Documentary

In Talking Heads, Kieślowski interviews 40 different people ranging from a one-year-old to a one-hundred-year-old simply asking them three questions: “What year were you born?”, “Who are you?” and “What would you like?”Read More »

Quote:
Starting in the eighties, strange tiled messages started appearing on city streets in Philadelphia as well as other major American hubs and even into several South American countries. The message contained on the tiles apparently refers to historian Arnold Toynbee and to Stanley Kubrick’s film “2001: A Space Odyssey.” It seems to reference a metaphysical assertion that some form of resurrection is possible, the exact nature of which is open to interpretation. “Resurrect Dead” follows one man’s obsession about finding out the truth behind the Toynbee Tiles. Justin Duerr, along with two other interested parties, made it a mission to discover the identity of the original tiler.Read More »

Let Each One Go Where He May
Ben Russell
2009
2hr. 13min.

Chicago-based filmmaker Ben Russell has gone international with Trypps – a series of short, mesmerizing films loosely interpreting the notion of “trip,” from literal, geographic journeys to ecstatic music-induced highs, variations of trance and spasmodic filmic episodes. Along with Tjüba Tën/The Wet Season (co-directed by Brigid McCaffrey), his medium-length experimental documentary shot in Suriname, and his live projector performances, Russell’s body of work displays an ever-increasing interest in cinematic anthropologies.

Let Each One Go Where He May is Russell’s stunning feature debut, a film that both partakes in and dismantles traditional ethnography, opts for mystery and natural beauty over annotation and artifice, and employs unconventional storytelling as a means toward historical remembrance. A rigorous, exquisite work with a structure at once defined and winding, the film traces the extensive journey of two unidentified brothers who venture from the outskirts of Paramaribo, Suriname, on land and through rapids, past a Maroon village on the Upper Suriname River, in a rehearsal of the voyage undertaken by their ancestors, who escaped from slavery at the hands of the Dutch 300 years earlier. The path is still travelled to this day and its changing topography bespeaks a diverse history of forced migration.Read More »

A filmmaker sets out to discover the life of Joyce Vincent, who died in her bedsit in North
London in 2003. Her body wasn’t discovered for three years, and newspaper reports
offered few details of her life – not even a photograph.Read More »

Winner of 23 Awards

“…a profoundly disturbing and imaginative work.”
–Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times

The Smell of Burning Ants is a haunting documentary on the pains of growing up male. It explores the inner and outer cruelties that boys perpetrate and endure. The film provokes the viewer to reflect on how our society can deprive boys of wholeness.

Through formative events of a boy’s life, we come to understand the ways in which men can become emotionally disconnected and alienated from their feminine side. The common dismissal that “boys will be boys” evolves into the chilling realization that boys frequently become angry, destructive and emotionally disabled men. The Smell of Burning Ants illustrates how boys are socialized by fear, power and shame. The film is a catalyst for discussion and an opportunity to begin the process of healing the wounds of childhood.Read More »

Made as a series of 13 programmes about the influence of Greek culture in our society.

The Owl’s Heritage: Sequence

1. Symposium, or Accepted Ideas
2. Olympics, or Imaginary Greece
3. Democracy, or the City of Dreams
4. Nostalgia, or the Impossible Return
5. Amnesia, or History on the March
6. Mathematics, or the Empire Counts Back
7. Logomachy, or the Dialect of the Tribe
8. Music, or Inner Space
9. Cosmogony, or the Ways of the World
10. Mytholody, or Lies like Truth
11. Mysogyny, or the Snares of Desire
12. Tragedy, or the Illusion of Death
13. Philosophy, or the Triumph of the Owl
Read More »

Quote:
Though art is not my specialty, I do love to wander around a museum. It’s not something I do often, but I get that itch to surround myself with works that have stood the test of time. Gazing at such beautiful art stirs pangs of jealousy that I’m not able to do such things myself. But I know my limitations, and I will simply allow myself an occasional stroll through the controlled environment of my local museums. Shamefully, while I lived just outside of Washington D.C., I spent just one afternoon in its superb Smithsonian Museum of Art; and, on a recent trip to New York City, I nearly ran through the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In Ohio, where I have spent most of my life, the museums in Cleveland, Dayton, and Cincinnati don’t have the works we’d all like to see. I am actually quite selective in what I like, and that tends toward realism, impressionism, and a touch of surrealism. Contemporary art, cubism, and other abstract forms irritate me and implore me to return to the rooms that showcase works created before the twentieth century.Read More »

Documentary on the life of Michel Recanati, a leading figure in the May 1968 riots in Paris. He was also involved in the Revolutionary Communist Youth movement and anti-fascist campaigns. He was imprisoned briefly in 1973, and five years later committed suicide aged thirty.

This film won the Golden Palm at the 1982 Cannes Film Festival.
It often gets referenced as one of the greatest films about “1968”.Read More »

PBS documentary on John Cassavestes featuring comments from Peter Bogdanovich, Martin Scorsese, as well as Peter Falk and Ben Gazzara.Read More »