Documentary

  • Carlos Saura – Las paredes hablan AKA Walls Can Talk (2022)

    Carlos Saura2021-2030ArthouseDocumentarySpain

    Carlos Saura’s peculiar take on the origin of art. The acclaimed and multi-award winning director, with more than 50 films to his name, portrays the evolution and relationship of art with the wall as a creative canvas from the first graphic revolutions of the prehistoric caves to the most avant-garde urban expressions. A thrilling and personal journey in the company of figures including Juan Luis Arsuaga, Miquel Barceló, Zeta, Musa 71 and Suso 33.Read More »

  • Penelope Spheeris – I Don’t Know (1971)

    1971-1980DocumentaryQueer Cinema(s)Short FilmUSA

    A truly major work, I Don’t Know observes the relationship between a lesbian and a transgender man who prefers to identify somewhere in between male and female, in an expression of personal ambiguity suggested by the film’s title. This nonfiction film—an unusual, partly staged work of semi-verité—is the first of director Spheeris’ films to fully embrace what would become her characteristic documentary style: probing, intimate,
    uncompromising and deeply meaningful. (Mark Toscano)

    Preserved by the Academy Film ArchiveRead More »

  • Stephen Soucy – Merchant Ivory (2023)

    2021-2030DocumentaryStephen SoucyUSA

    Follows the history of the Merchant Ivory partnership, featuring interviews with James Ivory and close collaborators detailing and celebrating their experiences of being a part of the company.Read More »

  • Nicola Graef – Neo Rauch – Gefährten und Begleiter (2016)

    2011-2020DocumentaryGermanyNicola Graef

    DARUM GEHT’SNicola Graef followed German artist Neo Rauch for three years in his studio in Leipzig and at exhibitions in America, Asia and Europe. He observes critical dialogs with Rauch’s artist wife Rosa Loy and discusses with international collectors, gallery owners and art lovers the phenomenon Neo Rauch.Read More »

  • Manoel de Oliveira – Visita ou Memórias e Confissões AKA Memories and Confessions (1982/1993/2015)

    Manoel de Oliveira1991-2000ArthouseDocumentaryPortugal

    A docu-drama that follows Manoel de Oliveira’s life during the times of dictatorship in Portugal.

    Quote:
    73-year-old De Oliveira decides to make a personal movie that his audience will only know once heis dead. In 1982, the director takes the decision to make a movie about (and in) his (ex) house, in which he lived for over 40 years. The initial still shot is held for a long while with the presence oftrees in the garden of his house in Oporto. De Oliveira himself introduces the film and speaks all the credits out. The voices of a man and a woman guide us for most of the first part, in a sort of preliminary and formal tour around the totality of the house. They remain out of frame and the camera perspective is not necessarily theirs.Read More »

  • Arnaud des Pallières – Poussières d’Amérique (2011)

    Arnaud des Pallières2011-2020DocumentaryExperimentalFrance

    IMDB so-called plot :
    “A dream-like story of America put together out of silent-film material from the archives, interspersed with many different accounts to be read, some of them in verse.”

    ““This is a logbook. A film which has been improvised. A poem that is slightly too long and made from other films parts, bits of sentences, pieces of music and sounds from all around. It was written in the language of cinema, without dialogue or commentary. It is both a silent movie and a wordy one as it relates many stories, twenty or so, short, minor and forming what is called History with a capital H when put together.Read More »

  • Joyce Chopra – Joyce at 34 (1972)

    Joyce Chopra1971-1980DocumentaryUSA

    The film’s documentation of being new to parenting is candid. It begins with the filmmaker talking of her debilitation as a pregnant woman. The pregnancy feels endless. She wants to return to work. After giving birth, Joyce attempts to regain her position as a working filmmaker while also caring for her new baby. The changes to both her and her husband’s professional lives are remarkable and frustrating. The new parents love the baby, Sarah, but must recognize the limitations she puts on their careers. Joyce tries to edit her latest project with the baby on her lap, Sarah grasping for the film stock; her husband, Tom Cole, a writer, attempts a meeting with his editor during the baby’s feeding time.Read More »

  • Kirby Dick – Sick: The Life & Death of Bob Flanagan, Supermasochist (1997)

    Kirby Dick1991-2000DocumentaryUSA

    Documentary about writer and performance artist Bob Flanagan who died at 43 of cystic fibrosis. His life was indicated by pain from the beginning and he started to develop sadomasochistic practices, which he developed finally into performances.Read More »

  • John Huston – Let There Be Light (1946)

    John Huston1941-1950DocumentaryUSAWar

    This groundbreaking, long-suppressed look at the effects of war on returning veterans was among the first films to tackle the issue of post-traumatic stress disorder (or as it was then called, “shell shock” or “battle fatigue”). Shot at Mason General Hospital in Brentwood, Long Island, at the end of World War II, LET THERE BE LIGHT follows seventy-five former soldiers suffering debilitating psychological trauma who, in the film’s most dramatic scenes, are given sodium pentothal to recall their horrific experiences in the war. Considered too disturbing and controversial for exhibition, this landmark documentary was suppressed by the military for decades until it finally premiered in New York in 1980.Read More »

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