The Hamlet Syndrome

Five young Ukrainians discuss life following the Maidan Revolution of 2014. Not all fought in the Russian-Ukrainian war, but it, regardless, shattered their life plans. Representing 'Generation Maidan', they face the question of how to cope with experiences of violence, how to go on. A local theatre director produces Hamlet, wherein they can use Shakespeare’s tragic character as a mirror and face their traumas onstage. For them, 'to be or not to be' is not simply text but an existential dilemma with no clear answer.

How To Smell A Rose: A Visit with Ricky Leacock at his Farm in Normandy

In the year 2000, Les Blank, along with co-filmmaker Gina Leibrecht, visited Richard Leacock (1921-2011) at his farm in Normandy, France and recorded conversations with him about his life, his work, and his other passion: cooking! With the flair of a seasoned raconteur, Leacock recounts key moments in his seventy years as a filmmaker and the innovations that he, D.A. Pennebaker, Albert Maysles and others invented that revolutionized documentary filmmaking, and explores the mystery of creativity. With the passing of both Blank and Leacock, the documentary is a moving insight into the lives of two seminal figures in the history of film.

Grandmother Told Grandmother

The little-known story of Ukrainian children torn from their homes in the crush between the Nazi and Soviet fronts in World War II. Spending their childhood as refugees in Europe, these inspiring individuals later immigrated to the United States, creating new homes and communities through their grit, faith and deep belief in the importance of preserving culture.

Libertad negra

Theatre 1

Theatre 1 (Observational Film Series #3) is a feature length documentary, which closely depicts the world of Oriza Hirata, Japan's leading playwright and director, and his theatrical company, Seinendan. By depicting them, the film leads the audience to revisit fundamental but timely questions: What is theatre? Why do human beings act?

Theatre 2

Oriza Hirata is Japan's leading playwright and director, who runs his own theatrical company, Seinendan. Theatre 2 (Observational Film Series #4) examines the dynamic relationship between theatre and the society through depicting Hirata's activities. In order for his art and his not-so-commercial company to survive this highly capitalistic modern society, what kind of strategy does Hirata have and practice?

The Water Is Finally Blue: The Untold Story of Robert Altman's O.C. and Stiggs

An in-depth oral history of the production and development history of Robert Altman's "O.C. and Stiggs," featuring commentaries from the film's cast and crew.

Malditos

A group of actors in Madrid are cast in a theatre show conceived as a dance marathon and as an unscripted competition. ‘Malditos’ follows their drifting between success, failure, fame and self-realization, interweaving non-fiction interventions and staged representations, constantly blurring the boundaries between fiction and reality.

Cela s'appelle l'amour

The theme of Romeo and Juliet is the starting point from which the film spins a web of several stories. A love story between a boy and a girl whose families are Algerian: they are young, beautiful and they are trying to build a family and a social life in France. They love each other, and yet conflicts, family pressure and contradicting desires alternately tear them apart and unite them. The story of Romeo and Juliet, minus death.

Thick Air

An experimental music ensemble is recording an album. They want a very specific sound: the sound of thick air. The sound engineer struggles to understand and to find that sound. A tale of sleepless nights and loud music, a noise-injected collage composed of diaristic footage, a found narrative (memories of a popular 60s band), original music and field recordings.

Seems Like Only Yesterday

Interviews with a dozen California centenarians against a montage of present day media reportage.

Slowdive: Souvlaki

The film follows the band Slowdive as they come up in the flourishing Thames Valley shoegaze scene and chronicles the making of their classic album Souvlaki. It features interviews with all of the band members as well as Creation Records' Alan McGee, producer Chris Hufford, and engineer Ed Buller.

Der gordische Knoten

Hysteria

A documentary following five actresses through Santa Catarina roads as they perform the play of the title.

Woman from the Killed Village

One of the five-part documentary series by Belarusian writer and director Viktor Dashuk, which recounts the horrors experienced by the Belarusian people during World War II, through firsthand accounts of survivors and newsreel footage.

Cloud Making Machine

Firas, Jallow and Batoul just arrived in Berlin. They meet one another in a theatre group. They are searching for the good life in Germany - yet things don’t turn out the way they hoped. Through video letters, they reveal their deepest emotions to their families and friends back in their war-torn or poverty-stricken home countries.

Hello Campers!

Oral history project exploring the history of London's holiday campers. From the 1930s to the 1980s London’s workers increasingly visited holiday camps such as Pontins and Butlins, or run by trade unions and other social groups. It became a tradition for generations of families - a highlight of the year for all ages.

Je me soulève

Twenty young actors are brought together for a creation lab to create a collective work at one of the great national theatres. Over a full year, they scour contemporary Québécois poetry to tap into the spirit of the times.

