national awards being presented in 1957. This lasted until 1991, when the festival was canceled due to the breakup of Yugoslavia.Read More »

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This extraordinary documentary is an unflinching record of the workers’ struggle during Japan’s economic rebirth in the 1980s, centered on Tokyo’s Sanya “yoseba”—a slum community dating from the 19th century where day laborers lived in terrible conditions while they sought work. Conceived of as a weapon in the workers’ struggle, Yama exposed the role of the yakuza, the Japanese elite, and corporations participating in the violent and systematic exploitation of the labor class amidst the construction boom of the time. Unresolved issues around labor rights, class discrimination, corruption, foreign workers’ rights, police violence and the stench of re-emergent fascism all rear their ugly heads in this powerful chronicle made at tremendous risk by the filmmakers. Read More »

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The graceful and moving essay film Twilight City is one of the Black Audio Film Collective’s sharpest and most sensual evocations of contemporary Afro-Caribbean life. The film blends a dreamlike personal reflectiveness with a hard-edged critical reading of London life under Margaret Thatcher. The (fictional) central figure is a young black British researcher, Octavia (Amanda Symonds), who one day receives a letter from her mother, Eugenia, who is based in Dominica. After 10 years back in her home country, the disaffected Eugenia yearns to return to London so she may once again live with her daughter. While Octavia composes her response, the old resentments, pain and anger that she has repressed begin to resurface.
— Ashley ClarkRead More »

A film crew follows three grieving participants of Miami’s annual T Ball, where folks assemble to model R.I.P. T-shirts and innovative costumes designed in honor of their dead. T screened at Sundance Film Festival 2020 and won the Golden Bear for best short film at Berlinale 2020.

“When you do things with your hands, it heals you in places lower than where you cry from,” she says and makes a costume out of crisp bags for her late son. Because he loved crisps. T is a film and a ball and a ceremony for the ones that have been lost and those who have lost someone. It is a manifestation of grief, anger and the spiritual power of creativity.Read More »

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The adventures of a young Senegalese, Abdoulaye Faye, who comes to Paris to try his luck as a boxer. His dream of winning the championship and conquering women – especially Michèle Morgan – whom he worships, his his adaptation to Paris life, the cold and fog which astonish him, occupy his thoughts. He meets a Japanese woman in the Bois de Boulogne, consults a medium. And then comes the championship fight.

Critique award, Venice Film festival, 1962.
Cameo of Jean-Paul Belmondo, as a member of the audience during the fight of the young Abdoulaye Faye.
Music by Michel Legrand and Georges Delerue.Read More »