Part mournful meditation through documentary footage, part experimental narrative. This film looks at the life of the Chinese who have been displaced within their own society.
Social & External
Man
New Castle is a remote rural village where houses and mountains have been distorted due to excessive mining. Under the "New Village" campaign, all the villagers will be moved into the nearly completed Luxury Buildings. The documentary depicts the life of two groups of people, miners and villagers. The miners who are from all over the country, lost their jobs because of the Olympic Games in Beijing - the mine was shut down to make the air less polluted. The villagers had no better luck. Granny Fan lost two sons and two grandsons in a mining accident. Old Han and Old Wang are still farming. Some youngsters are gambling in the house of Han Bin, who was crippled in another mining accident. In the film, you can also see the village election, the service of local Christians, and people worshipping for a better year to come.
A Yangtze Landscape utilizes a non-narrative style, setting off from the Yangtze's marine port Shanghai, filming all the way to the Yangtze River's source, Qinghai/Tibet - filming a total distance of thousands of kilometers. Experimental music and noise recorded live on scene are used in post-production, painstakingly paired with relatively independent visuals, creating a magically realistic atmosphere contrasted with people seeming to be 'decorative figures' right out of traditional Chinese landscape scrolls.
Yu Tian (played by Hu Tian) is a senior this year. He hasn't returned home for a few years while studying in a big city. The estrangement between him and his mother (Lin Jiehua) is somehow getting bigger and bigger. He is immersed in his artistic dreams and is not practical, but his mother, who has always been conservative, does not understand. His friends remained the same, still the same young people in the small town. Friends booed that he would be the most promising one among them, but he himself was convinced. He told his sister (played by Sun Nan) that he would go to the big city to make a fortune.
Tian Yuan and Da Bing were brothers who had been in contact for many years. They gradually alienated but at the same time fell in love with a girl who dances like a nightclub. In the entanglement of love and brotherhood, youth ends in a group fight for their love. . Love and hatred, like smoke, silk, and thread, became the past...
Several boys who are about to graduate live in the 2006 dormitory. All-day long eating, chatting, playing cards, and playing with mobile phones, to kill their youth, just to get a high school diploma. Finally, I graduated from high school, but where is the future? Go to work or continue to join a college? Facing such students, it is difficult for teachers to show enthusiasm for teaching. Only Teacher Hou carefully wiped the bulletin board , as always. The original site of Duancun Middle School in Pingyao County was an ancient temple in the Ming Dynasty. In the summer of 2011, more than 150 students from the school merged with two other high schools and moved into the new school in the city. Grass grows on the playground, and the gatekeeper Laomi and his family continue to live in the teaching building.
Filmed over three years on China’s railways, The Iron Ministry traces the vast interiors of a country on the move: flesh and metal, clangs and squeals, light and dark, and language and gesture. Scores of rail journeys come together into one, capturing the thrills and anxieties of social and technological transformation. The Iron Ministry immerses audiences in fleeting relationships and uneasy encounters between humans and machines on what will soon be the world’s largest railway network.
A small rural township called Red White was seriously devastated by the May 12th Earthquake in China 2008. A 62-year-old Taoist survived even though his temple was largely torn by the disaster. This documentary tells the story of how the Taoist practices the widely believed Chinese traditional religion and the local people’s daily life during the township’s post-quake reconstruction.
Andy is a novelist who works from home. One day, a girl mysteriously appears in his toilet. She claims to be from the future and needs his help. Her name is Pomegranate.
His father was sick, and the boy Xia Tong was always surrounded by strange dreams about girls while he was taking care of him. Grandma's answer made him disagree. To find out the truth, when the flame rose from the bottom of the river, he stepped on the train from the clouds.
A day of Xiaoyang, the curator of a village church. Xiaoyang and her husband have just registered their marriage, but they cannot hold a wedding in the church for her husband is not a Christian. Before the wedding, she is waiting for her husband’s baptism.
A boy with horns gathers a group of Cosers, each armed with the same traditional woodworking tools, from the grocery store, the old cathedral, the gatehouse, the forest, the farmyard, the electric mahjong parlour, the old castle and so on. At midnight, with clumsy labor, they made a huge cross.
In the summer of 2007, Gan Xiaoer led an independent film projection team, using projectors and self-made screens, to tour villages in Henan province to show his feature film "Raised from dust" for 8 times, and recorded the process. The 81-minute version of Church Cinema records only one stop, the Qiliying Church, where "Raised from dust" was shot.
One boy, one girl. One close space, one silent night. What is the relation between them? The great works in art history structure, influence their relations, and show us something. At the same time, the boy and the girl convey their experience and taste on these works. Usually, a boy and a girl will make love to end a scene or a film, but it didn’t happen. It seems that they spend the night clearly, but the tomorrow is still unknown.
Workers, peasants, soldiers, students and merchants were five groups of Chinese society in the 1950s, after the so-called elimination of the exploited class. Borrowing this concept, the umbrella is taken as the clue to rediscover changes in various social classes after the economic reform, and to analyze the social problems in China. Workers making umbrellas, merchants selling umbrellas, students looking for jobs in the rain. Umbrella is used as a metaphor that can be seen everywhere. As the raindrop, what we see is sometimes clear, sometimes untraceable.
Follow the lives of the elderly survivors who were forced into sex slavery as “Comfort Women” by the Japanese during World War II. At the time of filming, only 22 of these women were still alive to tell their story. Through their own personal histories and perspectives, they tell a tale that should never be forgotten to generations unaware of the brutalization that occurred.
