

Every year, five to ten percent of all deceased Berliners are buried by the authorities because no relatives are found. Most of them are put into the ground by mortician Bernd Simon going alone. But sometimes companions do turn up and say goodbye in their very own way. An observational documentary about an undertaker who actually wanted to become an entertainer, a bizarre city portrait and a mirror of how we deal with death, mourning and commemoration.

Every year, five to ten percent of all deceased Berliners are buried by the authorities because no relatives are found. Most of them are put into the ground by mortician Bernd Simon going alone. But sometimes companions do turn up and say goodbye in their very own way. An observational documentary about an undertaker who actually wanted to become an entertainer, a bizarre city portrait and a mirror of how we deal with death, mourning and commemoration.
2022-01-16
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5.8Although it was actually an impersonal commissioned film, the director's style is clearly recognizable. Once again he manages to make something that is normal very strange: the dancing people in costumes are filmed in such a way that they look bizarre and absurd. Jan de Bont's camerawork shows a series of color images of dancing people, edited to the rhythm of the music. Halfway through the film, a lonely clown can be seen among the dancing crowd, accompanied by sad music. This clown is played by Ditvoorst himself.
A BFI-produced documentary about documentary filmmaker John Grierson speaking about documentary.
0.0Between the French La Nouvelle Vague and the Italian Neorealismo, Europe had been undergoing a continuous cinema transformation since the 1950s, while the ailing American studio system groaned under its own weight and inertia. New Hollywood had arrived with Bonnie and Clyde in 1967, and already by 1968 it was changing how Hollywood thought and acted. The student film scene was getting ready to explode, and it knew it.
6.0In Finland, a small child is waiting for his time to begin. His heart is broken. A major heart surgery is expected. There is a fight against time. The boys parents are wandering in the corridors of the hospital. The heart is stopped during the surgery operation. Le Locle, a village in Switzerland acts as the heart of watch industry. Narrow streets of the village carry vital parts to watches and nowdays also into human bodies, for example pacemakers. Village is formed as a big factory line and appears as a time-twisting machine. There pieces are refined and workers hands turns the time on and off.
0.0A short film of the first weeks of strict national lockdown, filmed in Barcelona on a classic home video camera Hi8. Narrates the story of three women who share a flat and who create a microworld not only to survive the global pandemic but also to survive themselves.
7.2The ideal of youth is at the centre of this eloquent film, mixing documentary and fiction, art and experimentation. Demonstrating both formal and narrative freedom, Bélanger weaves a deliberately loose weave in which the initiatory journey of two young people, wandering through Montreal in search of a job, unfolds. But not just any job. The two idealists want a job that will satisfy their desire for freedom, peace and respect. Of course, even though the breath of renewal from Expo 67 still floats here and there, the world they encounter does not correspond - by far - to their aspirations. Strangers in this country that tells them nothing, they come across brutally, materialism, violence, and egocentrism.
0.0The story of Ellis Island and the American immigration experience. This film is a tribute to the 18 million men, women and children who made the torturous journey from the Old to the New World between 1890 and 1920, in the single largest migration in human history. The film radically tells the immigrants' stories as they braved the unknown, from the time they left their homelands, their journey across the ocean, to the moment the doors of Ellis Island opened, revealing the great promise of America.
6.6After a terrible accident deep inside an underwater cave, the survivors are forced to risk their own lives to bring the bodies of their friends home.
7.3What happened to those vedettes who represented the mexican cabaret’s exotic beauty in the ‘70s and ‘80s? Four decades after the end of their roles, they tell their stories with dignity.
Third installment in Stefan Nadelman's ongoing short doc series about his father and the infamous Terminal bar in NYC.
5.0Deep in the forest of Overland Park, Kansas little gnomes made a home. But how did they get there? Experience the feel-good story of paying it forward, one tiny magical house at a time.
Part of Chris Marker’s Three Video Haikus series, Tchaïka is a brief visual meditation showing an overexposed view of a bridge and the river flowing beneath it.
4.5Part of Chris Marker’s Three Video Haikus series, Petite Ceinture is a brief visual meditation on Paris’s abandoned circular railway, filmed as an homage to the Lumière brothers.
7.110 Meter Tower is a short film taking place in a swimming pool with 6 cameras aimed at the tallest diving tower. All focus is on the 43 people between 9 and 78 years old. They have one thing in common, this is the first time in their lives they climb up to the platform to make the decision whether to jump or not. The situation itself highlights a dilemma: to weigh the instinctive fear of taking the step out against the humiliation of having to climb down.
0.0This is the story of Vasiliy Ilyin, a retired farmer from the village of Ryshkovo, on a first time journey to see the world, New York, the ocean, and a cover photoshoot for Esquire Russia
Part of Chris Marker’s Three Video Haikus series, Owl Gets in Your Eyes observes owls and their young in quiet close-up, capturing their shifting expressions and watchful gaze.
5.9During his adventure in Mexico, Sergei Eisenstein made footage of a Mexican "Death Day" celebration for inclusion in his "Que Viva Mexico!" film project. When the 200,000-plus feet of film he eventually exposed in Mexico was first attempted to be made into a feature film, "Thunder Over Mexico", the producers excluded the Death Day material for subsequent compilation as an independent short subject. Silent with music track and explanatory English intertitles.
Documentary short that explores the sacrifices acclaimed actress Juliette Lewis makes to pursue her first love, music.