Lettera22(2009)

Helvetica(en)

Helvetica is a feature-length independent film about typography, graphic design and global visual culture. It looks at the proliferation of one typeface (which will celebrate its 50th birthday in 2007) as part of a larger conversation about the way type affects our lives. The film is an exploration of urban spaces in major cities and the type that inhabits them, and a fluid discussion with renowned designers about their work, the creative process, and the choices and aesthetics behind their use of type.

Pressing On: The Letterpress Film(en)

Why has letterpress printing survived? Irreplaceable knowledge of the historic craft is in danger of being lost as its caretakers age. Fascinating personalities intermix with wood, metal, and type as young printers save a traditional process in Pressing On, a 4K feature-length documentary exploring the remarkable community keeping letterpress alive.

Étienne Robial, un spécimen de caractère(s)(fr)

Documentary on the French graphic and visual artist and designer, editor, artistic director, and teacher who is known for his widely-used fonts.

Hanzi(zh)

Hanzi is a documentary exploring international design, visual culture, and identity through the lens of modern Chinese typography. The film covers a variety of topics such as how languages shape identity, and what role handwriting plays in the digital age.

The Gutenberg Enigma(fr)

A portrait of the inventor of the letterpress, who was a key figure in the history of mankind, but also an enthusiastic inventor, a daring businessman, a tenacious troublemaker: the life of Johannes Gutenberg (circa 1400-68).

Everything Must Change: Piet Zwart(nl)

A fascinating documentary about Piet Zwart (1885–1977), an idiosyncratic and stubborn designer, who lived for innovation and prepared the way for the international success that is now known as Dutch Design. Piet Zwart worked as an interior and industrial designer, commercial typographer, photographer, critic and lecturer, playing a key role in defining the design climate in the Netherlands in the Twentieth Century. He is especially known for designing the famous ‘Piet Zwart’ kitchen for the Dutch company Bruynzeel: a kitchen that could be easily produced and consisted of standardized elements. His versatility and influence on present-day designers led the Association of Dutch Designers to award him the title of “Designer of the Century” in 2000.

The History of Typography(en)

A short, educational animation about the history of fonts and typography. In a paper cutout stop-motion style, it begins with Gutenberg's creation of the first typeface, travels through the innovations of Jenson, Caslon, and Bodoni, to the modern creation of Futura and the democratization of fonts in the digital age. A charming, engaging film about a technology that is all around us, but few people know much about.

Hollywood at Last!(en)

Dedicated Dutch graphic designer Piet Schreuders visits Los Angeles to investigate all kinds of typeface as used in title-credits for movies and TV-series, letters on billboards, shop-windows or street-signs, the banner-headlines of The Los Angeles Times, and climbs finally to the giant letters of the HOLLYWOOD-sign. In the meantime he discovers, to his great satisfaction, the location and stairs where Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy shot their movie 'The Musicbox', by combining street-signs, partially shown on still-pictures of this movie: "…MONTE" and "…ENDOME", which turn out to be found on the street corner of Del Monte and Vendome in Culver City. This documentary is bluntly intercut with commercials, a phenomenon not yet known in the Netherlands in 1979. (Theo Uittenbogaard)

Máquinas de palabras(es)

Il fiume ha sempre ragione(it)

Alberto Casiraghy and Josef Weiss are true bibliophile artists. One in Osnago, the other in Mendrisio, they have been dedicating themselves for years to valuable editorial and typographical activities, still printing with mobile characters, preserving the memory of a perfect ingenuity made of manual skills and technique, but also of inventiveness and poetry. Silvio Soldini gives us a realistic and poetical portrait of these two artists-artisans, who chose one of the oldest professions in a modern world, finding great success and approval.

Ake & Ch(en)

Words that end in -ake and start with ch-. A typographic animation.

Letters O, P, and R(en)

Words that start with the letter O, P, and R. A typographic animation.

Jeanne Moreau: Free Spirit(fr)

An account of the life of actress Jeanne Moreau (1928-2017), a true icon of the New Wave and one of the most idolized French movie stars.

Valiant(en)

The powerful story of the Vegas Golden Knights in their very first year of existence, when they healed and unified their home city after the worst mass shooting in U.S. history and took an unprecedented run for the Stanley Cup.

Konstantin Koca Popovic(sr)

Who is Koca Popovic? Artist, poet, surrealist, philosopher, warrior, general, cynic, statesman, spoiled son of a rich man, genius war leader or a bon vivant? A Serb who learned French language before his own, a convinced communist who made fun of the communist dogma, sportsman, vice-president of Yugoslavia who drove to work in his Spacek? Answers to these questions could be: all of this and none of it really. In fact, who is Koca Popovic remains a mystery even today. A mystery that this film will at least try to unravel.

Backyard Wilderness(en)

The wonders of nature are viewed from the backyards of communities across the nation.

Two, Three Times Branco(fr)

Akerman, Monteiro, Oliveira, Ruiz, Schroeter and Wenders are among the directors he produced: Deux, trois fois Branco is a portrait of Portuguese producer Paulo Branco, between life and legend.

Reconstruction: America After the Civil War(en)

The series explores the transformative years following the American Civil War, when the nation struggled to rebuild itself in the face of profound loss, massive destruction, and revolutionary social change. The twelve years that composed the post-war Reconstruction era (1865-77) witnessed a seismic shift in the meaning and makeup of our democracy, with millions of former slaves and free black people seeking out their rightful place as equal citizens under the law. Though tragically short-lived, this bold democratic experiment was, in the words of W. E. B. Du Bois, a ‘brief moment in the sun’ for African Americans, when they could advance, and achieve, education, exercise their right to vote, and run for and win public office.

Santa Brigida(it)

Approximately ten minutes of 35mm footage survives at the Svenska Filmminstitutet from a documentary (probably not completed or even edited) shot in the convent of the Swedish sisters of Saint Brigid, Rome, at the request of the Swedish Red Cross, for victims of the Polesine flood of November 1951.

Confessions From the Grassy Knoll: The Shocking Truth(en)

An investigation into the story of a man who confessed to firing the fatal shot that killed JFK from the Grassy Knoll in Dealey Plaza, Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963. His story becomes one more compelling piece of evidence for what most Americans have long suspected: that their government covered up critical facts about the CIA's collaboration with Organized Crime to assassinate the President of the United States.