Documentary

He came from outer space to save the human race!

Looks like an alien, sings like a diva – Klaus Nomi was one of 1980’s most profoundly bizarre appearances. He was a cult figure in the New Wave Underground scene who sang pop music like opera and brought opera to club audiences. He was a performer with a “look” so strong, that his first audiences went wild before he even opened his mouth. On the verge of international fame as a singer, he instead became one of the first prominent artists to die of AIDS. But the reaction Klaus Nomi provoked was so strong, that he is still unforgettable, even 20 years after his death.Read More »

Part of the Portuguese militant cinema made on the 70s. The title of this documentary (What Will I Do with This Sword?) is a call to anti-imperialist struggle and to the union of the working class.Read More »

Filmed just after the March ceasefire between France and Algeria, LE JOLI MAI documents Paris during a turning point in French history: the first time since 1939 that France was not involved in any war.

Part I, “A Prayer from the Eiffel Tower,” documents personal attitudes and feelings around Paris. A salesman feels free only when he is driving his car, and then only if there is not too much traffic. A working-class mother of eight has just gotten the larger apartment that she had been wanting for years. The space capsule of American astronaut John Glenn is examined by a group of admiring children. Two investors talk about their careers and adventures. A couple in love since their teens discuss the possibility of eternal happiness. At a middle class wedding banquet, the guests are raucous while the bride is quiet, dignified and reserved.Read More »

Allmovie.com
Acclaimed Spanish filmmaker Julio Medem turns toward nonfiction to direct the documentary La Pelota Vasca: La Piel Contra la Piedra (The Basque Ball: Skin Against Stone). This controversial film is a look at the complicated situation between the Basque nationalist movement and the Spanish government. Medem interviews politicians, novelists, musicians, and over 70 other commentators in his efforts to explain both sides of the complex situation in the Basque Country of Northern Spain. Contains French, Castilian Spanish, and Basque languages. The Basque Ball was shown at the San Sebastian Film Festival, the Sundance Film Festival, and was nominated for a Goya award.Read More »

A devastating and heartrending take on grizzly bear activists Timothy Treadwell and Amie Huguenard, who were killed in October of 2003 while living among grizzlies in Alaska.Read More »

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A look at what people from different countries suffer in order to have a job. Includes a coal miner in the Ukraine, a slaughterhouse worker in Nigeria, a sulfur miner in Indonesia, a steel worker in China, and a ship-breaker in Pakistan.Read More »

IDFA Synopsis :
A number of farmers – Jean Rouch’s actors who more or less play themselves – is looking for a simple and cheap way to irrigate their farmland. They dream of a green Niger. While struggling against their Sahel country turning into a desert more and more, they develop the idea to get a windmill from Holland. Rouch follows the three men – Damour, Lam, and Tallou – when they examine how wind-energy is applied in Holland. Jean Rouch: “The solution we are looking for is simple, so it will work. That is the moral of the film. So many projects have been carried out in this country that have failed. They are the ‘poisoned presents’: waterpumps installed but never maintained. The landscape is filled with these modern ruins.” MADAME L’EAU unmistakably has ironic overtones, but Rouch’s effort is genuine. He protests against the tendency of Third World development projects looking for expensive and complicated solutions that do not fit in with the needs of the local population.Read More »

A cinematic essay in defense of remembering, The Royal Road offers up a primer on Junipero Serra’s Spanish colonization of California and the Mexican American War alongside intimate reflections on nostalgia, the pursuit of unavailable women, butch identity and Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo — all against a contemplative backdrop of 16mm urban California landscapes, and featuring a voiceover cameo by Tony Kushner.
This bold, innovative film from acclaimed San Francisco filmmaker Jenni Olson combines rigorous historical research with lyrically written personal monologue and relates these seemingly disparate stories from an intimate, colloquial perspective to tell a one-of-a-kind California tale.Read More »

In 2052, a man wanders through a semi-constructed high rise in pursuit of hidden targets, in a minimalist rethinking of Blade Runner.Read More »