Documentary

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Amar Lenin is a 1970 black and white documentary film directed by film director Ritwik Ghatak made for Government of West Bengal in the centenary year (1970) of the birth of Vladimir Lenin.

After making the film, countries such as the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of Poland approached Ritwik Ghatak for him to show the movie in those countries. However, issues arose with the National Film Censorship Board of India which did not approve of the movie and banned it in India. Ghatak and his team had to work hard to have the movie passed by the censorship board. Ritwik Ghatak personally met with Indira Gandhi on this matter.Read More »

“It’s a black-and-white record of European cities in the dark (2-5am), from Basle to Belfast. Quiet, and meditative, what ermerges most strongly is an eerie sense of city landscapes as deserted film sets, in which the desolate architecture overwhelms any sense of reality. The only reassurance that we are not in some endless machine-Metropolis is the shadow of daytime activity: a juggernaut plunging through a darkened village, a plague of small birds in the predawn light. The whole thing is underscored by a beautiful ‘composed’ soundtrack, from quietly humming stretlamps to reggae and the rumble of armoured cars in Belfast. A strange and remarkable combination of dream, documentary and science-fiction.”
Chris Auty, in: Programmheft London Film Co-opRead More »

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Pasolini doesn’t so much ‘meet’ with people of all regions of his country as interrogate them, trying to investigate the sexual mores of his time in a typical melding of politics and sex, of Marx and Freud. Although dated, it’s vital as a time capsule of 60’s Italy and as a man-on-the-streets pseudo-sociological examination of then-prevalent attitudes towards homosexuality, marriage, prostitution and divorce. The execution and image quality is rough – even for Pasolini – thought it’s no doubt intentional and a visual reflection of the project’s spur-of-the-moment, pieces-sewn-together approach.Read More »

This compilation film focuses on the contents of Nazi propaganda shorts such as “The Beauty of Work” (1934), “We Have No Problems” (1933), or “The Will To Live” (1944) that preceded the feature films in German movie theaters between 1933 and 1945. The shorts reveal that men and women workers were idealized, uniformity was stressed, optimism in the face of adversity was the goal, and, in general, all the classic lies that dictatorships use to control and mold their citizens are featured. Deutschland Bilder would be offensive to many because of its content alone, even more so when one remembers what these same Nazis were doing in the extermination camps. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie GuideRead More »

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Heinz Emigholz, the premiere purveyor of architectural oddities (Sullivan’s Bridges, Goff in the Desert), meticulously documents 15 rooms of the enormous Villa Cargnacco in Lombardy, Italy, designed by proto-fascist poet Gabriele D’Annunzio (1863-1938). The controversial figure spent 17 years designing the Vittoriale, a state museum on Lake Garda, and furnishing the Villa Cargnacco, which is part of the grand complex. This unusual documentary resulted from a photography session in the villa, when four friends–cinematographers Irene von Alberti, Elfi Mikesch, Klaus Wyborny and Heinz Emigholz–simultaneously filmed the rooms and furnishings of the villa in their own specific styles.Read More »

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Tonsler Park (2017) observes, in black and white 16mm, the democratic process in action, at Charlottesville, Virginia voting precincts, over the course of Election Day, November 8, 2016.Read More »

Documentary about the ordinary life of an isolated civilization in the middle of the ocean, on Corvo Island.

Em 2007, um homem-câmara e um homem-som chegam à Ilha do Corvo, a mais pequena dos Açores. Em pleno Atlântico, o Corvo é um rochedo alto, medindo 6km por 4km, com uma cratera de vulcão e uma única vila de 440 pessoas. Gradualmente, a equipa de rodagem é aceite por uma civilização com quase 500 anos de vida mas com poucos registos e memória escrita.Read More »

Living in the United States illegally for over 20 years, Miko Revereza takes the Amtrak train from Los Angeles to New York in this critical moment of hostility against migrants in the country he has come to know as home. The journey seems daring, perhaps reckless, yet urgent and necessary.Read More »

Plot Synopsis From Allmovie:
Iran is a nation where the government carefully regulates what its citizens may see on television, read in the newspapers, or access on the internet. However, despite the country’s repressive policies, many people enjoy news and entertainment outside the purview of their leaders, and filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof examines what Iranians are viewing on the sly and how they find it in the documentary Baad-e-daboor (aka Head Wind). In order to watch television programming not on the official approved list, well-to-do Iranians need little more than to purchase a satellite dish, which can easily be hidden on their property (and homeowners can use the defense that unauthorized channels were supposed to be blocked on their system). Read More »