Broken Token

A single female voice sings of waiting in her garden for her ‘dark-eyed sailor’ to return from war, bearing the other half of their token, a gimmel ring. Three veterans pass on the road as she waits, and she asks them: “When you were fighting in distant lands, did you think of the home you left?” In reply the veterans relate their recollections. The garden images in the accompanying film represent ‘home’, but also stand for a more general possibility of redemption, of the potential of the past to return at any time, disguised and changed, to renew the present: “Each moment of time is a garden gate,” the song goes, “Through it my love may walk.”

Stage Changers

A group of young, passionate theatre makers have just been presented with an opportunity that could change their lives forever. A huge company in the UK have invited them to pitch a large-scale work that would see them go from making theatre for audiences of 100 people, to making a show that plays to more than 1,000 people a night. This group of aspirational artists have always been driven by hopes and dreams, but their dreams have never been this big.

The Grinch

The Grinch hatches a scheme to ruin Christmas when the residents of Whoville plan their annual holiday celebration.

Pulp Fiction

A burger-loving hit man, his philosophical partner, a drug-addled gangster's moll and a washed-up boxer converge in this sprawling, comedic crime caper. Their adventures unfurl in three stories that ingeniously trip back and forth in time.

2001: A Space Odyssey

Humanity finds a mysterious object buried beneath the lunar surface and sets off to find its origins with the help of HAL 9000, the world's most advanced super computer.

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

Young hobbit Frodo Baggins, after inheriting a mysterious ring from his uncle Bilbo, must leave his home in order to keep it from falling into the hands of its evil creator. Along the way, a fellowship is formed to protect the ringbearer and make sure that the ring arrives at its final destination: Mt. Doom, the only place where it can be destroyed.

Jumanji

When siblings Judy and Peter discover an enchanted board game that opens the door to a magical world, they unwittingly invite Alan -- an adult who's been trapped inside the game for 26 years -- into their living room. Alan's only hope for freedom is to finish the game, which proves risky as all three find themselves running from giant rhinoceroses, evil monkeys and other terrifying creatures.

GoodFellas

The true story of Henry Hill, a half-Irish, half-Sicilian Brooklyn kid who is adopted by neighbourhood gangsters at an early age and climbs the ranks of a Mafia family under the guidance of Jimmy Conway.

La La Land

Mia, an aspiring actress, serves lattes to movie stars in between auditions and Sebastian, a jazz musician, scrapes by playing cocktail party gigs in dingy bars, but as success mounts they are faced with decisions that begin to fray the fragile fabric of their love affair, and the dreams they worked so hard to maintain in each other threaten to rip them apart.

Dead Poets Society

At an elite, old-fashioned boarding school in New England, a passionate English teacher inspires his students to rebel against convention and seize the potential of every day, courting the disdain of the stern headmaster.

Shutter Island

World War II soldier-turned-U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels investigates the disappearance of a patient from a hospital for the criminally insane, but his efforts are compromised by troubling visions and a mysterious doctor.

Forrest Gump

A man with a low IQ has accomplished great things in his life and been present during significant historic events—in each case, far exceeding what anyone imagined he could do. But despite all he has achieved, his one true love eludes him.

A Quiet Place

A family is forced to live in silence while hiding from creatures that hunt by sound.

Interstellar

The adventures of a group of explorers who make use of a newly discovered wormhole to surpass the limitations on human space travel and conquer the vast distances involved in an interstellar voyage.

Iron Man

After being held captive in an Afghan cave, billionaire engineer Tony Stark creates a unique weaponized suit of armor to fight evil.

Get Out

Chris and his girlfriend Rose go upstate to visit her parents for the weekend. At first, Chris reads the family's overly accommodating behavior as nervous attempts to deal with their daughter's interracial relationship, but as the weekend progresses, a series of increasingly disturbing discoveries lead him to a truth that he never could have imagined.

Joker

During the 1980s, a failed stand-up comedian is driven insane and turns to a life of crime and chaos in Gotham City while becoming an infamous psychopathic crime figure.

Parasite

All unemployed, Ki-taek's family takes peculiar interest in the wealthy and glamorous Parks for their livelihood until they get entangled in an unexpected incident.

Titanic

101-year-old Rose DeWitt Bukater tells the story of her life aboard the Titanic, 84 years later. A young Rose boards the ship with her mother and fiancé. Meanwhile, Jack Dawson and Fabrizio De Rossi win third-class tickets aboard the ship. Rose tells the whole story from Titanic's departure through to its death—on its first and last voyage—on April 15, 1912.

Jojo Rabbit

A World War II satire that follows a lonely German boy whose world view is turned upside down when he discovers his single mother is hiding a young Jewish girl in their attic. Aided only by his idiotic imaginary friend, Adolf Hitler, Jojo must confront his blind nationalism.

The Super Mario Bros. Movie

While working underground to fix a water main, Brooklyn plumbers—and brothers—Mario and Luigi are transported down a mysterious pipe and wander into a magical new world. But when the brothers are separated, Mario embarks on an epic quest to find Luigi.

Kingsman: The Secret Service

The story of a super-secret spy organization that recruits an unrefined but promising street kid into the agency's ultra-competitive training program just as a global threat emerges from a twisted tech genius.