Samba de Memorias(2023)

Making Utu(en)

Making of documentary on the set of New Zealand's first epic Utu (1983), working with little money and dealing respectfully with matters of cultural protocol. Merata Mita discusses complex issues of inter-cultural conflict.

Imprint in Clay(en)

“Sardar Gurcharan Singh was the father of studio pottery in India. "Daddyji" as most called him lovingly was very close to my father. I often tagged along to visit his home studio where pottery wheels were lined up under the big neem trees in his old brick house. My father wanted me to make a film on Daddyji, who was then 95. He was afraid that Daddyji's wonderful story would be left untold. He not only introduced studio pottery in India but due to his longevity, mentored many potters. So despite not knowing anything about films, I made the documentary, Imprint in Clay with a classmate of mine, which was mostly funded by my father.”

16 Shots(en)

Documentary examining the 2014 shooting of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald by Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke and the cover-up that ensued.

From 3 to 22(sh)

A movie follows a regular working day of a woman who works in a factory. She wakes up at 3am and goes to sleep at 10pm.

Sing(hu)

Quiet 10-year-old Zsofi has just changed schools. Feeling out of place at first, she is quickly admitted to the school’s famous choir and befriends her popular classmate Liza. Soon, they have to stand up united against their choir master, who isn’t quite the friendly and inspirational teacher they first thought she was.

Plena Rondo(en)

Quearborn & Perversion: An Early History of Lesbian & Gay Chicago(en)

Quearborn & Perversion: An Early History of Lesbian & Gay Chicago (2009, 109 min) is a documentary on LGBTQ life in Chicago from 1934 to 1974. Moving from the speakeasys and Henry Gerber’s founding of the Society for Human Rights in the 1930s, to the underground social structure of the 1940s and 1950s, to the dawn of consciousness-raising entities such as the Daughters of Bilitis and Mattachine Midwest in the 1960’s, and concluding with the emergence of the gay liberation movement with the first Pride March and opening of the first community center in the early 1970s.

Old Lace(en)

Old Lace is a 1931 Musical short.

Des lueurs dans le ciel(fr)

Hell(et)

Rein Raamat’s Hell adapts the engravings of Estonian graphic artist Eduard Wiiralt into a surreal, grotesque, and heavily sexual animated short. Wiiralt’s three source works, “The Preacher,” “Cabaret,” and “Hell,” date back to the early 1930s and portray a cacophony of bacchanalia, hysteria, and violence in the final years of Estonian independence amid the unrest of the Great Depression and European instability.

Snow-White(en)

Trouble starts when the queen's magic mirror says Betty Boop is fairest.

Blinkity Blank(en)

A playful exercise in intermittent animation and spasmodic imagery. Playing with the laws relating to persistence of vision and after-image on the retina of the eye, McLaren engraves pictures on blank film creating vivid, percussive effects.

Very Nice, Very Nice(en)

Arthur Lipsett's first film is an avant-garde blend of photography and sound. It looks behind the business-as-usual face we put on life and shows anxieties we want to forget. It is made of dozens of pictures that seem familiar, with fragments of speech heard in passing and, between times, a voice saying, "Very nice, very nice." The film was nominated for an Oscar for Best Live Action Short Film.

Mae West: Dirty Blonde(en)

Mae West achieved great acclaim in every entertainment medium that existed during her lifetime, spanning eight decades of the 20th century. A full-time actress at seven, a vaudevillian at 14, a dancing sensation at 25, a playwright at 33, a silver screen ingénue at 40, a Vegas nightclub act at 62, a recording artist at 73, a camp icon at 85 - West left no format unconquered. She possessed creative and economic powers unheard of for a female entertainer in the 1930s and still rare today. Though a comedian, West grappled with some of the more complex social issues of the 20th century, including race and class tensions, and imbued even her most salacious plotlines with commentary about gender conformity, societal restrictions and what she perceived as moral hypocrisy. Mae West: Dirty Blonde is the first major documentary film to explore West's life and career, as she "climbed the ladder of success wrong by wrong" to become a writer, performer and subversive agitator for social change.

Champagne(en)

The true story of a young teenage girl whose mother is incarcerated for murder. Living in a Catholic Children's home run by an order of nuns, she provides poignant commentary about her mother, her own situation and her outlook for the future.

Rain(nl)

A lyrical portrait of Amsterdam and its changing appearance during a rain-shower.

Blue of the Night(en)

Starring Bing Crosby as himself in a short comedy/romance telling a tale of mistaken identity. Two-reeler; directed by Mack Sennett

Fire in Castilla (Tactilvision from the Moor of the Fright)(es)

A short, experimental documentary featuring sculptures by Alonso de Berruguete and Juan de Juni. Shot within the Valladolid National Museum, the film is an excercise in what Val de Omar called "Tactile vision".

The Women of Godzilla(en)

One aspect of Japanese fantasy films that often goes overlooked is the significant part that women play in the drama.

The Creator of Godzilla: Tomoyuki Tanaka(en)

Many people contributed to the creation of Godzilla, but only one man was truly the father of the monster.