In 2003, Dutch artist Iepe Rubingh became the first World Champion of Chessboxing. This brain-busting combination of alternating rounds of chess and boxing was in fact an art performance calling for more balance in a world of extremes, and the audience reaction was so electric that it inspired Rubingh to push it as a real sport. Rubingh’s methodical ability to achieve balance in the ring is put to the test outside of it when impulsive British TV Producer Tim Woolgar takes up the sport and his opposing vision for success creates a rift between them, endangering chessboxing’s future.
Self
Self
Featuring dozens of performances from the living rooms, backyards, and unconventional venues throughout Athens, GA, the first Athens Rising film takes a deep look at music, dance, food, stand-up comedy, strange theater, visual art, and the origins of AthFest.
A look at the November 1980 re-match between Sugar Ray Leonard and Roberto Duran and how two infamous words haunt both.
An expedition to the dirty abyss of professional sports. The award winning investigative journalist Benjamin Best (CNN Journalist of the Year 2011) takes a global look behind the scenes at the colourful world of sports and exposes the bitter taste behind the multi-billion sports business.
Feature documentary on the pioneering life and work of iconoclastic filmmaker/musician/composer/artist Tony Conrad.
One Meter of Democracy (2010) challenged the endurance of viewers, as well as the courage of the artist. In a quasi-democratic process, He Yunchang invited approximately 20 friends to vote in a secret ballot on whether he should have a surgeon cut a one metre incision the length of his body, from collar bone to knee, without anaesthesia. The vote was carried by a narrow majority, with several abstaining. The performance was documented in video and photographs that reveal the emotional cost of witnessing this gruelling event. This work, sometimes also known as ‘Asking the Tiger for its Skin’ was also staged on a symbolic date: 10 October 2010 was the 99th anniversary of the Wuchang uprising and the Xinhai Revolution which led to the fall of the Qing Dynasty and the establishment of the Republic of China. The final image shows the group with sombre, shocked faces.
The Rock Touring Around Great Britain is a performance piece by Chinese artist He Yunchang that involved a walking circumambulation of Great Britain from September 23, 2006 to June 14, 2007. Starting from the hamlet of Rock, Northumberland, the artist walked to the nearby town of Boulmer where he selected a rock which he then carried counterclockwise until he returned it to the precise location from which it was taken. As the artist commented, the work was primarily "an attempt to represent the iron will of an individual and the living conditions of his being with simple and pure methods."
Joe Calzaghe is, without question, the greatest British fighter, Ever. And this is his exclusive, all action story of how he fought his way to the top. Now unbeaten in 45 fights Joe has won WBO, WBA, WBC and IBF super middleweight titles during his epic 16 year unblemished career...and beaten absolutely everybody who has been put is his way! This is the Calzaghe Story which brings together his greatest World Title fights along with the exclusive, untold story from two boxing insiders, Frank Warren, and highly respected boxing journalist Colin Hart. These two men, with supreme knowledge of the boxing game, recount their stories about Joe the boxer, the world beater.
Together with their coach, the young members of a Munich boxing club are travelling to Ghana to hold training camp.
Balkan Baroque is a real and imaginary biography of the Yugoslavian performance artist Marina Abramovic. Rather than a mechanical reproduction of the artist's work, the film tries to create a new reality by translating the performances into cinematographic images that intensify the fictional context of the film. Abramovic plays herself, but ,appearing in multiple forms, blurs her own identity. Memories and fantasies intermingle with day to day rituals. The chronological narrative often breaks to reflect the interior voyage of the protagonist from the present to the past and back to the present. The result is a visually impressive film. Balkan Baroque had its world premiere at the International Film Festival Rotterdam, 1999.
As Cirque du Soleil reboots its flagship production, O, more than a year after an abrupt shutdown, performers and crew members face uncertainty as they work to return to their world-class standards in time for the (re)opening night in Las Vegas. With unfettered access, filmmaker Dawn Porter captures the dramatic journey of the world's most famous circus act on its way back from the brink.
"Doorgaan" is an intense and intimate documentary about survival and resilience, following the young talented boxer Farshid Bos on his way to the Dutch boxing championships. Heading for the top, he is coached by boxing legend Piet Rozendaal.
Rubin 'Hurricane' Carter - A feature documentary on the legendary black fighter who overcame his life sentence as a triple racist murderer, freed others wrongly convicted, and put his cause on the front burner. When he was given a medical death sentence that he couldn't escape, he told us his story of how he did it and why we are on a last road trip with him to his spiritual home in KKK country-rural Georgia.
Nigel Benn and Chris Eubank fought twice in the ring, but it was in this special TV documentary that they fought their most entertaining battle of all - as Gladiators!
“Gloves Off” explores the in’s and outs of Franks boxing career and includes many interviews with Frank himself, the people in his ring and some competitors.
Documentary on heavyweight champion boxer Tommy Morrison; his life and career. Tommy Morrison was an American heavyweight boxer and a former World Boxing Organization champion. He lost only three out of a total of 52 professional fights.
Luton based, boxer, Linus Udofia embarks on his first professional debut fight as a boxer. This documentary explores the physical and psychological rigour of becoming a professional boxer.
Produced by PBS in 1992, this documentary explores the darker side of boxing. It follows the career of a young Shannon Briggs and includes interviews with Evander Holyfield, Larry Holmes, Teddy Atlas, Dan Duva, Kathy Duva, Lou Duva, Bobby Czyz, Bob Arum, Mike Marley and even Muhammad Ali.
Bernhard, an actress-comedienne whose brassy humor attracts a cult-like following, here offers a semiconfessional view of her life's landscape. Childhood memories of her father, a doctor, and her mother, an artist, are warmly rendered in scenes of the Jewish family amiably accommodating itself to the Christmas season, and of the obligatory communal vacations joined by colorful relatives. The abrupt transition to a flamboyant denizen of "downtowns," Los Angeles or New York, to an existence as a character in the lives of marginal people, is evoked in sharply satirical terms, in a melange of humorous fact and fiction, monologues akin to those that make Bernhard an icon of pop culture.