Social & External
"Taniel" looks at the last months of poet Taniel Varoujan's life, who was murdered in the Armenian Genocide of 1915. The film's narrative is heard in poetry and seen through Film Noir images.
A Lebanese migrant in The Netherlands receives a haunting voice message from his former best friend in Beirut.
After World War II a group of young writers, outsiders and friends who were disillusioned by the pursuit of the American dream met in New York City. Associated through mutual friendships, these cultural dissidents looked for new ways and means to express themselves. Soon their writings found an audience and the American media took notice, dubbing them the Beat Generation. Members of this group included writers Jack Kerouac, William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg. a trinity that would ultimately influence the works of others during that era, including the "hippie" movement of the '60s. In this 55-minute video narrated by Allen Ginsberg, members of the Beat Generation (including the aforementioned Burroughs, Anne Waldman, Peter Orlovsky, Amiri Baraka, Diane Di Prima, and Timothy Leary) are reunited at Naropa University in Boulder, CO during the late 1970's to share their works and influence a new generation of young American bohemians.
A three-chapter (Hell, Purgatory and Paradise) meditation on the city of Sarajevo in the wake of the Bosnian war, on Palestine and Israel, and on war itself.
San Francisco's North Beach in the 50's - A mix of jazz, poetry and art - The Beach recreates the atmosphere that prevailed through first-hand accounts from the actual "players" along with photographs and artwork from that vibrant time.
Testament of Youth is a powerful story of love, war and remembrance, based on the First World War memoir by Vera Brittain, which has become the classic testimony of that war from a woman’s point of view. A searing journey from youthful hopes and dreams to the edge of despair and back again, it’s a film about young love, the futility of war and how to make sense of the darkest times.
At the age of 9, I stopped speaking. It's the year I broke from the inside, raped. I came out as a trans boy years later. I am often afraid of becoming a man who I might confuse for the one who hounded my body. This film is a poem, this film is about growing into the unknown.
A boy-poet from the village enrolls at the elementary school in the nearest city, but the other kids reject him for not being one of theirs. However, the real values emerge at the surface.
In Busto of a poet, the word is the real protagonist: the verses, reflections and texts of José Ángel Valente take shape through the poet's gaze around the lands, landscapes and monuments of Navarre, in a deep and magical journey. Image, word, music and silence converge and harmonize.
It's been years since Stef last left her house. The loss of her brother combined with the quiet dread of the unknown conspiring to keep her inside. When her brother Liam's best friend, Evan, arrives to give Liam's journal to Stef, they begin a relationship. However, when Stef and Evan start to unpack their shared trauma, they question if their relationship can ever break free from its confines? Caught between Evan's images of a world outside that they could inhabit, and a story of lost love that Stef is translating from a previous generation, Stef must choose the kind of future she wants, and whether Evan will be a part of it.
Sandra Carpenter is a London-based dancer who is distraught to learn that her friend has disappeared. Soon after the disappearance, she's approached by Harley Temple, a police investigator who believes her friend has been murdered by a serial killer who uses personal ads to find his victims. Temple hatches a plan to catch the killer using Sandra as bait, and Sandra agrees to help.
Follows the young people of Selma, Alabama's RATCo (Random Acts of Theatre Company) as they journey to New York City to share their story of hope, resilience, and overcoming.
Kang Sai, a reserved and talented artist, has long seen his cheerful friend Xiao Xi as his muse. After college, he journeys to the serene Arxan National Forest Park for inspiration, and Xiao Xi soon joins him. Amidst the stunning landscape that becomes their haven, they face life’s challenges, testing the strength of their bond and the future of their love.
Maia, a single mother, lives in Montreal with her teenage daughter, Alex. On Christmas Eve, they receive an unexpected delivery: notebooks, tapes, and photos Maia, from 13 to 18 years old, sent from Beirut to her best friend who left for Paris to escape the civil war. Maia refuses to open the box or confront its memories, but Alex secretly begins diving into it. Between fantasy and reality, Alex enters the world of her mother’s tumultuous, passionate adolescence during the Lebanese civil war, unlocking mysteries of a hidden past.
William Thatcher, a knight's peasant apprentice, gets a chance at glory when the knight dies suddenly mid-tournament. Posing as a knight himself, William won't stop until he's crowned tournament champion—assuming matters of the heart don't get in the way.
The tumultuous life of Arthur Rimbaud, the cursed poet, who completed his masterwork at the age of twenty, became an arms dealer and died at thirty-seven; and his passionate relationship with Paul Verlaine, full of wanderings, storms and falling out.
