Alanis Obomsawin, a North American Indian who earns her living by singing and making films, is the mother of an adopted child. She talks about her life, her people, and her responsibilities as a single parent. Her observations shake some of our cultural assumptions.
Alanis Obomsawin, a North American Indian who earns her living by singing and making films, is the mother of an adopted child. She talks about her life, her people, and her responsibilities as a single parent. Her observations shake some of our cultural assumptions.
1975-01-01
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Teatro Amazonas is an elaborate, intriguing formalist experiment investigating the cinematic gaze and cultural exchange, and offering an unconventional ethnographic record of its Amazonian subjects engaged (and disengaged) in the act of spectatorship.
In the summer of 1953, the Canadian government relocated seven Inuit families from Northern Québec to the High Arctic. They were promised an abundance of game and fish - in short, a better life. The government assured the Inuit that if things didn't work out, they could return home after two years. Two years later, another 35 people joined them. It would be thirty years before any of them saw their ancestral lands again. Abandoned in flimsy tents, the Inuit were left to fend for themselves in the desolate settlements of Resolute Bay and Grise Fiord, where the sea was nearly always frozen and darkness reigned for months on end. Suffering from hunger, extreme cold, sickness, alcoholism and poverty, Québec's Inuit had become the victims of a government policy supposedly designed to return them to their "native state". Evidence points to the government's wish to strengthen Canada's sovereignty in the Arctic as playing a part in the decision to relocate.
Tan Pin Pin employs a strictly external perspective for this portrait of her hometown, the tropical economic powerhouse of Singapore, interviewing political exiles in London, Thailand and Malaysia, who are to this day unable to return home.
In 1993, Bikini Kill toured the UK with grrrl associates Huggy Bear. Lucy Thane made a documentary about the trip, also featuring appearances from the Raincoats, Sister George, and Skinned Teen.
A night flight through hysteria and police surveillance in suburban America.
Sylvia Kristel – Paris is a portrait of Sylvia Kristel , best known for her role in the 1970’s erotic cult classic Emmanuelle, as well as a film about the impossibility of memory in relation to biography. Between November 2000 and June 2002 Manon de Boer recorded the stories and memories of Kristel. At each recording session she asked her to speak about a city where Kristel has lived: Paris, Los Angeles, Brussels or Amsterdam; over the two years she spoke on several occasions about the same city. At first glance the collection of stories appears to make up a sort of biography, but over time it shows the impossibility of biography: the impossibility of ‘plotting’ somebody’s life as a coherent narrative.
For decades, American touring ice shows dominated family entertainment with their dazzling production and variety acts. This documentary honors them through interviews and archival footage, and depicts one skater's quest to keep this history alive.
The Police Tapes is a 1977 documentary about a New York City police precinct in the South Bronx. The original ran ninety minutes and was produced for public television; a one-hour version later aired on ABC. Filmmakers Alan and Susan Raymond spent three months in 1976 riding along with patrol officers in the 44th Precinct of the South Bronx, which had the highest crime rate in New York City at that time. They produced about 40 hours of videotape that they edited into a 90-minute documentary.
The compelling story of an extraordinary woman's journey from her birth in a paper thin shack in the cotton fields of Georgia to her recognition as a key writer of the twentieth Century.Walker made history as the first black woman to win a Pulitzer Prize for her groundbreaking novel, The Color Purple.
In the 1980s and 1990s a wave of murders bloodied the idyllic coastline of Sydney’s eastern suburbs. The victims: young gay men. Disturbing gang assaults were being carried out on coastal cliffs around Sydney, and mysterious deaths officially recorded as "suicide", "disappearance" and "misadventure". Individual stories are woven together by first person interviews and detailed re-enactments, piecing together the facts of these unsolved cases, decades later.
A magic realist fable about invisible elves, financial collapse and the surprising power of belief, told through the story of an Icelandic woman - a real life Lorax who speaks on behalf of nature under threat.
This documentary chronicles the story of Darrell Night, an Indigenous man who was dumped by two police officers in a barren field on the outskirts of Saskatoon in January 2000, during -20° C temperatures. He survived, but he was stunned to hear that the frozen body of another Indigenous man was discovered in the same area.
Documentary about "The Coolbaroo Club", which was the only Aboriginal-run dance club in a city which practiced unofficial apartheid. During its lifetime, the Club attracted Black musicians and celebrities from all over Australia and occasionally from overseas. Although best-remembered for the hugely popular Coolbaroo dances attended by hundreds of Aborigines and their white supporters, the "Coolbaroo League", founded by Club members, ran a newspaper and became an effective political organization, speaking out on issues of the day affecting Aboriginal people.
After giving birth, Joyce attempts to regain her position as a filmmaker while also caring for her new baby. The changes to both her and her husband’s professional lives are remarkable and frustrating. The new parents love the baby but must recognize the limitations she puts on their careers.
This documentary digs into the stories of Indigenous women and families to reclaim their Indian Status through their fight for the elimination of sex-discrimination in the Indian Act. It highlights the impacts of the law on individuals, families and communities. Since the passing of Bill S-3 and its amendments, thousands of Indigenous people are now eligible for Indian Status.
‘Podwórka’ captures six groups of neighbourhood youth as they play in seemingly deserted yards, offering an intimate portrait of daily life in Łódź, Poland. Shot with a fixed camera, this single-channel video projection highlights American artist Sharon Lockhart’s concern for the interrelationship between the still and the moving image.
Documentary about an unlikely youth chess team from Indianapolis who went on surprise the chess world with their success. The team, made up of young African Americans with no previous experience and led by their devoted teacher, went on to win the United States elementary school chess championship.
Filmmakers Sue Marx and Pamela Conn document the romance between Sue's father Louis Gothelf and Reva Shwayder, each in their mid-80s. Both artists and residents of the Detroit suburbs, they met on a group tour of England after being widowed, and quickly formed a strong connection over shared interests. The two discuss concerns over living together without being married; Louis also talks about his caring for his first wife during her ten-year struggle with Alzheimer's disease, while Reva talks about the deaths of two sons several years after her husband's death.
This 1991 Academy Award®-winning documentary uncovers the disastrous health and environmental side effects caused by the production of nuclear materials by the General Electric Corporation.