Documentary

Quote:
In 1971, author and film scholar Donald Richie published a poetic travelogue about his explorations of the islands of Japan’s Inland Sea, recording his search for traces of a traditional way of life as well as his own journey of self-discovery. Twenty years later, filmmaker Lucille Carra undertook a parallel trip inspired by Richie’s by-then-classic book, capturing images of hushed beauty and meeting people who still carried on the fading customs that Richie had observed. Interspersed with surprising detours—visits to a Frank Sinatra–loving monk, a leper colony, an ersatz temple of plywood and plaster—and woven together by Richie’s narration as well as a score by celebrated composer Toru Takemitsu, The Inland Sea is an eye-opening voyage and a profound meditation on what it means to be a foreigner.Read More »

This is a documentary on the 70’s French porn industry. There are generally two kinds of porn documentaries–those that actually take an insightful look behind the scenes, and those that are just an excuse to show a lot of nudity and XXX porn footage. This is actually somewhere in between. It’s generously seasoned with porn footage, but there are also a lot of (fully-clothed) interviews, and they even talk to the owners of porn theaters, some typical porn customers (including some pre-adolescent boys who are walking by the the theater–I wonder what their parents thought of that?), as well as a guy who makes promotional billboards for porn movies although he claims never to have seen one!Read More »

A small town in the Brazilian outback is considered the nation’s capital of jeans. It’s also a microcosm that depicts modern day capitalism and its transgressions.Read More »

Roos (13 years old, Amsterdam) was arrested with her parents and taken to Westerbork transit camp. Here they wait for transport to the extermination camps in Poland. Nobody wants to go to the unknown east, of which nobody has ever returned. Lisa Wade visits the large extermination camp Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland, where most of the Jews were murdered immediately upon arrival in the gas chambers. To her great astonishment, she finds another girl’s ring on the grounds.Read More »

With Love From Truman portrays an intimate meeting with renowned author Truman Capote. As a reporter interviews him in his beachfront home, Capote shares his “self-regarding” personality through hip philosophy and calculated jokes. He offers insights in an endearingly raspy voice about his latest book, In Cold Blood, which Capote declares to be part of a new genre, the “non-fiction novel.” Just as the Maysles brothers’ direct cinema classics turn real stories into narratives, Capote’s non-fiction novel makes an effort to turn reality into art. In Cold Blood is based on first-hand accounts of an actual murder. The author affectionately discusses his coverage of the subsequent trial and his intriguing relationship with the two young killers. Capote claims it is the spontaneity of life that compels him to portray reality, but it is his own fresh energy and startling sense of humor that keep us intrigued.Read More »

Worlds of Ursula K. Le Guin is a feature documentary exploring the remarkable life and legacy of the late feminist author Ursula K. Le Guin. Best known for groundbreaking science fiction and fantasy works such as A Wizard of Earthsea, The Left Hand of Darkness, and The Dispossessed, Le Guin defiantly held her ground on the margin of “respectable” literature until the sheer excellence of her work, at long last, forced the mainstream to embrace fantastic literature. Her fascinating story has never before been captured on film.Read More »

An investigation into the ecological disaster caused by a US military base on the Philippines – and its victims, their world. A humble act of solidarity, a defiant work of remembrance, a rallying cry to rise and resist, a cinematic prose poem.Read More »

A bespectacled wise-cracker, who only communicates through corny jokes, courts the affections of a shop assistant, who – when not getting her hair done by a chatty hairdresser – is forever talking about bodily complaints. Short and sweet, with excellent performances from David Thewlis and Sylvestra Le Touzel (as the courting couple), Alison Steadman (as the hairstylist), and Wendy Nottingham (as her sullen daughter,) Leigh’s slice-of-life drama proves delightful.Read More »

Quote:
A day in the life of a rain-shower. As a city symphony Joris Ivens films Amsterdam and its changing appearence during a rain-shower. A very poetic film with changing moods, following the change from sunny Amsterdam streets to rain drops in the canals and the pooring rain on windows, umbrellas, trams and streets, untill it clears up and the sun breaks through once again. Although it seems to be one day it took Ivens a long time to film what he wanted to film (for even in Amsterdam it doesn’t rain every day). With The Bridge, Rain became his major breakthrough as an avant-garde film artist. In 1932 Joris Ivens asked Lou Lichtveld (who also made the music for Philips Radio) to make a sound version of it, and in 1941 the film inspired Hanns Eisler to compose his “Fourteen ways to describe rain” in the context of a ‘Film Music Project’.Read More »