America | A Tribute to Heroes

A benefit concert and telethon organized by George Clooney and broadcast uninterrupted and commercial-free by the four major television networks just 10 days after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and The Pentagon to raise money for the victims and their families,

Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father

In 2001, Andrew Bagby, a medical resident, is murdered not long after breaking up with his girlfriend. Soon after, when she announces she's pregnant, one of Andrew's many close friends, Kurt Kuenne, begins this film, a gift to the child.

Luto

Damian, grieving his girlfriend's death, travels through Mexico seeking solace. Along the way, he connects with strangers and witnesses their coping rituals, finding a path through his own memories and regrets.

Return to Lockerbie with Lorraine Kelly

Lorraine Kelly returns to the small Scottish border town of Lockerbie to find out how the residents coped with the aftermath of Europe's deadliest terror attack. Lorraine was one of the first TV reporters to arrive at the scene after Pan Am Flight 103 exploded mid-air, killing all 259 people aboard and 11 on the ground. Before the police cordoned off the area, she saw first-hand the shocking aftermath of the disaster.

The Flood

The decision to move to Holland doesn't sound like a wise idea. Why move to a country that could be flooded at any moment? For the last 25 years, the political climate has shifted. The public debate on migration has become harsher, more heated, and polarized. What would have been considered right-wing xenophobia back then, is now considered mainstream. Populists simplify complex realities into good and evil, victims and perpetrators: ‘us’ versus ‘them’. Their rhetoric often consists of dehumanizing words and metaphors. One of these is ‘water’. In reality, water is not an immediate threat to the average Dutch person; but it is a huge threat to the thousands trying to reach the Netherlands. People trying to survive the Mediterranean Sea in rubber boats. Trying to survive winter on the Aegean coast in primitive tents. To them, water really is deadly.

Viva video, video viva

Today, analogue video is attractive primarily thanks to the distinctive aesthetic quality of its pixelated image and raster errors. But for Czech artists who first explored the possibilities offered by video art in the late 1980s, this medium represented a path towards freedom. Through a portrait of her grandfather Radek Pilař, one of the pioneers of Czech video art, the director explores her own legacy of imperative creative fascination. Her film’s main story, i.e., the process of reconstructing the 1989 exhibition Video Day, contrasts this enchantment with life in the final days of the totalitarian regime, which different sharply with the adventures of those who decided to emigrate – whom the filmmaker also visits in order to discover forgotten works, get to know their creators, and re-establish broken ties.

Wintopia

IDFA and Canadian filmmaker Peter Wintonick had a close relationship for decades. He was a hard worker and often far from home, visiting festivals around the world. In 2013, he died after a short illness. His daughter Mira was left behind with a whole lot of questions, and a box full of videotapes that Wintonick shot for his Utopia project. She resolved to investigate what sort of film he envisaged, and to complete it for him.

Architects of Denial

Though both the historical and modern-day persecution of Armenians and other Christians is relatively uncovered in the mainstream media and not on the radar of many average Americans, it is a subject that has gotten far more attention in recent years.

Flowing Water

This documentary tells the story of the revitalization of the Longwood Garden's (Kennett Square, Pennsylvania) Main Fountain Garden, a lavish jewel in the crown of one of the greatest collections of fountains in the United States.

Algorithms of Beauty

In 1772, Englishwoman Mary Delany wrote to her niece: “I have found a new way of imitating flowers.” The imitation in question was the art form called decoupage, based on cut-outs and reshuffling of pictures. The charm and botanical precision of these works attracts attention of even today’s artists, among others by an anonymous programmer who is trying to invent a way of capturing the flowers’ vivacity in pictures. With this aim in mind, she has created an algorithm, which would combine science and beauty, similarly to Delaney’s efforts, whose illustrations it is meant to animate.

Killer Shark Vs. Killer Whale

Scientists dive deep on the mysterious and unusual predatory behavior of orcas attacking great white sharks, and the disappearance of the other sharks after these attacks.

Edward Prince of Wales' Tour of India: Calcutta and Delhi

The future Edward VIII opens a durbar and enjoys a day at the races before inspecting the fire brigade in Calcutta.

Frammenti di una Festa Furiosa

Furio’s Furious Fragments & Friends - Furio Jesi (1941 Turin -1980 Genoa), enfant prodige moving between a plethora of disciplines – egyptology, history of religions, German philology, literary criticism - passed away prematurely, not without leaving bright fragments which throw light on mechanisms beneath many socio-cultural practices, for instance regarding cultural belonging, the functions of myth in modern society. He saw kind of “mythological machines” at work underneath our cultural production of meanings, historically determined, departing from a void, something that is still in culture but as residue, a missing link to an alleged authentic experience nowadays compromised up to the point to became just rhetoric, a byword, which is in no way neutral, but a tool, a macchina, for maintaining the status quo and serving the power apparatus. As in the case of holidays, celebrations and festivals.

FUCK TV

After concluding the now-legendary public access TV series, The Pain Factory, Michael Nine embarked on a new and more subversive public access endeavor: a collaboration with Scott Arford called Fuck TV. Whereas The Pain Factory predominantly revolved around experimental music performances, Fuck TV was a comprehensive and experiential audio-visual presentation. Aired to a passive and unsuspecting audience on San Francisco’s public access channel from 1997 to 1998, each episode of Fuck TV was dedicated to a specific topic, combining video collage and cut-up techniques set to a harsh electronic soundtrack. The resultant overload of processed imagery and visceral sound was unlike anything presented on television before or since. EPISODES: Yule Bible, Cults, Riots, Animals, Executions, Static, Media, Haterella (edited version), Self Annihilation Live, Electricity.

W milczeniu

Until now, they have stood on the sidelines. They have not appeared before the cameras. They have not taken part in public discussion. It is mainly to them that the documentary film by the well-known journalist Ewa Ewart was devoted. It shows the face of the Smolensk catastrophe through the eyes of the victims' families. April 10, 2010 went down in the memory of Poles as a day of national drama. But for the characters in the film, it was the day of their greatest personal drama. Along with the presidential couple, their loved ones passed away in shocking circumstances. For most, the time passing since the Smolensk catastrophe does not bring relief. Ewa Ewart and her film crew accompany the families at various stages of their struggle with difficult emotions. The film is in the process of being made and will include sequences and stills that have not been used anywhere before.

Aleph

Structured as a labyrinth-like game and inspired by Jorge Luis Borges, Aleph is a travelogue of experience, a dreamer's journey through the lives, experiences, stories and musings of protagonists spanning ten countries and five continents.

Guadalcanal Requiem

One of Paik’s most overtly political and poignant statements, Guadalcanal Requiem is a performance/documentary collage that confronts history, time, cultural memory and mythology on the site of one of World War II’s most devastating battles.

No Ordinary Protest

Ted Hughes's 1993 novel The Iron Woman is the springboard for this multi-media project by Mikhail Karikis. The video section of the installation features seven-year-olds from Mayflower Primary School in East London discussing the novel's environmental themes.

Nel silenzio del parco

The Electronic Super Highway: Nam June Paik in the Nineties

A portrait of Nam June Paik produced as a 'video catalog' for the exhibition 'The Electronic Super Highway', which premiered at The Museum of Art in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, with recent installations, historical background and interviews.