The Last Straw is a film documenting the very last live poetry reading given by Charles Bukowski at The Sweetwater, a music club in Redondo Beach, California on March 31, 1980
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A 1964 documentary portrait of Cohen in his pre-musician days as a poet and stand-up comedian.
The film focuses on the exciting life journey of Swiss writer Katharina Zimmermann. She follows her husband on a mission to the jungle in Indonesia where she raises their four children and five foster children and lives through the military coup. Back in Switzerland Katharina discovers her voice and finds her path. Now, at eighty, she is writing her life story. Yet suddenly she faces another battle because her publisher is threatening to let her go.
Documentary tracing the extreme life of outlaw writer, performance artist and punk icon, Kathy Acker. Through animation, archival footage, interviews and dramatic reenactments, director Barbara Caspar explores Acker's colorful history, from her well-heeled upbringing to her role as the scribe of society's fringe.
In his second international bestseller, "Arc de Triomphe," author Erich Maria Remarque explores his own experience of exile and his decisive encounter with Marlene Dietrich. From Paris and Antibes to Los Angeles and New York, the documentary traces the moving genesis of this highly autobiographical novel, now considered a major work of European exile literature, and the literary legacy of the long-standing passion between two global stars.
Drama documentary from 1978 exploring the private feelings of novelist Thomas Hardy through the poems of love and remorse that he wrote after the death of his first wife, Emma.
While it may be universally acknowledged that she’s one of the great English writers, Giles Coren breaks down his many reasons for hating Jane Austen.
A look back at the troubled life of genius British writer Virginia Woolf (1882-1941).
Emmy Award-winning chronicle of the history of Orchard House, the home in Concord, Massachusetts where Louisa May Alcott wrote and set Little Women.
Félix, a young, melancholic and secretive shepherd, leads a surprisingly timeless life. He lives alone and works along his father to raise the family herd. From autumn to spring, he looks after his animals, feeds them and keeps them in the dense forests of holm oaks of French Pre-Alps. In the summer, he travels on foot for more than two hundred kilometres, leaving his father to lead the herd to the mountains pastures, in the High Alps Ubaye valley. There, he lives far from everything for many long months, in a mineral and inaccessible world where an invisible being prowls: the wolf. Against the tide of his time, Félix has chosen a profession that isolates him and keeps him out of the world.
An account of the life and work of the Spanish poet Luis García Montero; a journey through his experiences, his mentors, his influences and his contact with other artists, both from the literary world and from other disciplines.
John Irving's literary worlds are satirically exaggerated, socially critical, unexpectedly magical. But how do these dazzling, sometimes bizarre, narrative worlds emerge? A unique insight into his writing workshop and a search of the places and people who have become part of his stories.
The incredible life of novelist, screenwriter, actress and nude dancer Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette (1873-1954), who led her life to the beat, constantly reinventing herself through words, scandals and metamorphoses; a peasant woman who became an icon of the European Belle Époque; an artist who defied religion and social prejudices to live a hedonist existence worthy of her desires; a real woman who turned herself into a fictional character…
An event organised by CND pits the bomb against poetry. Hear artists who hoped that words and rhymes could put an end to destructive times.
Dorothy Johnson was a Western writer ahead of her time. Women saved men, heroes died unwept and unsung, whites lived with Indians and benefited from the experience. Three of her stories were made into films and many critics consider "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" to be the cornerstone of the modern western. This documentary looks back on Dorothy's life, and her place in history.
"This film explores how freedom of speech — including dissent — is afforded to all Americans, and shows freedom of expression in art, music, dance, architecture, and science. The film also emphasizes the importance of the individual’s contribution to the whole of society and demonstrates how a productive and creative society is formed by the open and respectful exchange of ideas. The film was written, produced, and directed by William Greaves" (National Archives).
T. S. Eliot ends one of his most famous poems, "The Hollow Men", by repeating three times the sentence "This is how the world ends" - and then adding: "Not with a bang but a whimper."
Hosted by Keeley Hawes, star of the popular television series The Durrells, this documentary reveals the adventures of the eccentric Durrell family once they left Corfu, Greece.
Biography and in-depth look of Beckett and his work.
Alexander McQueen's rags-to-riches story is a modern-day fairy tale, laced with the gothic. Mirroring the savage beauty, boldness and vivacity of his design, this documentary is an intimate revelation of McQueen's own world, both tortured and inspired, which celebrates a radical and mesmerizing genius of profound influence.
Artists in LA discover the work of forgotten Polish sculptor Stanislav Szukalski, a mad genius whose true story unfolds chapter by astounding chapter.
Alternately hilarious and horrifying, Overnight chronicles one man's misadventures of making a Hollywood movie. It starts out as a rags to riches story as Troy Duffy, a Boston-bred bartender, sells his first screenplay for The Boondock Saints.
Lyrical and powerfully personal essay film that reflects on the deaths of her husband Lou Reed, her mother, her beloved dog, and such diverse subjects as family memories, surveillance, and Buddhist teachings.
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.
Legendary journalist Gay Talese unmasks a motel owner who spied on his guests for decades. But his bombshell story soon becomes a scandal of its own.
In this genre-bending tale, Errol Morris explores the mysterious death of a U.S. scientist entangled in a secret Cold War program known as MK-Ultra.
In the Realms of the Unreal is a documentary about the reclusive Chicago-based artist Henry Darger. Henry Darger was so reclusive that when he died his neighbors were surprised to find a 15,145-page manuscript along with hundreds of paintings depicting The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What is Known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glodeco-Angelinnian War Storm, Cased by the Child Slave Rebellion.
Unravel the case of Utah therapist Jodi Hildebrandt, whose child abuse arrest with parenting YouTuber Ruby Franke exposed a twisted tale of manipulation.
A documentary examining the decade of the 1970s as a turning point in American cinema. Some of today's best filmmakers interview the influential directors of that time.
Brilliant, long in-the-works story of the life and art of the world's greatest comedian and the cinema's first genius, Charlie Chaplin. Produced, written and directed by renowned film critic Richard Schickel.
Literary icon Joan Didion reflects on her remarkable career and personal struggles in this intimate documentary directed by her nephew, Griffin Dunne.
Over the past 25 years, Lauren Greenfield's documentary photography and film projects have explored youth culture, gender, body image, and affluence. Underscoring the ever-increasing gap between the haves and the have-nots, portraits reveal a focus on cultivating image over substance, where subjects unable to attain actual wealth instead settle for its trappings, no matter their ability to pay for it.
A visual montage portrait of our contemporary world dominated by globalized technology and violence.
A chef's life is upended when a jet-setting, champagne-sipping, hotel-hopping woman claims to be his long-lost mother. This documentary reveals the untold story.
A deliciously scandalous portrait of unsung Hollywood legend Scotty Bowers, whose bestselling memoir chronicled his decades spent as sexual procurer to the stars.
An exploration of technologically developing nations and the effect the transition to Western-style modernization has had on them.
An inside look at one of the most anticipated movie sequels ever with James Cameron and cast.
In this documentary, recovering addict and amputee John Wood finds himself in a stranger-than-fiction battle to reclaim his mummified leg from Southern entrepreneur Shannon Whisnant, who found it in a grill he bought at an auction and believes it therefore to be his rightful property.
The story of the insane scandals related to the remake of “Island of Dr. Moreau” —originally a novel by H. G. Wells—, which was brought to the big screen in 1996. How director Richard Stanley spent four years developing the project just to find an abrupt end to his work while leading actor Marlon Brando pulled the strings in the shadows. Now for the first time, the living key players recount what really happened and why it all went so spectacularly wrong.
