Is My Living In Vain(2022)

The Moscow Pilgrims(ru)

"The Moscow Pilgrims" is a film that takes you on a tour of Russia’s ancient capital. The film’s main characters – father and son – are doing the most intersting sights of old Moscow, including the Simonov Monastery, the New Spassky Cloister and the Krutitsky Church located on a picturesque bank of the Moskva River. The celibate priest Ilia, the dean of the church of the Holy Mother of God father Vladimir and other priests will help the pilgrims and visitors to see the world of Moscow’s ancient holy sites: the burial-vault of the noble Romanov family, the Cathedral of the Transfiguration of God recently cleared from security services, and the graves of the Kulikovo battle heroes, the monks Oslyabi and Peresvet.

Grizzly Man(en)

Werner Herzog's documentary film about the "Grizzly Man" Timothy Treadwell and what the thirteen summers in a National Park in Alaska were like in one man's attempt to protect the grizzly bears. The film is full of unique images and a look into the spirit of a man who sacrificed himself for nature.

The Scars(eu)

The personal stories lived by the Uncle, the Father and the Son, respectively, form a tragic experience that is drawn along a line in time. This line is comparable to a crease in the pages of the family album, but also to a crack in the walls of the paternal house. It resembles the open wound created when drilling into a mountain, but also a scar in the collective imaginary of a society, where the idea of salvation finds its tragic destiny in the political struggle. What is at the end of that line? Will old war songs be enough to circumvent that destiny?

Avicii - I'm Tim(sv)

Before Avicii, there was Tim. Through his own words, witness how a prodigious musical talent became one of the defining artists of his generation.

Jeronimo(en)

Born to Korean immigrant parents freed from indentured servitude in early twentieth century Mexico, Jerónimo Lim Kim joins the Cuban Revolution with his law school classmate Fidel Castro and becomes an accomplished government official in the Castro regime, until he rediscovers his ethnic roots and dedicates his later life to reconstructing his Korean Cuban identity. After Jerónimo's death, younger Korean Cubans recognize his legacy, but it is not until they are presented with the opportunity to visit South Korea that questions about their mixed identity resurface.

The Editing of the Brazilian Northeast(pt)

In order to invent a region, it is necessary to create its culture, preferably with the help of cinema. Inspired by the book and play “A Invenção do Nordeste”, this is a re-editing of Brazilian films essential to the foundation of the Northeastern imaginary.

Imagine: John Lennon(en)

The biography of former Beatle, John Lennon—narrated by Lennon himself—with extensive material from Yoko Ono's personal collection, previously unseen footage from Lennon's private archives, and interviews with David Bowie, his first wife Cynthia, second wife Yoko Ono and sons Julian and Sean.

The Enigmatic Charlotte Rampling(fr)

Screen icon Charlotte Rampling has fascinated the world of cinema, fashion and photography with her mysterious and almost inaccessible beauty. A major figure in genre and auteur films, she is unclassifiable: between presence and absence, shyness and audacity, she's always hypnotic, magnetic and fascinating. From her film debut in the mid-1960s in England, to her unconventional career path, through the tragic loss suicide of her older sister that will irremediably mark her acting, this film is a dive into the existential quest of a complex actress, whose every facet is discovered through her roles. Through a conversation with the actress herself, along with personal archives and extracts from her films, this documentary raws a dazzling portrait of her life and career.

Alain Delon, l'ombre au tableau(fr)

The world like a jewel in the hand: unlearning imperial plunder ii(en)

This film travels over open books, looted objects and postcards to look for the imperial foundations of the world in which we live. Within this wide landscape the film focuses on the destruction of the Jewish Muslim world that existed in North Africa, making it imaginable and inhabitable again. Narrated in the first person, by an Algerian Jew and a Palestinian Jew, the film refuses imperial histories of those places. Objects held captive in museums and archives outside of the places from where they were looted are only the visible tip of the iceberg of the mass colonial plunder of Africa. The film explores the substantial wealth accumulated through the extraction of raw materials, labour, knowledge and skills, including the “visual wealth” attained by putting people in front of the colonisers’ cameras.

