Various

An anthology film following different stories around the theme of invisibility in the modern world.Read More »

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Germany in Autumn does not have a plot per se; it mixes documentary footage, along with standard movie scenes, to give the audience the mood of Germany during the late 1970s. The movie covers the two month time period during 1977 when a businessman was kidnapped, and later murdered, by the left-wing terrorists known as the RAF-Rote Armee Fraktion (Red Army Faction). The businessman had been kidnapped in an effort to secure the release of the orginal leaders of the RAF, also known as the Baader-Meinhof gang. When the kidnapping effort and a plane hijacking effort failed, the three most prominent leaders of the RAF, Andreas Baader, Gudrun Enslin, and Jean-Carl Raspe, all committed suicide in prison. It has become an article of faith within the left-wing community that these three were actually murdered by the state. The movie has several vignettes, including an extended set of scenes with the famous director Rainer Werner Fassbinder discussing his feelings about Germany’s political situation at the time. Fassbinder’s scenes almost seem to be candid documentary footage, but aren’t. Other scenes include documentary footage of the joint funeral of Baader, Enslin, and Raspe.Read More »

review of Dream Machine from link
Burroughs’ Dream Machine On Film… Nearly., 26 March 2004
6/10
Author: scottanthony from Dorset, England

In theory: a short non-narrative film made to commemorate the visit of Burroughs and Gysin to the UK. In practice: four shorts (directed by Jarman, Kostiff, Maybury and Wyn Evans) broken up by footage of Gysin gazing at said machine.Read More »

Nine short stories that together amount to a play time of 3h20m.

Presented here are nine short films that feature: film director Slatan Dudow; actor Martin Brandt; authors Erich Fried, Erich Weinert, and Arnold Zweig; photographer Walter Ballhause; cartoonist Leo Haas; and journalist Egon Erwin Kisch. Original interviews with the artists, close family members, and friends are combined with little-known historic film material. All produced in the GDR.Read More »

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Cinema16 celebrates the short film by showcasing some of the best classic and award-winning shorts on DVD.

Aside from providing short films with a much needed platform, Cinema16 gives filmmakers and movie-lovers access to some great films that would otherwise be near impossible to see, from the fascinating early works of some of the world’s greatest directors to award-winning films from its most exciting new filmmakers.

Launching for the first time in North America, Cinema 16’s European Short Films DVD celebrates some of the best short films to have come out of Europe in the last half-century.

With over three hours of films, this DVD is essential viewing for anyone with an interest in the moving image. The majority of the films are accompanied by original audio commentaries, almost always by the directors themselves.Read More »

On the evening of September 30, 1952, the shape and sound of movies changed forever with the introduction of Cinerama. This unique widescreen process was launched when television was deemed as a major threat to US film exhibition. Fred Waller, Cinerama’s creator, had indeed labored that long on his dream of a motion picture experience that would recreate the full range of human vision. It used three cameras and three projectors on a curved screen 146° deep. In celebration of the 60th Anniversary of its premiere, Flicker Alley is proud to present THIS IS CINERAMA, exactly as seen by over 20,000,000 viewers in its original roadshow version. You will travel around the world with Cinerama, from Venice to Madrid, from Edinburgh Castle to the La Scala opera house in Milan, and concluding with a flight across America in the nose of a B-25 bomber.Read More »

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BFI Film Classics is a series of finely written, illustrated books that introduce, interpret and celebrate landmark films of world cinema. Each volume offers an argument for the film’s classic status, together with a discussion of its production and reception history, its place within a genre or national cinema, an account of it’s technical and aesthetic importance, and in many cases, the author’s personal response to the film. The BFI Film Classics series now includes titles previously published separately in the BFI Film Classics and the BFI Modern Classics Series.Read More »

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Around 1900, the issues of poverty and poor relief were the source of heated controversy. This DVD illustrates in seven chapters how examinations of the ‘Social Question’ were presented in magic lantern slide sets and early films. On the screens of auditoriums, Sunday schools, music-halls, cinemas and churches, visitors could witness orphans freezing to death in the snow, drunkards plunging their families into misery and helpless old people begging for a scrap of bread. Audiences experienced poignant moving pictures in performances with music, singing and recitations. The photographic and film industries delivered glass slide sets and films in very large runs on a variety of themes relating to poverty.Read More »

Synopsis by Dan Pavlides
Six directors combined efforts for this 1967 documentary, a searing anti-American indictment of U.S. involvement in Vietnam. Alain Resnais, William Klein, Joris Ivens, Agnes Varda, Claude Lelouch, and Jean-Luc Goddard all direct segments. They are quick to point out that the U.S. is radically divided about their country’s policy to stop the threat of communism.Read More »