Documentary

In 1962, a U.S. soldier sent to guard the peace in South Korea deserted his unit, walked across the most heavily fortified area on earth and defected to the Cold War enemy, the communist state of North Korea. He then simply disappeared from the face of the known world. He became a coveted star of the North Korean propaganda machine, and found fame acting in films, typecast as an evil American. He uses Korean as his daily language. He has three sons from two wives. He has now lived in North Korea twice as long as he has in America. At one time, there were four Americans living in North Korea. Today, just one remains. Now, after 45 years, the story of Comrade Joe, the last American defector in North Korea, is told.Read More »

“A riveting BBC documentary that illuminates the character of that nation.” — Jeff Shannon, SEATTLE TIMES

“Striking footage from North Korea, the country with the world’s fewest visitors.” — Harvey S. Karten, COMPUSERVE

“Priceless footage inside the secret church-state of North Korea and the beautiful Mass Games, this documentary sheds little light on the people themselves.”  — Ron Wilkinson, MONSTERS AND CRITICS

“Gordon gives an intimate, balanced account of how political power, famine, power shortages and a hatred of America have shaped their young lives.”  — Paul Malcolm, L.A. WEEKLY

“The biggest value of the movie is the depiction of Pyongyang life, the elaborate Mass Games choreography, a wondrous road trip to the revered Mount Paektu, and the ideological mind-set of typical North Korean citizens.”  — G. Allen Johnson, SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLERead More »

Quote:
With its riveting footage of a secretive ‘underground railroad,’ SEOUL TRAIN is the gripping documentary expose into the life and death of North Koreans as they try to escape their homeland and China.

SEOUL TRAIN also delves into the complex geopolitics behind this growing and potentially explosive humanitarian crisis. By combining verite footage, personal stories and interviews with experts and government officials, SEOUL TRAIN depicts the flouting of international laws by major countries, the inaction and bureaucracy of the United Nations, and the heroics of activists that put themselves in harm’s way to save the refugees.Read More »

In 1985, filmmaker Richard Linklater began a film screening society in Austin, Texas, that aimed to show classic art-house and experimental films to a budding community of cinephiles and filmmakers. The Austin Film Society raised enough money to fly in their first out-of-town invitee, visionary experimental filmmaker James Benning. Accepting the invitation, Benning met Linklater and immediately the two began to develop a personal and intellectual bond, which has lasted through the present. After the cult success of “Slacker” (1991), Linklater has gone on to make award-winning big budget narrative films including “School of Rock” (2003), “Before Midnight” (2013) and “Boyhood” (2014). Benning, meanwhile, has stayed close to his modest roots and is mainly an unknown figure in mainstream film culture. Combining filmed conversations and archival material, “Double Play” explores the connections between the work and lives of these two American visionaries.Read More »

‘It for Others’, 2013, (16mm film transferred to digital video, 54 minutes)

Duncan Campbell produces films that look at representations of the people and events at the heart of very particular histories – figures such as John Delorean and Bernadette Devlin. Combining archive material with his own footage, his work questions the authority, integrity and intentions of the information presented. For Scotland + Venice 2013, Campbell has taken Chris Marker and Alain Resnais’ 1953 film ‘Les Statues meurent aussi’ (Statues also Die) as both source and artefact, to pursue a meditation on the life, death and value of objects.  In the exhibition, Campbell presents the older film alongside his new work, a social and historical examination of cultural imperialism and commodity that combines filmed footage, animation and archive footage.  ‘It for others’ includes a performance made in collaboration with Michael Clark Company that seeks to illustrate the basic principle of commodities and their exchange.Read More »

“Peter Hutton is a still photographer that puts pictures into motion or it might be more apt to say that Peter Hutton is a motion picture maker that makes them still. His films are images, presented like slides, no inherent story, no specific connection other than local proximity. His camera remains locked down, his gaze intensely fixated on a particular setting as he allows time to unwind before the lens. The moments he captures are ones of small change, but profound beauty.Read More »

Joaquim Pinto, who has been living with HIV for more than two decades, looks back at his life in cinema, at his friendships and loves, at the mysteries of art and nature – while undergoing an experimental drug treatment.Read More »

The 2014 Astra Film Festival’s Focus Loznitsa now presents his latest documentary Maidan, alongside three of his earlier works—The Train stop(2000), Landscape (2003) and Blockade (2005)—as well as a panel discussion related to the concept of “authorship” within film-making between Sergei Loznitsa and Cristi Puiu, moderated by Neil Young (film critic, UK).

Questions arising include:

* What happens when the texture of the film is composed of images recorded directly from the immediate mundanity of the world around us?
* What happens to the position of the filmaker as author engaged in an existential understanding of the world while, for example, shooting in the central square Kiev amid full revolutionary turmoil?
* Can the film-maker avoid or resist the direct expression of his/her own political stance?
* Cinema is established as a very strong medium and, throughout its history, has been misused as a dangerous means of mass manipulation, especially when the language of the film espouses and expresses a particular political position. What is the correct standpoint of a filmmaker as an author in this situation?
* What is the role of a filmmaker concerned with the controversies of a society undergoing dramatic transformation?

The panel discussion takes place after the screening of the film MaidanRead More »

A one-of-a-kind story about two-of-a-kind men who (for better or worse) changed film forever.Read More »