Documentary

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Young people talk about the past, present and the future, dreams and trends, in front of Blier’s camera.

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In 1963, 22-year-old Bertrand Blier invited 11 of his peers to come to a film studio and talk about their lives. The record of what was said, Hitler? Connais pas!, is a discussion of values that remains relevant and fascinating today. The footage was shot just five years prior to May 1968, and the atmosphere of that time is clearly discernible: these young people may not yet be revolutionaries, but there is clearly a ferment in the air. Read More »

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In the first few minutes of Kevin Everson’s new film Spicebush, the screen splits into two frames, one showing a brick factory employee at work, the other a hostess announcing the winning numbers for the Ohio lottery. The juxtaposition serves as context, but it’s clear from the rest of the movie that Everson’s interest lies in the relentlessness of labor. Perhaps this is not a coincidence—he works indefatigably. Currently, 39-year-old Everson is making final edits to Spicebush, casting a new feature film, and working on a screenplay with playwright and historian Talaya Delaney—all in addition to teaching a full course load in art at the University of Virginia.Read More »

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A documentary which follows a group of siblings who eke out their existence from the offerings and other goods found in the sacred Bagmati River.Read More »

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“Chulas Fronteras” is a documentary about the music of the Mexican community on both sides of the Texas-Mexico border, particularly of migrant farmers. It includes material about the roots of the music, but devotes principal attention to the music as a form of social protest against oppression and racism.Read More »

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In 1992, Brazilian filmmaker João Moreira Salles shot his family’s elderly former butler reminiscing about his past and his interests with a view to a documentary he never completed; 15 years later, he attempts a second pass at the footage and realises why he couldn’t have finished it at the time. Not so much a documentary as an almost theoretical deconstruction of the form, but a truly dazzling one in its surprising accessibility that makes it as much about its maker as about its subject.Read More »

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Werner Herzog returns to the South American jungle with Juliane Koepcke, the German woman who was the sole survivor of a plane crash there in 1971. They find the remains of the plane and recreate her journey out of the jungle.Read More »

Face To Face With The Past (Part 2):
Alan Berliner’s “Nobody’s Business”
by Andrew J. Horton (from Kinoeye)

Intrigued by his family’s Central European past, Alan Berliner turned the camera on his father to find out more. Nobody’s Business (USA, 1996) is Berliner’s witty account of the uphill struggle which followed. You might have thought that interviewing your father would be a relatively easy thing for a documentarist to do. You obviously don’t have a father like Alan Berliner’s. Tetchy and cantankerous, Oscar Berliner has little understanding for his son’s project – and this is the joy of the film.Read More »

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The First Eden: The Mediterranean World and Man is a BBC documentary series written and presented by David Attenborough, first transmitted in the United Kingdom from 8 March 1987.

It comprises four programmes, each of 55 minutes’ duration, which describe man’s relationship with the natural habitats of the Mediterranean, and is a glorious portrait of the landscape, wildlife and plants of the Mediterranean. From the earliest human settlements to the cities of today, from the forests of the North African shore and the Middle East to Southern Europe, this series tells the dramatic story of man and nature at work.Read More »

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Using music of the genre, a short look at Tex-Mex music, how it expresses love found and love lost, and how it comes straight from the heart.Read More »