Documentary

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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 »

Actress Patricia Clarkson narrates this documentary dramatizing the unique history of American film criticism. In addition to eliciting the thoughts and opinions of such respected film critics as Jonathan Rosenbaum, J Hoberman, Andrew Sarris, Roger Ebert, Kenneth Turan, Lisa Schwarzbaum, and A.O. Scott, the filmmakers also speak with internet-based critics like Harry Knowles and Karina Longworth, who offer a fresh perspective on the ongoing battle between upcoming on-liners and their print publication counterparts.Read More »

Synopsis
Documentary-fiction about the director and his family’s holiday in his homeland. The journey is a means to confront the past, memories, one’s own origins, but it is also the radiography of an era.
A semi-unknown masterpiece by Marco BellocchioRead More »

Waves crashing over a breakwater at the edge of the sea—this dramatic opening image conveys the vital spirit of a place that has withstood decades of external pressure. On the streets of Havana, residents of all ages share their views on living under such impositions by outsiders, as well as on the internal freedom they experience in spite of the repercussions of harsh sanctions. Descriptions of the waves of imperialism that have shaped this country’s history provide a deeper understanding of the impact of long-term oppression and the powerful desire to exist without outside forces weighing in.Read More »

Synopsis:
Filmmakers (and brothers) Albert and David Maysles follow four employees of a company that makes expensive, ornate, illustrated bibles as they attempt to sell the items door-to-door to less-than-interested customers, who are mainly poor or lower-middle-class Catholics with little money to spend on pretty Bibles.Read More »

Nell Minow wrote:
Steven Spielberg sent a telegram to New Yorker film critic Pauline Kael to tell her that she was the only critic who understood “Jaws.” George Roy Hill, furious about her review of “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” began his letter to her, “Listen, you miserable bitch.” Ridley Scott was so shaken by a Kael comment he said he never read another review—from anyone. Marlene Dietrich wrote from Paris to make sure she could continue to get The New Yorker in France, telling Kael, “I am quite lost without your opinions on films.”Read More »