John Santos: San Francisco Foundation Community Leadership Awards 2011(NaN)

House of Trés(en)

A quickfire portrait of the New York City ballroom scene in the ‘80s.

The Business of Creativity(en)

Going into my interview with Laurel Greenfield, I thought the majority of our conversation would be about her inspiration for painting food and why she chose to pursue painting as a career. We spoke about that but ended up having a much bigger conversation about pursuing a creative career. We talked a lot about finding the balance between having a business plan and taking a leap of faith into the unknown, something anyone pursuing a creative field on their own can relate to.

Patria y Vida: The Power of Music(es)

The film explores how “Patria Y Vida” became a rallying cry that Cubans shouted in the streets during unprecedented demonstrations on the island.

Crafting the Tragedy of Macbeth(en)

This behind the scenes documentary split across five chapters focuses on the many aspects of the filmmaking journey and includes interviews with lead actor and actress Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand. As well as various crew members.

About ‘Song of Ceylon’ by Basil Wright(de)

Song of Ceylon was commissioned for the short-lived German TV-series Telekritik and broadcasted in 1975. In Telekritik documentary approaches were analysed and made available for a critique of contemporary TV, its aesthetics and modes of production. Other authors for the series include Hartmut Bitomsky, Rainer Gansera and Klaus Wildenhahn.In the 30-minute movie, Farocki shows and comments on excerpts from the film Song of Ceylon by Basil Wright (and a short segment of Eisenstein's Mexico-fragments). Farocki's voice-over describes part of the movie, focussing on details and montage. He also uses didactic and descriptive drawings and intertitles to confront the classic documentary and its stylistic approaches with contemporary TV.

Letter from Tokyo(ja)

Letter from Tokyo is a documentary film that looks at art, culture and politics in Tokyo, Japan. Shot over three months during the summer of 2018, and with a particular focus on grass roots arts initiatives, the use of public space, and queer politics, the film provides a snapshot of Japan’s capital in the run up to the 2020 olympics.

Come In(en)

"Come In" explores how Morse history is entangled with the history of the Spiritualist church. The Spiritualist Church was founded by the Fox sisters in 1850. They claimed that they were mediums who could communicate with the dead and they justified this ability by citing the new ability, through Morse, to speak with someone far away almost instantaneously. After fifty years of practicing Spiritualism, the sisters declared the religion a hoax, and many years later Morse code officially lost its role in the commercial realm. As Spiritualists continue to send messages to the dead in spite of the sisters’ statements, and Morse operators transmit messages into the ether with hope, Johnson asks: How do communication networks and technologies affect our calls and responses and make visible our desire for reciprocity?

Fannie Lou Hamer’s America(en)

The film explores and celebrates the lesser-known life of a Mississippi sharecropper-turned-human-rights-activist and one of the Civil Rights Movement’s greatest leaders. Throughout the 1960s, Fannie Lou Hamer established a legacy of civil rights and human rights activism that remains relevant to this day – especially among Black youth.

Temporarily Exiled(ru)

A community of Armenians, refugees from the Soviet Union during the Baku pogroms, live in a deep American province. Baku life, Armenian blood, Soviet mentality, and American emigration mix in incredible tragicomic proportion.

FLOAT!(en)

With depth, intimacy, and humor, FLOAT! captures filmmaker Azza Cohen's magnetic grandma’s life-affirming journey learning to swim at 82, inspiring audiences to defy societal expectations of aging and to boldly look forward at every stage.

Ink and Gold: An Artist's Journey to Olympic Glory(en)

'Ink and Gold: An Artist's Journey to Olympic Glory' is a short form documentary that follows the journey of New Zealand artist and athlete, Zakea Page, winning the Lausanne 2020 Youth Olympic Games medal design competition and fulfilling a lifelong dream to perform at the opening ceremonies. The film was shot over the course of one week in Lausanne, Switzerland, at the 2020 Youth Olympic Games and weaved together with self-taped footage of Zakea's younger years as an athlete and artist. Accompanied with interviews of his family, 'Ink and Gold' highlights the connection between art and sport in bringing together peoples of diverse cultures and backgrounds to bridge barriers of language and foster connections, mutual understanding, and respect for one another.

Zero Impunity(en)

An artistic hybrid documentary, ZERO IMPUNITY is the centerpiece of an ambitious global transmedia project. ZERO IMPUNITY sheds a powerful spotlight on the seemingly total Impunity for the use of sexual violence in armed conflicts worldwide. ZERO IMPUNITY is an important and necessary eye opening Scream, raising awareness and outrage.

We Will Speak(en)

The Cherokee language is deeply tied to Cherokee identity; yet generations of assimilation efforts by the U.S. government and anti-Indigenous stigmas have forced the Tri-Council of Cherokee tribes to declare a State of Emergency for the language in 2019. While there are 430,000 Cherokee citizens in the three federally recognized tribes, fewer than an estimated 2,000 fluent speakers remain—the majority of whom are elderly. The covid pandemic has unfortunately hastened the course. Language activists, artists, and the youth must now lead the charge of urgent radical revitalization efforts to help save the language from the brink of extinction.

Then and Now: 1981-2004(en)

A short film mostly comprised of two sources: research footage from 1988 about the beginnings of the HIV epidemic from the perspective of medical professionals, and an interview with Cleve Jones in 2003 as he looks back upon his activism, and the state of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the early 2000s.

Strangers in the Dark(fi)

Strangers in the Dark is an experimental film about how light pollution makes a glow-worm’s love life a living hell. Combining different techniques from animation to archive material the film follows glow-worm’s attempts to find a partner in an environment that is no longer dark at night. The story about light and darkness moves from the scale of planetary to microscopic, from the calmness of nature to a hectic city and from artificial light to the green shimmer of a glow-worm’s behind.

The Outskirts of Alphaville(fr)

Making of Jean Luc Godard's Alphaville (1965)

Spider-Man & the Spider-Verse Revolution (To Be Continued)(en)

Celebrate the films that redefined animation, influenced culture and brought Spider-Man into all new dimensions as the filmmakers, journalists and fans share their love of the Spider-verse films.

MAJOR!(en)

MAJOR! follows the life and campaigns of Miss Major Griffin-Gracy, a 73-year-old Black transgender woman who has been fighting for the rights of trans women of color for over 40 years.

The Beloved Child, or I Play at Being a Married Woman(fr)

A young mother, alone with her daughter, confides in a friend who happens to be the director herself. Chantal Akerman, although she sympathizes with the mother, does not say a word.

Got You(de)