Documentary

Synopsis:
Portrait of the artist as a young man. In spring, 1965, Bob Dylan, 23, a pixyish troubador, spends three weeks in England. Pennebaker’s camera follows him from airport to hall, from hotel room to public house, from conversation to concert. Joan Baez and Donovan, among others, are on hand. It’s the period when Dylan is shifting from acoustic to electric, a transition that not all fans, including Baez, applaud. From the opening sequence of Dylan holding up words to the soundtrack’s “Subterranean Homesick Blues,” Dylan is playful and enigmatic.Read More »

Peter Martins – en danser is a classical documentary using illustrative visuals, interviews with the subject, and a linking narrative voice over paints a portrait of the Danish ballet star with the New York City Ballet. “I cannot deal with second best people”, the handsome, self-assured Martins says, describing himself as a monstrously ambitious man who is however able to regard his work as a continual learning process. The film follows Martins as a dancer and choreographer, primarily in the rehearsal room but also on stage.Read More »

Based on material that emerged during the occupation of the arena in the summer of 1976, the film shows the organization of collective work, the negotiations with the city and community and finally the demolition of the buildings.Read More »

Quote:

Series of programs broadcast on RAI TV in Italy showing footage shot by Roberto Rossellini in India. The series was also broadcast on ORTF TV in France under the title ‘J’AI FAIT UN BEAU VOYAGE PAR ROBERTO ROSSELLINI’. The footage shown in the individual episodes seems to have been the same in the Italian and French series.

Rossellini stayed in India for almost 9 months, refusing to look at famous monuments and rather preferring to take a non-exotic view of India, by looking at lives of common persons.Read More »

Synopsis
Interviews with workers who took part in the 1979/1980 strikes in the metallurgic region called ABC, in the State of São Paulo, led by the man who was to become President of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, but, unlike their leader, have remained anonymous along the way. They talk about their origins, the movement, and their lives.Read More »

Not surprisingly, Jørgen Leth became fascinated by Katherine Dunham (1909-2006), an African-American anthropologist, dancer and choreographer living in Haiti. Dunham was politically engaged and a powerful personality. Unfortunately, at the time it proved impossible to raise the money to produce a film portrait. This pilot has survived on a battered VHS cassette. Footage from a dance seminar in East St. Louis is complemented with interviews with Dunham and other black dancers. The producer Terry Carter is working on having the planned Dunham film accomplished.Read More »

Synopsis
One of the myths surrounding the creation of Vietnam involves a fight between two dragons whose intertwined bodies fell into the South China Sea and formed Vietnam’s curving S-shaped coastline. Influential feminist theorist and filmmaker Trinh T. Minh-ha’s lyrical film essay commemorating the 40th anniversary of the end of the war draws inspiration from ancient legend and from water as a force evoked in every aspect of Vietnamese culture. Read More »

In the American corporate media, Castro is always played up as some kind of monster. The corporate media (and a host of draconian laws help) prevent us from hearing what he has to say. This documentary is excellent if anything but to give us a chance to hear what Castro has to say.Read More »

Plot
The Chinese government provides the villages in the mountains of Sichuan (China) with films. The main character of this film is a projectionist who, 37 years ago, used to carry his old projector on foot and bicycle. He would display a small screen across the road or between trees in front of a farm… It’s the same today except that he rides a motorcycle, carries a large screen and that the films travel two thousand kilometers from Beijing to Chengdu by satellite, before he picks them up on his motorcycle. Up in the mountains, people bring a stool out on the road and watch. That story takes place in Beijing and the beautiful mountains covered with bamboos above ChengduRead More »