When director Daniel Schmid grew up, his parents ran a hotel in the Alps, and this singular setting was to influence his film. Rather by coincidence he came to Berlin in the early 1960s and became part of the new German wave. Schmid worked with, among others, Wenders and Fassbinder, for example as an actor in Wender’s The American Friend. He met Ingrid Caven, who was to play a diva in several of his films. This is a documentation of a part of modern European film history and a good analysis of artistry and how it corresponds to the individual behind the camera. A wealth of archival footage brings us close to many directors and actors in Schmid’s circle. If you’ve never seen a Daniel Schmid film, you are sure to want to after watching this portrait of his life.
Self (archive footage)
When director Daniel Schmid grew up, his parents ran a hotel in the Alps, and this singular setting was to influence his film. Rather by coincidence he came to Berlin in the early 1960s and became part of the new German wave. Schmid worked with, among others, Wenders and Fassbinder, for example as an actor in Wender’s The American Friend. He met Ingrid Caven, who was to play a diva in several of his films. This is a documentation of a part of modern European film history and a good analysis of artistry and how it corresponds to the individual behind the camera. A wealth of archival footage brings us close to many directors and actors in Schmid’s circle. If you’ve never seen a Daniel Schmid film, you are sure to want to after watching this portrait of his life.
2010-09-02
5.8
"The Wild Soccer Bunch" celebrate their last victory against the "Silver Lights" - and set one record in volley-pass game after another in the forest. But they are not alone: Vampires target the team. To lure them into their bunker, they kidnap Leon. Will Vanessa ever see him again?
The Return is a 2016 documentary directed by Emmy Award winning director Erich Joiner chronicling Ford GT's return to 24 Hours of Le Mans after their 1966 1-2-3 victory.
Returning wounded from the war Maksym was overcome by self-doubt, in his physiological state. He is undergoing rehabilitation. He loses contact with his wife. He is tormented by dreams. In one of his dreams Maksym goes to the island to catch a lot of fish, as the paramedic advised him. Maksym takes a boat, net, dynamite from the best man and sails to the island.
In a spoof of 1972's The New Scooby-Doo Movies, Scooby-Doo and the Mystery Inc. gang pick up a hitchiking Gary Coleman. Soon after, the Mystery Machine proceeds to break down (multiple times) leaving them stranded at a haunted castle owned by David Cross.
Ugo Fantozzi has been ejected from Heaven and is sent back to Earth for a short period of time until the staff in Heaven can get Fantozzi a place there. Fantozzi goes through a variety of unfortunate experiences, such as rescuing his retro punk granddaughter Uga, and having to pay a vast telephone bill due to frequent chat line conversations. He ends up getting arrested instead of his ex-boss, who was originally charged with corruption. Just as he is about to enjoy the World Cup Final with Italy, he is called back into Heaven. Can he find peace once again?
A few years ago, a mysterious serial-killer caused panic on Crippen High School. The killer was never caught. A movie company, Cosmic Pictures, has decided to make a feature movie about these events - on location, at the now abandoned school. Since members of cast and crew disappear without a trace, it seems as if history is repeating itself...
A tough customs man, out to get a youth smuggling tobacco into France across the Belgium border, falls for the jaded ex bar hostess the smuggler lives with.Meanwhile the young man is intrigued by another, more innocent girl.
Blade, Tunneler, and Pinhead go toe-to-toe with a team of terrifying, gremlin-like creatures known as "Totems" that are sent by the Egyptian demon Sutekh to recapture the magic stolen by Toulon.
Ko Chun, the God of Gamblers, vows to keep his identity hidden while looking for the gangsters who murdered his pregnant wife.
A doomed love affair blooms against the beautiful and exotic backdrop of the deserts of India in this romantic drama. Samantha Hartley (Kelli Garner) is a woman in her early twenties who travels to Rajapur in India to visit a resort where her mother stayed years ago. While tracing the steps of her mother, Sara (Lynn Collins), Samantha learns the true story about her mother's stormy marriage to Jeremy (Justin Theroux), a charming but moody alcoholic. Only a few days after their wedding, Sara began to wonder if marrying Jeremy was a mistake, and while visiting India on their honeymoon, Sara met Jai Singh (Manoj Bajpai), a handsome and sensitive widower living in Rajapur. Jai Singh, who speaks fluent English, soon strikes up a friendship with Sara that quickly grows into a romance, but both are aware of the transgressive nature of their love, and their affair takes a tragic turn, leaving its scars on all parties involved.
