Sarah J. Christman continues her 16mm ecological studies with Gowanus Canal, in which contamination and compression of refuse intimate a stultifying state for one of the most polluted bodies of water in the United States.
Social & External
The people behind it
This haunting film comprises of footage shot during WWI from opposite sides of the conflict: Czarist Russia and the Austro-Hungarian empire. The filmmakers tinted the material with sensual colors from sepia to red, blue, and purple and slowed the footage to analyze the material. The total absence of commentary renders the material eloquent and disturbing. - MoMA
In 1926 the remains of two ships built by the Emperor Caligula were found at the bottom of Lake Nemi, near Rome. Mussolini had the lake drained and established a museum as a celebration of the imperial origins of Fascism, but the museum and ships were destroyed by fleeing Nazis in 1944. The film commemorates these events. - MoMA
Legendary rumba musician Alberto Zayas serves as a guide for this vibrant journey through Cuban musical history and culture. The short features interviews, footage of impromptu street performances, and studio recordings.
This black-and-white film is a loving portrait of Santiago de Cuba and its people. It provides a view of Cuba as a picturesque country, the product of an earthy mix of black and criollo cultures. The film uses historical images which portray the end of the eighteenth century when Haitian slave owners fled with their slaves to Cuba after the Haitian Revolution.
Director Eugenia Gutu offers a feminist critique of gender (in)equality under socialism in this documentary portrait of an industrializing town and its model citizen, Florica S.
A journey inside the world of a legend of modern art and an icon of feminism. Onscreen, the nonagenarian Louise Bourgeois is magnetic, mercurial and emotionally raw-an uncompromising artist whose life and work are imbued with her ongoing obsession with the mysteries of childhood. Her process is on full display in this intimate documentary, which features the artist in her studio and with her installations, shedding light on her intentions and inspirations. Louise Bourgeois has for six decades been at the forefront of successive new developments, but always on her own powerfully inventive and disquieting terms. In 1982, at the age of 71, she became the first woman to be honored with a major retrospective at New York's Museum of Modern Art. In the decades since, she has created her most powerful and persuasive work, including her series of massive spider structures that have been installed around the world.
A moving documentary. The life stories told by immigrants in Paris are often saddening. The hardships they went through and their current uncertainty and difficult situation. No residence permit, fear of the gendarmerie, little money, poor housing. The quality and background of the musicians is many times amazing.
This documentary is an offbeat "road movie" in which acclaimed documentarian Heddy Honigmann travels with, and thereby discovers the stories of, taxi drivers in Lima. In the early 1990s, in response to Peru's inflationary economy and a government destabilized by corruption and Shining Path terrorism, many middle-class professionals used their own cars to moonlight as taxi drivers in order to weather the financial crisis.
James Baldwin was at once a major 20th century American author, a Civil Rights activist and, for two crucial decades, a prophetic voice calling Americans, black and white, to confront their shared racial tragedy.
Martin Scorsese, in New York, talks about the musics in his films and all his influence and great composers as Bernard Herrmann or Bernstein. From Mean Streets to Aviator.
In 1972, Djibril Diop Mambety shoots "Touki Bouki." Mory and Anta are in love. Two young lovers share the same dream: to leave Dakar for Paris. At the fateful moment, Anta embarks. Mory stays alone on quay, unable to tear himself away from his land. Forty years later, "A Thousand Suns" investigates the personal and universal inheritance which represents "Touki Bouki." What has happened since? Magaye Niang, the hero of the movie, has never left Dakar. And today, the old cowboy wonders where Anta is, the love of his youth. Stories about family, exile and cinema meet between the sphere of intimacy and that of myth.
The Darkhad and Soyon Uriyanghai peoples live in a vast valley in Northern Mongolia, much as their ancestors have for centuries. "Taiga" is the record of a long period spent by the German filmmaker Ulrike Ottinger among these people.
Gare du Nord in Paris is a transit station for all those coming from the suburbs, the provinces or abroad. Accompanied by Simon Mérabet, the son of Algerian immigrants from the Var, Human Geography offers a series of brief meetings with individuals who recount their lives in just a few words before disappearing to take their trains. The crowd of passengers is embodied in these stories, one life after another, and we see how globalization fashions individual destinies, subject to geographical and economic pressures.
Never before has the extraordinary life of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo been framed in relation to the full spectrum of the historical and cultural influences that shaped her. THE LIFE AND TIMES OF FRIDA KAHLO explores the 20th century icon who became an international sensation in the worlds of modern art and radical politics.
In 1964 a colossal pre-Hispanic monolith was taken from the town of San Miguel Coatlinchan in the state of Mexico and brought to the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City. Since then, the absence of the monolith has been present in the memories of the inhabitants, as well as in endless reproductions and ripostes.
A born rebel and innovator, Lupe Yoli aka La Lupe or La Yiyiyi was renowned for her emotional performances. Her renditions of classics such as "My Way," "Fever" and "Going Out of My Head" were known worldwide. But beyond her musicianship, celebrity and scandal, Lupe Yoli was also a single mother of two, a survivor of domestic abuse, a Santera who later became a Christian Evangelist speaker.
