Documentary

  • Mani Kaul – Mati Manas AKA The Mind of Clay (1985)

    1981-1990DocumentaryIndiaMani Kaul

    Quote:
    In a poetic hour and a half, director Mani Kaul looks at the ancient art of making pottery from a wide variety of perspectives. Pots are shown in many settings, including a museum where a young child is mesmerized by the ceramics that ancient ancestors created from clay. The tradition continues and so does its magic, as potters are shown deftly working a lump of wet clay and fashioning it moment by moment into a slowly emerging shape. Kaul blends in myth and fables as well as the beauty of the art itself to create an inspiring look at a humble, everyday object.Read More »

  • Benjamin Nolot – Liberated: The New Sexual Revolution (2017)

    USA2011-2020Benjamin NolotDocumentary

    Liberated: The New Sexual Revolution is a documentary about today’s young adult hookup culture. The film follows the journey of college students during their Spring Break revelries, offering an insightful look into their attitudes and behaviors regarding sex. It is an honest and raw depiction of this casual sex environment where sexual violation has become normal. Liberated widens the view of today’s hookup culture by examining the role of pop-culture in shaping conceptions of gender and sexuality that underlie this new sexual revolution.Read More »

  • Akram Zaatari – Fi haza al-bayt aka In This House (2004)

    2001-2010Akram ZaatariDocumentaryLebanonPolitics

    Synopsis
    His film In This House, 2005 records the search in the garden of a house in southern Lebanon for a letter encased and buried there by a former National Front resistance fighter who had occupied the house in the early 1980s. The split-screen format presents, on one side, the resistance member—now a respected photo-journalist—telling the story of his experience in the house and on the other side, the digging up of the garden and the eventual discovery of the canister containing the letter. The running table of text that accompanies the unfolding narrative identifies the owners of the house and a host of security agents who oversee the operation and whose faces, we are told, are not to be filmed. The anxiety about who or what is allowed to be caught on film together with their growing excitement as the letter is unearthed connotes the poignant tension of a country in a constant state of deferral; the dilemma of whether it is better to unpack the still unresolved consequences of events from the past or to simply carry on, and leave them buried.Read More »

  • Ron Mann – Go Further (2003)

    2001-2010CanadaDocumentaryRon Mann

    GO FURTHER is a documentary that charts the progress of an environmental activism bus tour from Seattle to Santa Barbara, led by actor Woody Harrelson. In a biofuel bus burning hempseed oil as gas, painted with scenic and symbolic murals depicting the tour’s goals, Harrelson and his crew of eclectic environmentalists–a yoga instructor, a raw foods chef, an organic living neophyte–set out to educate people about Simple Organic Living (SOL), calling their trek the SOL Tour. While some of the SOL Tour’s participants ride in the bus, others bike alongside it.Read More »

  • Sergei M. Eisenstein – La Destrucción de Oaxaca (1931)

    1931-1940DocumentaryMexicoSergei M. EisensteinSilentUSSR

    Description: Footage of the aftermath of the January 14 1931 Earthquake in Oaxaca, Mexico.Read More »

  • Tarek Ehlail – Chaostage (2009)

    2001-2010ActionDocumentaryGermanyTarek Ehlail

    Germany during a normal summer weekend. Punks, Skins and autonomous groups – in case they meet each other this will end up in chaos – this happens during the Chaostage (chaos days). The movie tells a story which could happen every time anywhere. The right mixture of beer, sun music and a feeling of violence will become an explosive mixture.Read More »

  • Werner Herzog – On Death Row (2012)

    2011-2020DocumentaryUSAWerner Herzog

    In this gripping series of films, Academy-Award nominated filmmaker Werner Herzog (Into
    the Abyss, Grizzly Man) delves deeper into the abyss of the human soul. Through
    interviews with five inmates awaiting their appointment with a lethal injection in the Texas
    and Florida prison systems, Herzog conducts a uniquely thought-provoking analysis of why
    people, and the state, kill. Each of the four episodes features an intense interview with a
    death row inmate in which we hear their own account of life in captivity and the crime that
    condemned them. Herzog explores the emotions that these men and women go through as
    they possess the haunting knowledge of exactly when – and how – they are going to die.
    Utterly gripping, Death Row packs a strong emotional punch and is a truly unmissable
    experience.Read More »

  • Michael Apted & Paul Almond – 56 Up (2012)

    DocumentaryMichael AptedPoliticsUnited Kingdom

    Quote:
    56 Up is the latest instalment of the landmark TV documentary series which has returned every seven years to focus on a group of people from varying social backgrounds who were first filmed at the age of seven. The new series revisits all but one of the original group.Read More »

  • Ruth Beckermann – Ein flüchtiger Zug nach dem Orient AKA A Fleeting Passage to the Orient (1999)

    1991-2000AustriaDocumentaryRuth Beckermann

    Elisabeth of Austria left the scene long before her death. “I want to travel the world,” she said, “the Wandering Jew will be a homebody compared to me. I want to sail the seas, roam as a female Flying Dutchman until I have sunk and disappeared.” This is the start of Ruth Beckermann’s cinematic journey.

    Read More »

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