«The Return of the Prodigal Son» is the first volume from the film (novel) of Anatoli Vassiliev’s «Empire» inside the Dau cycle. The story is about inner kinship, which is much closer than blood, about inevitable betrayal, about almost fatherly love and forgiveness. Cigarettes (papirossa), images from «Faust» and «Don Juan», walks in the Soviet Park of culture... And a terrible, narrow gap inside the brutal regime where you have to be skilled enough to survive... Yes! and they also play gorodki (skittles) with childish passion!
A jigsaw film assembled from archival footage from the 20s and 30s, preserving memories of the construction of a new and everyday life - the launch of the metro, hard work, cultural life and leisure. By combining two parallel stories - state film chronicles and diary entries - the film attempts to revise the historical archive and the usual perception of the time, bringing to the forefront the collective image of a hero from the crowd.
A European prince terrorizes the local peasantry while using his castle as a refuge against the "Red Death" plague that stalks the land.
Covered in ice and snow, Elior Forest is the home to dangerous magical beasts and 50 elves frozen in ice. One day, the great spirit Puck helps a young girl break out of her ice prison. Her name is Emilia, a half-elf born with silver hair, long ears, and amethyst eyes—features that resemble the evil Witch who destroyed half the world long ago. Shunned by society because of her appearance, Emilia dwells in the forest with Puck as her sole companion and family. Burdened with a sin of destruction she does not remember committing, she spends her days trying to find a way to help her frozen kin. But when the great spirit Melakuera, the Arbitrator of the world, finds Emilia, her right to stay alive is brought into question. Will the bonds of ice she formed with Puck prove to be the warm thread that defies fate?
Renowned producer, director and writer Judd Apatow makes his long-awaited return to stand-up comedy with this new special shot in Montreal.
11-year old Julia and Martin are tired of having to flip back and forth between their divorced parents and when they realize how much they look like, they realize to swap places. After meeting at an airport, the each embark on a journey that will change their lives forever.
Between 1947 and 1951, more than 80 000 Greek men, women and children were deported to the isle of Makronissos (Greece) in reeducation camps created to ‘fight the spread of Communism’. Among those exiles were a number of writers and poets, including Yannis Ritsos and Tassos Livaditis. Despite the deprivation and torture, they managed to write poems which describe the struggle for survival in this world of internment. These texts, some of them buried in the camps, were later found. «Like Lions of stone at the gateway of night» blends these poetic writings with the reeducation propaganda speeches constantly piped through the camps’ loudspeakers. Long tracking shots take us on a trance-like journey through the camp ruins, interrupted along the way by segments from photographic archives. A cinematic essay, which revives the memory of forgotten ruins and a battle lost.
A documentary about Ibrahim Gezer, who escaped from war in Kurdistan to Switzerland. All is lost, except his love for beekeeping.
Ceschi and Stamm's documentary tells the incredible story of Monika Krause, a former East German citizen, who became Fidel Castro's Sexual Education Minister. After 20 years in Cuba, Krause set the Cuban sexual revolution in motion: in favor of a woman's right to sexual fulfillment and legal abortion, and against exclusion of homosexuals, she acquired the title "Queen of Condoms". A film about potent female agitators, staunch macho men and Caribbean love lives.
Switzerland still carries out special flights, where passengers, dressed in diapers and helmets, are chained to their seats for 40 hours at worst. They are accompanied by police officers and immigration officials. The passengers are flown to their native countries, where they haven't set foot in in up to twenty years, and where their lives might be in danger. Children, wives and work are left behind in Switzerland. Near Geneva, in Frambois prison, live 25 illegal immigrants waiting for deportation. They are offered an opportunity to say goodbye to their families and return to their native countries on a regular flight, escorted by plain-clothes police officers. If they refuse this offer, the special flight is arranged fast and unexpectedly. The stories behind the locked cells are truly heartbreaking.
The key to the communal laundry room in the block of flats on the Rue de Genève 85 in Lausanne serves a much greater function than merely unlocking the door. This encounter between a symbol of typical Swiss mentality with a penchant for order and the tenants who have been housed here by the city’s social services department is not something to be taken for granted. Although the laundry room is normally located in the cellar, the tenants in this building share a tiny laundry room off the entrance hall because the cellar is reserved for prostitution. To maintain order and cleanliness, the landlord hires Claudina, a new “laundry woman”.
In 1964, Che Guevara asked the young Jean Ziegler to stay in Switzerland to fight in the "Monster brain" capitalist. Since then, Jean Ziegler nerve stops fighting against injustices as a public writer, a speaker and as a Kofi Annan collaborator. During a trip to Cuba, his ideas are challenged by what he discover on the island.
