
Unveiling Yasujiro Ozu’s legacy through his personal diaries, letters, and interviews, the documentary delves into his life, creative process, and lasting impact on filmmaking.
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Unveiling Yasujiro Ozu’s legacy through his personal diaries, letters, and interviews, the documentary delves into his life, creative process, and lasting impact on filmmaking.
2025-09-02
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6.5An extremely lovely tribute to Ozu, on the 20th anniversary of his death. It uses a combination of footage from vintage films and new material (both interviews and Ozu-related locations) shot by Ozu's long-time camera-man (who came out of retirement to work on this). Surprisingly (or perhaps not), it focuses less on Ozu's accomplishments as a film-maker than on his impact on the lives of the people he worked with..
“This film was a gift to me. I make no claims for it, nor do I offer any apologies. It comes from work on The Thoughts That Once We Had. There was one shot we had to cut whose loss I particularly regretted. It was a shot of a train pulling into Tokyo Station from Ozu’s The Only Son (1936). So I decided to make a film around this shot, an anthology of train arrivals. It comprises 26 scenes or shots from movies, 1904-2015. It has a simple serial structure: each black & white sequence in the first half rhymes with a color sequence in the second half. Thus the first shot and the final shot show trains arriving at stations in Japan from a low camera height. In the first shot (The Only Son), the train moves toward the right; in the last shot, it moves toward the left. A bullet train has replaced a steam locomotive. So after all these years, I’ve made another structural film, although that was not my original intention.”
0.0Footage shot in and around North Bergen, New Jersey presented in a minimalist series of fixed camera angles and long-takes accompanied by the ambient noise of city streets.
0.0Filmed in 1974 and edited and released in 1983 (and then rereleased by its director in 2005), DEAD PEOPLE purports to document the final years of Frank Butler, a local fixture in the depressed burg of Ellicot City with a particular fondness for drink and tales of the dead. Over hazy 16mm footage two decades later, Deutsch adopted a painfully unsentimental view of his early approach, colored as it was by notions of ethnographic film and an undercurrent of fetishism for a man he considered somehow more "alive" than himself. While it chafes against notions of authenticity in documentary and incisively hints at the complicity of the subject in inventing his own history, DEAD PEOPLE simultaneously oozes nostalgia, transcending its own judgment as a gauzy memorial for the man Deutsch once called a friend.
0.0Part of a a video series that documents the fighting between the United States and Imperial Japan during and immediately after World War II.
0.0In 1975, a group of young Lebanese men joined the Palestinian organization “Fateh”. Known as the “Student Brigade”, they took part in the Lebanese Civil War. Some of them were killed, others left the country. Following the Israeli invasion in 1982, Palestinian armed forces left Lebanon. The “Student Brigade” disbanded, and the once young Lebanese fighters have now become old, nursing their solitude with alcohol, poetry, and songs.
6.9A star-studded roster of interviewees (including Jerry Lewis, Whoopi Goldberg and Billy Crystal) pay tribute to the legendary, multi-talented song-and-dance man.
0.0Documentary chronicling the sensational life and death of British footballer Justin Fashanu. Broadcast as part of the BBC series "Inside Story".
7.5The tombs of the grand lords of Moche civilization - one of Peru's most important pre-Hispanic civilizations -- are in constant danger from grave robbers, but archeologist Walter Alva has managed to find some priceless treasures and recreate the lives of this ancient people of northern Peru.
5.0Captures the spirit and essence of the great San Francisco Human Be-In of January 14, 1967. Ten thousand people imbued with peace, love and euphoria. Set to hard rock such as only San Francisco blues can produce. BE-IN contains Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Timothy Leary, Michael McClure, Lenore Kandel and Buddha. Music by Blue Cheer.
6.3An experimental four-part 2002 Franco-Chilean digital video series written and directed by Raúl Ruiz. The first part won a FIPRESCI Award at the Montreal World Film Festival in 2002 "for the director's personal exploration into his homeland, using DV in a rigorous yet playful manner".
A short made for TV with director Peter Greenaway discussing the dazzling 3.5 minute opening sequence from his film, 'Prospero's Books'. As Prospero (John Gielgud) walks through his library, Greenaway comments on the historical, mythological, biblical & fictional characters occupying the library.
It's a story about post-90 generation in China and how they chasing their dreams through a talent show. The summer of 2013 saw a group of young boys enter a Chinese TV talent show called Super Boy, hoping to be catapulted to fame. The film documents how the young boys coped with their new challenging lives. While under unthinkable pressure, they proved themselves by trying to make the right choices during live shows. Talent shows create a new type of entertainer, but can they still keep their true selves? Can they adjust themselves and balance the ups and downs? What have the ten years of Chinese talent shows given us? What is urging us to grow up?
From the behavior, discourse, and appearance of individual actors, Vachek composes, in the form of a mosaic, a broad and many-layered film-argument about Czechoslovak democracy in the period of its rebirth, all administered with the director’s inimitable point of view.
7.5The secret Nazi death camp at Sobibor was created solely for the mass extermination of Jews. But on the 14th October 1943, in one of the biggest and most successful prison revolts of WWII, the inmates fought back.
0.0The life of the greatest poet of his age is unraveled by biographer and filmmaker Andrew Sinclair – the visionary who transformed Thomas’ Under Milk Wood into a motion picture in 1972. Dylan on Dylan traces Thomas’ journey from fascinated child to fêted, weary adult via classic acting performances from Burton, Hemmings et al, all the while analysed by Sinclair in his own unique, microscopic style. A major addition to the Thomas canon. Cambridge Film Festival 2014: http://www.cambridgefilmfestival.org.uk/films/2014/dylan-on-dylan
7.3Ethan Hawke directs this intimate documentary portrait of classical pianist, composer, author, teacher and sage Seymour Bernstein.
5.5La Comédie-Française is the oldest continuous repertory company in the world, founded in Paris in the late 17th century. This is the first time a documentary film-maker has been allowed to look at all the aspects of the work of this great theatrical company. Sequences in the film include sections of plays, casting, set and costume design, administrative meetings and rehearsals and performances of four classic French plays, Don Juan by Molière, La Thebaide by Racine, La Double Inconstance by Marivaux and Occupe-toi d'Amelie by Feydeau. (Zipporah Films)
Dancing in Dulias was made by members of Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners (LGSM) and Lesbians Against Pit Closures during and immediate after the 1984/85 minders strike. Like the forthcoming movie, Pride, it documents the interactions between lesbians and gay men and the miners and their families in Dulais in South Wales - only this time it's the real thing. As well as some memorable footage that includes the Blaenant Lodge banner leading the 1985 Lesbian and Gay Pride march and LGSM members struggling with bingo at the local community hall, the film documents the wider political impact of this seemingly unlikely alliance. (cont. http://www.cambridgefilmfestival.org.uk/films/2014/dancing-in-dulais#sthash.HScQCj7E.dpuf)