Over three years celebrated documentary filmmaker Alison Klayman followed leading
contemporary artist Ai Weiwei as he prepared for exhibitions, spent time with his family and
came to blows with the Chinese government. What resulted would create the documentary
event of the year. Read More »
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The parts of the Planet we call Mexico and the United States share the greatest region with socio-economic-political differences. That makes it a bridge for thousands of migrants who expose themselves to every danger as they travel through the continent on a train called “The Beast.” That’s where they meet the Patronas, a group of women from the part of the Planet we call Mexico who, every day since 1995, make food and toss it to the helpless as the train rushes by. Read More »
Once again, Travis Wilkerson (take a look at the credits) has worked (almost) by himself on his last film. Using the quest for a lost love as an excuse, this extremely generous film casts a wide net over History, from Maïakovsky to a certain L. Schapiro, from Bonnie & Clyde to Ulrike Meinhof, from the 1871 Paris Commune to the here and now. Despite its stunning economy of means, this playful and ironical film with a beautiful soundtrack always remains elegant. FIDMarseille catalogue. Read More »
Orson Welles’ BBC series is basically a bunch of monologues by Welles, with some illustrations by Welles, about — theatre; theatre critics; voodoo magic used to kill theatre critics; bullfighting; customs officers; the false nose; and many other topics, all connected to Welles’ career in film, theatre and radio.
Very very funny, charming as hell, and an absolute must for Wellesians.Read More »
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For one year, from 1944 to 1945, Georges Rouquier shared the life of a peasant family, his own, in the Farrebique farm in Goutrens, in the Rouergue region. He shows us life on a farm, marked by the rhythm of seasons, from harvesting in summer to the grandfather’s rituals of slicing the bread for dinner. The film also dwells on the hardships of life on a farm and the transformation brought on by the arrival of electricity, of modern times. Farrebique reveals the beauty of these people, their closeness to their beasts and to nature, facing an often harsh life. Read More »
In St Just-and-Vacquières, Jean-Michel Burel, a schoolmaster of a multilevel class, begins his last school year before retirement. The teacher teaches tolerance and wisdom in the same way as spelling and mathematics. He leads his program with determination. He strives to support students to give them confidence and elevate them higher. Through the eyes of a former student, now a director, there is a timeless school where rigor is combined with good humor, a school where freedom begins with respect for others. A school that belongs to everyone and to the universal domain of childhood.Read More »
The ECM (Edition of Contemporary Music) record label is now in its 42nd year, and remains as mysterious and uncompromising as ever. This is primarily due to the fact that ECM is a nearly total reflection of founder Manfred Eicher. In fact, there has never been a label that has enjoyed such long-term success, while retaining an owner’s hands-on approach as ECM.Read More »
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Between 1922 and 1925, a total of 23 issues of Dziga Vertov’s newsreel series Kino-Pravda (Kino-Truth) appeared (albeit irregularly and in very few copies). Vertov’s goal was to create a kind of “screen newspaper”; the title is a tribute to the newspaper Pravda founded by Lenin. Just like the Kinonedelja newsreel series (1918–19), the Kino-Pravda issues offer a fascinating insight into the early Soviet Union and demonstrate the rapid development of Vertov’s film language.
The 22 surviving issues (No. 12 is lost) have been digitized and subtitled in German and English by the Austrian Film Museum in 2017/18 and are now available online.Read More »
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Paparazzi explores the relationship between Brigitte Bardot and groups of invasive photographers attempting to photograph her while she works on the set of Jean-Luc Godard’s film Le Mépris (Contempt). Through video footage of Bardot, interviews with the paparazzi, and still photos of Bardot from magazine covers and elsewhere, director Rozier investigates some of the ramifications of international movie stardom, specifically the loss of privacy to the paparazzi. The film explains the shooting of the film on the island of Capri, and the photographers’ valiant, even foolishly dangerous, attempts to get a photograph of Bardot.Read More »