'A Walk to Within: The Camino de Santiago' tells the story of walking the ancient 500-mile pilgrimage across norther Spain known as 'The Camino de Santiago'. The documentary follows six strangers from incredibly diverse walks of life as they attempt to cross an entire country on foot with only a backpack, a pair of boots, and an open mind. Each pilgrim throws themselves heart-and-soul into their physical trek to Santiago de Compostela, and their personal journey to themselves. As you watch, you will learn the rich history of this honored tradition, as well as witness the Camino's remarkable ability to change lives and provide those who choose to walk its paths with a greater sense of self and spiritual knowledge.
A documentary that follows up on what happened to the three principle actors in Robert Bresson's "Pickpocket."
Cameras follow the day-to-day life of model/actress/businesswoman/heiress/icon Paris Hilton.
A follow up to award winning documentary 'Herb & Dorothy', the film captures the ordinary couple's extraordinary gift of art to the nation as they close the door on their life as collectors. When Herb and Dorothy Vogel, a retired postal clerk and librarian, began collecting works of contemporary art in the 1960s, they never imagined it would outgrow their one bedroom Manhattan apartment and spread throughout America. 50 years later, the collection is nearly 5,000 pieces and worth millions. Refusing to sell, the couple launches an unprecedented gift project giving artworks to one museum in all 50 states. The film journeys around the country with the Vogels, meeting artists who are famous or unknown, often controversial, striking today's society with questions about art and its survival.
Musician and performance artist Laurie Anderson reflects on the deaths of her husband Lou Reed, her mother and her beloved dog.
Using the book 'Fragments', which collects Marilyn Monroe's poems, notes and letters, and with participation from the Arthur Miller and Truman Capote estates who have contributed more material, each of the actresses will embody the legend at various stages in her life.
As a visually radical memoir, CAMERAPERSON draws on the remarkable footage that filmmaker Kirsten Johnson has shot and reframes it in ways that illuminate moments and situations that have personally affected her. What emerges is an elegant meditation on the relationship between truth and the camera frame, as Johnson transforms scenes that have been presented on Festival screens as one kind of truth into another kind of story—one about personal journey, craft, and direct human connection.
Through deeply personal interviews with her siblings and an examination of the photographs, letters, and belongings left behind, Mariska assembles a new portrait of her mother Jayne Mansfield, an extraordinary and complex woman.
An impressionistic portrait of the iconic actor Harry Dean Stanton comprised of intimate moments, film clips from some of his 250 films and his renditions of American folk songs.
A visual montage portrait of our contemporary world dominated by globalized technology and violence.
Over seven decades, actor and activist George Takei journeyed from a World War II internment camp to the helm of the Starship Enterprise, and then to the daily news feeds of five million Facebook fans. Join George and his husband, Brad, on a wacky and profound trek for life, liberty, and love.
Life Is But a Dream is a HBO documentary about the life of US singer Beyoncé Knowles during the years 2011 and 2012 and on the recording of her fifth album. The film was directed by Beyoncé herself. The film shows Beyoncé from intimate moments of her pregnancy to behind the scenes and rehearsals of the main concerts of that time.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg now 84, and still inspired by the lawyers who defended free speech during the Red Scare, Ginsburg refuses to relinquish her passionate duty, steadily fighting for equal rights for all citizens under the law. Through intimate interviews and unprecedented access to Ginsburg’s life outside the court, RBG tells the electric story of Ginsburg’s consuming love affairs with both the Constitution and her beloved husband Marty—and of a life’s work that led her to become an icon of justice in the highest court in the land.
The life and career of an actor, artist, and icon. His own journey through his own camera.
A documentary detailing the epic Rogues' Gallery of DC Comics from The Joker and Lex Luthor, Sinestro, Darkseid and more, this documentary will explore the Super Villains of DC Comics.
Giving fans unprecedented access to the real life of the music sensation, Katy Perry: Part of Me exposes the hard work, dedication and phenomenal talent of a girl who remained true to herself and her vision in order to achieve her dreams. Featuring rare behind-the-scenes interviews, personal moments between Katy and her friends, and all-access footage of rehearsals, choreography, Katy’s signature style and more, Katy Perry: Part of Me reveals the singer’s unwavering belief that if you can be yourself, then you can be anything.
Martin Scorsese, Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci, and Al Pacino in conversation about The Irishman.
Unprecedented access to Muhammad Ali's personal archive of "audio journals" as well as interviews and testimonials from his inner circle of family and friends are used to tell the legend's life story.
This documentary focuses on the actors and their journey over two summers to create the remake to the original IT, by Stephen King. The documentary originally released as bonus material, bundled with IT: Chapter Two.
Daniel Craig candidly reflects on his 15 year adventure as James Bond. Including never-before-seen archival footage from Casino Royale to the upcoming 25th film No Time To Die, Craig shares his personal memories in conversation with 007 producers, Michael G Wilson and Barbara Broccoli.
Filmed over nearly five years in twenty-five countries on five continents, and shot on seventy-millimetre film, Samsara transports us to the varied worlds of sacred grounds, disaster zones, industrial complexes, and natural wonders.
A documentary that explores the downloading revolution; the kids that created it, the bands and the businesses that were affected by it, and its impact on the world at large.
The film follows adventurer Jeff Johnson as he retraces the epic 1968 journey of his heroes Yvon Chouinard and Doug Tompkins to Patagonia.
BBC Arena's documentary on the Dames of British Theatre and film featuring Maggie Smith, Eileen Atkins, Judi Dench and Joan Plowright on screen together for the first time as they reminisce over a long summer weekend in a house Joan once shared with Sir Laurence Olivier.