Paul Newman: The Restless(fr)

Multi-talented, Paul Newman is one of the greatest American actors of all time. With his silhouette of a Greek statue and his unreal blue eyes, he embodied the quintessential Hollywood star. But he never seemed satisfied. The son of a Jewish sporting goods retailer who despises him and a Catholic mother who adores him, driven by self-doubt and an inherited need for approval from his childhood, he has worked throughout his fifty-year career to break the image of the pretty boy. He made his first experiences in the famous Actors Studio. The breakthrough as a screen star came in 1958 with "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof". From then on he preferred characters on the edge of the American dream. With archive images and film excerpts, the documentary paints a portrait of a socio-politically committed man with many facets and also pays tribute to the role of his wife Joanne Woodward.

Appointment in Tokyo(en)

Produced by the Army Pictorial Service, Signal Corps, with the cooperation of the Army Air Forces and the United States Navy, and released by Warner Bros. for the War Activities Committee shortly after the surrender of Japan. Follow General Douglas MacArthur and his men from their exile from the Philippines in early 1942, through the signing of the instrument of surrender on the USS Missouri on September 1, 1945. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2013.

Bogart: Life Comes in Flashes(en)

The film focuses on the icon of Hollywood’s golden age, Humphrey Bogart, and is framed around his relationships with the five formidable women in his life – his mother and his four wives, including Lauren Bacall. Featuring unprecedented access to rare footage from the estate, and narrated exclusively in his own words, ‘Bogart: Life Comes in Flashes’ explores his journey to become the of star of timeless classics ‘Casablanca,’ ‘Maltese Falcon’’ and ‘The Big Sleep.’ Each relationship offers a deep and intimate understanding of a man for whom stardom was hard won and much deserved.

The Church: Pillar and Ground of the Truth(en)

The church is truly the most glorious thing under heaven, for it is the communion of the saints, the pillar and ground of truth, household of God, and the bride of Christ. Join us as we explore over 2,000 years of church history, from its first-century foundations in Ancient Israel to its global presence today.

Celebrating the Rice Media Center(en)

Through the Fondren Fellows program, the Rice Media Center Archive Project has spent the past few months sifting through material stored at the now-defunct Rice Media Center. The team has identified several films as especially notable and will be presenting them in conjunction with documentary footage the team shot of people involved with the films. From lectures featuring Roberto Rossellini and Werner Herzog to films from former Rice students and faculty, the film presentation will tell the narrative of the Rice Media Center through the films and filmmakers that passed through its corridors.

Making Dust(en)

Making Dust is an essay film, a portrait of the demolition of Ireland's second largest Catholic Church, the Church of the Annunciation in Finglas West, Dublin. Understanding this moment as a 'rupture', the film maps an essay by architectural historian Ellen Rowley on to documentation of the building's dismantling. Featuring oral interviews recorded at the site of the demolition and in a nearby hairdressers, the film invites viewers to pause and reflect on this ending alongside the community of the building. The film is informed by Ultimology, and invites its audience to think about the life cycles of buildings and materials, how we mourn, what is sacred, how we gather, what we value and issues of sustainability in architecture.

A Word from the Director(en)

Mike De Leon imagined Citizen Jake “as an indictment of the Duterte regime using its horrific forerunner [the Marcoses] as a template of authoritarian rule,” and he caused a stir, as usual, in posting this promotional short for the film on social media. This short is essentially a Director's Statement in video essay form, and has been screened at New York's MoMA in their Mike De Leon retrospective.

The Best of Me(en)

In 1993 while living in suburban Atlanta and working as an exterminator, a young and alienated Ricardo López began his all-consuming fixation with the Icelandic experimental pop musician Björk. What would transpire over the next three years would lead to hundreds of diary entries, dozens of hours of home video footage, an assassination plot, and the eventual violent death of Ricardo López by his own hand.

39-45 : Les policiers dans la résistance(fr)

The Man Who Stole Einstein's Brain(en)

On April 18, 1955, the pathologist performing the autopsy on Albert Einstein covertly steals the genius's brain, hoping to uncover the secret of brilliance. His good intentions and scientific ambitions collide with harsh realities as his world crumbles.