A spring night is a poetic film which is based on the motives of the poem by V. Lugovsky. The film is devoted to the theme of fidelity to the battle traditions of revolutionary past, to the theme of human happiness the sense of it in the battle for high ideals.
Set during the Lebanese revolution, WE NEVER LEFT portrays a heart-wrenching duality between Beirut and New York, an impassioned testament to the Lebanese diaspora’s unrequited but irrepressible love for their homeland.
At the Blue Iguana, L.A.'s most notorious strip club, the lives of five exotic dancers converge, clash and ultimately bond over the course of one week.
A psychiatrist attempts to cure a patient who thinks he's the son of Zeus, while dodging the mental ward himself.
In the wake of a freak accident, Lance suffers the worst tragedy and the greatest opportunity of his life. He is suddenly faced with the possibility of fame, fortune and popularity, if he can only live with the knowledge of how he got there.
A film about existence from the perspective of 20 nameless black females. Each of the women portray one of the characters represented in the collection of twenty poems, revealing different issues that impact women in general and women of color in particular.
About the young life and loves of artist Salvador Dalí, filmmaker Luis Buñuel and writer Federico García Lorca.
All but abandoned by her family in a London retirement hotel, an elderly woman strikes up a curious friendship with a young writer.
In 1818, high-spirited young Fanny Brawne finds herself increasingly intrigued by the handsome but aloof poet John Keats, who lives next door to her family friends the Dilkes. After reading a book of his poetry, she finds herself even more drawn to the taciturn Keats. Although he agrees to teach her about poetry, Keats cannot act on his reciprocated feelings for Fanny, since as a struggling poet he has no money to support a wife.
At an idyllic writers retreat in Morocco, a newly single novelist finds an unexpected connection with a younger man who's reevaluating his life choices.
An animated telling of Kobe Bryant's titular poem, signaling his retirement from the sport that made his name.
Ahmed, 18, is French of Algerian origin. He grew up in the Parisian suburbs. On the benches of the university, he meets Farah, a young Tunisian full of energy recently arrived from Tunis. While discovering a body of sensual and erotic Arabic literature that he never knew existed, Ahmed falls deeply in love with this girl, and although literally overwhelmed by desire, he will try to resist it.
Two girlfriends on a summer holiday in Spain become enamored with the same painter, unaware that his ex-wife, with whom he has a tempestuous relationship, is about to re-enter the picture.
Like many happy people, Bruno Hamel is leading an uneventful life until one afternoon, when his daughter is raped and murdered. When the murderer is arrested, a terrible project germinates in Bruno's darkened mind. He plans to capture the "monster" and make him pay for his crime.
Gus Van Sant tells the story of a young African American man named Jamal who confronts his talents while living on the streets of the Bronx. He accidentally runs into an old writer named Forrester who discovers his passion for writing. With help from his new mentor Jamal receives a scholarship to a private school.
Because of his wavering health, Monsieur Henri can no longer live alone in his Paris appartment. Particularly grumpy, he ends up nonetheless accepting his son Paul's suggestion that he let one of his rooms out to a young female student. Far from falling for her charms, Henri uses her to orchestrate utter family chaos...
It's San Francisco in 1957, and an American masterpiece is put on trial. Howl, the film, recounts this dark moment using three interwoven threads: the tumultuous life events that led a young Allen Ginsberg to find his true voice as an artist, society's reaction (the obscenity trial), and mind-expanding animation that echoes the startling originality of the poem itself. All three coalesce in a genre-bending hybrid that brilliantly captures a pivotal moment-the birth of a counterculture.
Set in Los Angeles in 1962, at the height of the Cuban missile crisis, is the story of a British college professor who dwells on the past and cannot see his future. We follow him through a single day, where a series of events and encounters ultimately lead him to decide if there is a meaning to life after the death of his long time partner, Jim.
A suburban father gets trapped in a one-sided incestuous relationship with his abusive son.
A neurotic, twice-divorced sci-fi writer moves back in with his mother to solve his personal problems.
Newly single, 35, and uninspired by his job, Jesse Fisher worries that his best days are behind him. But no matter how much he buries his head in a book, life keeps pulling Jesse back. When his favorite college professor invites him to campus to speak at his retirement dinner, Jesse jumps at the chance.
A struggling young writer finds his life and work dominated by his unfaithful wife and his radical feminist mother, whose best-selling manifesto turns her into a cultural icon.
A week in the life of Paterson, a poet bus driver, and his wife Laura, a very creative artist, who live in Paterson, New Jersey, hometown of many famous poets and artists.
