Documentary

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There are always people who say: you can’t change people by force. Them, they say: it’s not so clear, we know our business and have a lot of time.

The former central preventive prison for political prisoners of the former GDR Ministry of State Security (Stasi) in Berlin-Hohenschönhausen was not an ordinary place of detention. This building, which did not appear on the maps of East Berlin and which still bears traces of Germany’s recent history (Nazism, Soviet occupation, communist dictatorship), has the grim particularity of having as many interrogation rooms as detention cells. Read More »

Filmed just eight months after The Beatles appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show, THE T.A.M.I. SHOW introduced rock ‘n’ soul youth culture to America in the first concert movie of the rock era. One of the rarest and most sought-after performance films from its time, the 1964 concert event featured future Rock and Roll Hall of Famers The Rolling Stones, James Brown, Chuck Berry, The Beach Boys, Marvin Gaye, Smokey Robinson And The Miracles, The Supremes and many other American and British Invasion hitmakers in their prime.Read More »

Feature-length documentary on Lon Chaney, featuring new interviews (notably with Chaney biographer Michael F. Blake), unseen footage of Chaney, and excerpts from old interviews with Chaney contemporaries who have since passed away.
A TCM original production, included in the DVD boxset “TCM Archives – Lon Chaney Collection”.Read More »

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I began El Valley Centro in November of 1998; I was driving through the Great Central Valley looking for places to film. I wasn’t going to start shooting for at least six months; I wanted to just look and listen – to get to know the Valley well before I would make images. But almost immediately I came across an oil well fire with flames high into the sky. I returned home for my Bolex and Nagra. Determined that landscape is a function of time, I let a full roll of 16mm film (100 feet) run through the camera. At that moment I knew I would make a portrait of The Great Central Valley using 35 two and a half minute shots.Read More »

Nathaniel Dorsky’s films are precise articulations of cinematic qualities: the surprise of an edit, the composition of framing, and the flash of the image. Dubbed the “filmmaker’s filmmaker”, Dorsky’s work captures the fleeting moments of everyday life in its poetic chaos in such films as Pneuma (1976-82), Triste (1974-96), Alaya (1976-87), and Variations (1992-98). Using a spring-wound Bolex and 16mm reversal stock film, Dorsky’s films operate in the realm of the purely visual.Read More »

Hear My Cry“ depicts the startling story of Ryszard Siwiec, a man who, on a Polish national holiday in September 1968, immolated himself in front of thousands of people in a stadium in Warsaw. He performed this desperate act of self-burning as a protest against the invasion of Czechoslovakia by Warsaw Pact forces. The world, however, kept silent. His name and deed received no front page newspaper coverage. Why? „Hear My Cry“ is a human story, a story of mankinds love of freedom, a story which portrays mans eternal need to escape from the constraints of totalitarianism.Read More »

For this Swiss-German documentary, filmmaker/Sinologist Ulrike Koch sneaked cameras into Tibet in order to film four men and 160 yak in a 2,000-year-old ritual — the annual spring pilgrimage to gather raw salt at remote lakes, a three-month Himalayan trek. Camping along the way, they engage in prayers, talk, and songs. Following nomadic traditions, the saltmen make the return trip with salt in backpacks made from yak pelts. In addition to Tibetan chanting, the film’s music includes a post-production blend of Hamburg musicians and native Tibetans. After a digital video transfer to film, the 108-minute documentary was shown at several 1997 film festivals, including (Sundance, Vienna, Taormina, and Pusan). ~ Bhob StewartRead More »

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New York City’s Monterey is a residence hotel; the residents we see are older, most live alone. The camera, usually stationery, begins with a look into the lobby. The film ends with a panorama from the hotel’s rooftop. There’s no soundtrack. The lobby is clean with granite floors. Men wear hats. People enter and exit an elevator. The camera looks out from within the elevator as doors open and close. People sit alone and motionless in their apartments. There are long shots of empty halls. Paint peels. The flooring on upper levels is linoleum. Hall lights are florescent. Doors open a crack then close. The film provides the feeling of what it’s like to live there.Read More »

Musician Jonny Greenwood travels to Rajasthan, where he performs with a multitude of Indian musicians.Read More »