Switzerland is presently the only country in the world where suicide assistance is legal. Exit: The Right to Die profiles that nation's EXIT organization, which for over twenty years has provided volunteers who counsel and accompany the terminally-ill and severely handicapped towards a death of their choice.
An intimate portrayal of the everyday lives of Carthusian monks of the Grande Chartreuse, high in the French Alps (Chartreuse Mountains). The idea for the film was proposed to the monks in 1984, but the Carthusians said they wanted time to think about it. The Carthusians finally contacted Gröning 16 years later to say they were now willing to permit Gröning to shoot the movie, if he was still interested.
How can structures, which take up defined, rigid portions of space, make us feel transcendence? How can chapels turn into places of introspection? How can walls grant boundless freedom? Driven by intense childhood impressions, director Christoph Schaub visits extraordinary churches, both ancient and futuristic, and discovers works of art that take him up to the skies and all the way down to the bottom of the ocean. With the help of architects Peter Zumthor, Peter Märkli, and Álvaro Siza Vieira, artists James Turrell and Cristina Iglesias, and drummer Sergé “Jojo” Mayer, he tries to make sense of the world and decipher our spiritual experiences using the seemingly abstract concepts of light, time, rhythm, sound, and shape. The superb cinematography turns this contemplative search into a multi-sensory experience.
The extraordinary destiny of two people. After the Second World War, Lois is an actress in Broadway theatre, television and Hollywood films. Her husband, Edgar Snow, is world famous. A pioneer fascinated by China, he is the first journalist to film and interview Mao Tse-tung. Suspected by the American authorities of Communist sympathies, Ed and Lois are blacklisted. Together with their two small children, they go to Switzerland, mid-way between China and America, where they find a new home. A story of revolution, utopia, disillusionment, and hope.
A behind-the-scenes look at the of how the Paris Opera is run under the direction of Stephane Lissner.
A documentary of an expedition to Churchill, Manitoba to film the Northern Lights.
SIGNERS KOFFER is a kind of road movie across Europa. From the Swiss Alps to eastern Poland, from Stromboli to Iceland. Always following the scenery's magically charged contours. Immersing yourself, letting yourself be infected, then travelling on. Roman Signer determines the route that we are moving on and the film improvises along the way. Being on the road also means tracking down the right places. Signer brings them alive using his own personel instruments, brilliantly simple operations full of subtle humour. «Simple» poems being transmitted into space with INSTRUMENTS as gunpowder, fuse, rubber boots, balloons, stool, small table ... and a three wheelded Plaggio. SIGNERS KOFFER is also a journey through the state of mind. A tightrope walk between fun and melancholy. Danger also mental mental danger becomes the stimulus of the senses. Sudden crashes, abrupt chagnes of mood determine the rythm and atmosphere of this cinematic journey.
A documentary film about Tibetan traditional medicine.
The incredible story of how the mummified corpse of a 40-year-old man was discovered by a hunter in one of the most remote parts of the country. The dead man's detailed notes reveal that he actually committed suicide through self-imposed starvation only the summer before. Liechti's film is a stunning rapprochement of a fictional text, which itself is based upon a true event: a cinematic manifesto for life, challenged by the main character's radical renunciation of life itself.
Above and Below is a rough and rhythmic roller coaster ride seating five survivors in their daily hustle through an apocalyptic world. A journey of challenges and beauty in uncomfortable places: Rick & Cindy, Godfather Lalo in the flood channels deep down under the shiny strip of Sin City. Dave in the dry and lonesome Californian desert and April in simulation for a Mars mission in the Utah desert. Through the hustle, the pain and the laughs, we are whisked away to an unfamiliar world, yet quickly discover the souls we encounter are perhaps not that different from our own.
The huge tar sands in Alberta are a potentially profitable resource, but the environmental impact could be heavy and long-term.
Documentary account of a man’s life in the face of imminent death – Francisco Varela's story told affectionately and gently, touchingly and astutely. Varela spent his life building bridges: between Western science and Eastern wisdom, neurobiology and philosophy, abstract theory and practical life. This film seeks to deconstructs the prevailing division between science and art.
The personal stories of the people from all around the world waiting for a decision in an asylum-seekers centre in one of most restrictive countries in the world, Switzerland.
It is winter at an emergency shelter for the homeless in Lausanne. Every night at the door of this little-known basement facility the same entry ritual takes place, resulting in confrontations which can sometimes turn violent. Those on duty at the shelter have the difficult task of “triaging the poor”: the women and children first, then the men. Although the total capacity at the shelter is 100, only 50 “chosen ones” will be admitted inside and granted a warm meal and a bed. The others know it will be a long night.