The documentary Building Archeology (jiànzhú kǎo) (2011) considers the more recent past. It’s made up of three vignettes about different buildings in Beijing: a museum, an abandoned hospital, and a detention center. The latter two vignettes are especially interesting. In the second, a woman wanders around the ruins of a hospital built in a week to deal with the 2003 SARS outbreak. The third concerns a former prisoner, tracing out a map of the detention center where he was held in 2011.
Gentle, easy-going Or Kia moves from the countryside to Kuala Lumpur to work for his cousin and best friend Ah Soon, a mid-level gangster and enforcer. While Or Kia works hard to put a sister through school, Ah Soon cares for an unstable girlfriend prone to mysterious disappearances. As they both sink deeper into a nocturnal world of debts, drugs, and betrayal, Or Kia's loyalties are strained when Ah Soon falls out of favor with the bosses and tries to escape the business.
As a person who has taken art exams, Guo Jiang chose to enter the industry of "art exam training" after graduating from university. His role is that of both an educator and a businessman, although most of the time he prefers to appear as "Mr. Guo". The stage on which Mr. Guo's skills are put to use is a small county in central Henan, which is also his hometown. This documentary is about Guo Jiang's career and life.In short, hovering between the desire and the so-called ideal, adhere to or let go, he needs to make a choice.
In a city that worships money, there is a group of people who still insist on living the philosophy of "people are not living on food alone." Instead of choosing to live in seclusion, they choose to actively enter the world, improve their hearts, and influence others through artistic creation. Their innovation has not only driven the art world in Hong Kong but more importantly, through their enthusiasm for creation, they have made us understand that as long as we have a "heart", no matter how difficult the environment is, we can persist in a "love".
Liu Haiying, who is praised by patients as the "sword of the world", is a doctor of medicine who grew up during the 80 years of agency thinking. He spent the most important stage of his career in Germany in the mid-1990s, and he developed a rigorous career. Careful and professional character. In many years of medical practice, Liu Haiying often paid out of his pocket to help poor families with severe spinal deformity patients. He knew that if these people did not undergo surgery, they would have organ failure or death waiting for them. However, long-term funding is unsustainable for the economy.Day and night heavy work has made this good doctor with superb medical skills a patient who needs to be taken care of. Colleagues advised him to take more care of his family and body, but he couldn't stop the pace of "saving the wounded." He was still staggering, guarding his life that was hard to give up and saved the wounded.
A drama-documentary presented by Alan Yentob, with Benedict Cumberbatch in the lead role. Every word spoken by the actors in this film is sourced from the letters that Van Gogh sent to his younger brother Theo, and of those around him. What emerges is a complex portrait of a sophisticated, civilised and yet tormented man.
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.
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.
A detailing of the rise to prominence and global sporting superstardom of six supremely talented young Manchester United football players (David Beckham, Nicky Butt, Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes, Phil and Gary Neville). The film covers the period 1992-1999, culminating in Manchester United's European Cup triumph.
Police pull over a woman who claims she just gave birth. But the baby — and the blood — aren't hers. Twisted lies unravel in this true-crime documentary.
A documentary on the making of the three Godfather films, with interviews and recollections from the film makers and cast. This feature also includes the original screen tests of some of the actors for "The Godfather" film, and some candid moments on the set of "The Godfather: Part III."
After years in the limelight, Selena Gomez achieves unimaginable stardom. But just as she reaches a new peak, an unexpected turn pulls her into darkness. This uniquely raw and intimate documentary spans her six-year journey into a new light.
A documentary on the expletive's origin, why it offends some people so deeply, and what can be gained from its use.
The making of Matrix Revolutions, The (2003) is briefly touched on here in this documentary. Interviews with various cast and crew members inform us how they were affected by the deaths of Gloria Foster and Aaliyah, and also delve into the making of the visual effects that takes up a lot of screen time. Written by Rhyl Donnelly
A stark and graphic portrayal of the conditions that existed at the State Prison for the Criminally Insane at Bridgewater, Massachusetts, and documents the various ways the inmates are treated by the guards, social workers, and psychiatrists.
A paralysingly beautiful documentary with a global vision—an odyssey through landscape and time—that attempts to capture the essence of life.
A compilation of over 30 years of private home movie footage shot by Lithuanian-American avant-garde director Jonas Mekas, assembled by Mekas "purely by chance", without concern for chronological order.
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 about the life and films of director John Ford.
Behind-the-scenes documentary about how Lionel Messi succeeded in lifting the World Cup – the only trophy to have eluded him in an incredible career.
Documentary about the arena-packing Swedish DJ, chronicling his explosive rise to fame and surprising decision to retire from live performances in 2016.
Documentarian Ross McElwee originally set out to make a travelogue of sorts tracing General William T. Sherman's infamous scorched-earth march through the Confederacy in the latter stages of the Civil War. Instead, haunted by a recent breakup with a girlfriend, McElwee ends up documenting his progress -- or lack thereof -- in starting a new relationship. His journey then becomes one of self-reflection and self-discovery rather than a historical/sociological exploration.
From the heights of her modeling fame to her tragic death, this documentary reveals Anna Nicole Smith through the eyes of the people closest to her.
This character-driven film considers the evolving sex trafficking landscape as seen by the main players: the exploited, the pimps, the johns that fuel the business, and the cops who fight to stop it.
An inside look at one of the most anticipated movie sequels ever with James Cameron and cast.
