Documentary

As political and social tumult rocked France in May and June of 1968, Jean Eustache used his first documentary to focus on persistent tradition, in the form of a centuries-old ceremony in his hometown of Pessac. Each year, Pessac’s civic leaders choose a young woman they consider an exemplar of moral virtue, with a daylong celebration commemorating the changing of the guard from the previous year’s “virgin” to the present one. Eustache observes the exacting selection process, the fostering of communal bonds, and a bold implication by Pessac’s presiding priest that the ritual upholds the same Christian values for which leftist students and workers were then currently fighting.Read More »

Small nightly monochrome silent landscapes to observe and enter another time to feel how everyday transforms through the gaze.
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This gorgeous landscape film is an invitation to the magical wonders of the night. Sohn Koo-yong’s second feature is a soothing, silent caress for our senses. Composed of a series of deliciously framed still shots and abstract drawings made by the filmmaker himself, superimposed onto the filmed images, it will enthral you with an enchanting ambience and unique lyricism. Without any sound or music, it speaks in a selection of poems by the Seonbi of the Joseon Dynasty that melts into the nightscape.Read More »

Fly With Me tells the story of the pioneering young women who became flight attendants at a time when single women were unable to order a drink, eat alone in a restaurant, own a credit card or get a prescription for birth control. Becoming a “stewardess,” as they were called, offered unheard-of opportunities for travel, glamour, adventure and independence. Although often maligned as feminist sellouts, these women were on the frontlines of the battle to assert gender equality and transform the workplace. Featuring firsthand accounts, personal stories and a rich archival record, the film tells the lively and important but neglected history of the women who changed the world while flying it.Read More »

‘In NOTRE DAME DE LA CROISETTE’ Schmid turns his abundant eye on that loved and despised Mecca of European film life, the Cannes International Film Festival. Bulle Ogier stars as a woman who goes to Cannes and, lost in its chaos and unable to obtain tickets, ends up watching it on television from her hotel room. But the spectacle-in-the-box brings her much more of the world than she bargained for, and she finds refuge in her dreams of Cannes as it was thirty years ago, when living myths walked the earth: Picasso, Henri Langlois, Maria Callas, Cary Grant, Elizabeth Taylor, Arletty, and Jean Cocteau.

Le Festival International du Film de Cannes, 1981. Une jeune femme, de passage, peine à voir un seul des films du festival. De guerre lasse, repliée dans sa chambre d’hôtel, elle le regarde à la télévision.Read More »

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Made by the Polish Telegraphic Agency, this reportage shows the construction and operation of the modern cargo port in Gdynia and its facilities. It is a typical example of a propaganda film of the second half of the 1930s, showing the rapid development of the young country and its growing economic power. The film has been digitised based on a copy imported from the Soviet Union in 1980.Read More »

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After a twenty year period of multiple illnesses and injuries, the filmmaker turns the camera on herself as a way to analyze her chances for a happier, healthier life. In the process, she captures the frustration, tedium and petty annoyances of a revolving-door relationship with the medical establishment, while portraying the complicated web of emotions that accompany any medical problem. With humor and honesty, The Odds of Recovery uses the filmmaker’s medical history as a means to address a perennial human problem: the desire to avoid conflict and deny the need for radical change.Read More »

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Working outside the mainstream, the wildly prolific, visionary Stan Brakhage made more than 350 films over a half century. Challenging all taboos in his exploration of “birth, sex, death, and the search for God,” he turned his camera on explicit lovemaking, childbirth, even autopsy. Many of his most famous works pursue the nature of vision itself and transcend the act of filming. Some, including the legendary Mothlight, were created without using a camera at all, as he pioneered the art of making images directly on film, by drawing, painting, and scratching. With these two volumes, we present the definitive Brakhage collection – fifty-six of his works, from across his career, in high-definition digital transfers.Read More »

blurb sez: In Sept./Oct. 1992 a mini festival took place in the Temple Bar Area of Dublin. Called ‘The Here To Go Show’, it celebrated William Burroughs and Brion Gysin and was located at The Gallery of Photography, The Project Arts Centre, and a number of Private locations. Organised by English writer Terry Wilson, Irish rock singer Frank Rynne, and writer Joe Ambrose. The show was documented in guerilla fashion by the organisers the results of which have been distilled into ‘Destroy all Rational Thought’.Read More »

In August, 1982, a small group of radio visionaries at WLIR Long Island knew they couldn’t compete with the mega radio stations in New York City. With one brave decision, they changed the sound of radio forever. Program Director Denis McNamara, the crew at the station and the biggest artists of the era tell the story of how they battled the FCC, the record labels, mega-radio and all the conventional rules to create a musical movement that brought the New Wave to America – including bands like U2, Talking Heads, Depeche Mode and Blondie.Read More »