Leisure, Utopic(2024)

Posted by: İlhan Sami Çomak(tr)

The story puts İlhan Çomak at the center, even though he is not physically present in the film. It focuses on the 21 years that İlhan spent in prison and his family’s experience of those years without him. The narrative is constructed through the letters İlhan wrote and aims to describe his life, his emotions and longings. The film constructs İlhan’s history through a chronology in the prison but refrains from restricting it only to a “prisoner’s quest for justice”, and rather tells a story of the situations he finds himself in over the years and his emotions and their equivalents in life.

Walt Whitman(en)

This American Experience tells Whitman's life story, from his working-class childhood in Long Island, to his years as a newspaper reporter in Brooklyn when he struggled to support his impoverished family, then to his reckless pursuit of the attention and affection he craved for his work, to his death in 1892.

Nobody(es)

Half blind and half deaf, ostraziced Cuban writer Rafael Alcides tries to finish his unpublished novels to discover that after several decades, the home made ink from the typewriter he used to write them has faded. The Cuban revolution as a love story and eventual deception is seen through the eyes of a man who is living an inner exile.

Merton: A Film Biography(en)

In his lifetime, Thomas Merton was hailed as a prophet and censured for his outspoken social criticism. For nearly 27 years he was a monk of the austere Trappist order, where he became an eloquent spiritual writer and mystic as well as an anti-war advocate and witness to peace. Merton: A Film Biography provides the first comprehensive look at this remarkable 20th century religious philosopher who wrote, in addition to his immensely popular autobiography The Seven Storey Mountain, over 60 books on some of the most pressing social issues of our time, some of which are excerpted here. Merton offers an engaging profile of a man whose presence in the world touched millions of people and whose words and thoughts continue to have a profound impact and relevance today.

Libellula gentile. Fabio Pusterla, il lavoro del poeta(it)

A film about the Swiss Italian poet Fabio Pusterla and his creative poetic process, his struggle to find an honest language, one which adheres to the personal experience and is able to unfold a hidden truth that creates a strong and profound bond with the other, with his public.

This Is How a Child Becomes a Poet(fr)

The last day of Patrizia Cavalli’s home. Before it’s all gone.

Great Poets: In Their Own Words(en)

A journey into the BBC archives unearthing glorious performances and candid interviews from some of Britain's greatest poets.

Albert Camus, la tragédie du bonheur(fr)

Ralph Ellison: Invisible Man, Celebrated Writer(en)

Ralph Ellison was an African-American writer and essayist, who's only novel Invisible Man (1953) gained a wide critical success. Ellison's ambitious journey from a childhood of hardship and poverty to celebrated African American writer is chronicled in this inspiring program through exclusive interviews and personal recollection.

Edgar Allan Poe: Buried Alive(en)

How the inventor of the detective story became his own greatest mystery.

Van Morrison: One Irish Rover(en)

One Irish Rover, a documentary focusing on the words and music of Van Morrison, was broadcast in 1991 on BBC 2 Arena TV special and on A&E cable television program. It is a series of live songs with commentary by Morrison about music and poetry, it has some truly amazing performances. It includes the footage of Morrison and Dylan in Greece, Georgie Fame at Ronnie Scott’s, John Lee Hooker, The Chieftains and Danish Radio Big Band.

When You're Strange(en)

The creative chemistry of four brilliant artists —drummer John Densmore, guitarist Robby Kreiger, keyboardist Ray Manzarek and singer Jim Morrison— made The Doors one of America's most iconic and influential rock bands. Using footage shot between their formation in 1965 and Morrison's death in 1971, it follows the band from the corridors of UCLA's film school, where Manzarek and Morrison met, to the stages of sold-out arenas.

This Beggar's Description(en)

It's a sensitive, moving doc chronicling the life of Tétrault's brother Philip , a Montreal poet, musician and diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic. A promising athlete as a child, Philip began experiencing mood swings in his early 20s. His extended family, including his daughter, share their conflicted feelings love, guilt, shame, anger with the camera. They want to make sure he's safe, but how much can they take?

Trudell(en)

A chronicle of legendary Native American poet/activist John Trudell's travels, spoken word performances and politics.

Leopardi. The Infinity Poet(it)

Showcases the life of Giacomo Leopardi, an Italian poet known for his melancholic verses on fleeting happiness, existentialism, and human suffering.

Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man(en)

Poet, singer / songwriter and ladies man Leonard Cohen is interviewed in his home about his life and times. The interview is interspersed with archive photos and exuberant praise and live perfomances from an eclectic mix of musicians, including: Jarvis Cocker, Rufus & Martha Wainwright, Teddy Thompson, ANOHNI, The Handsome Family and U2's Bono and The Edge.

Stéphane Mallarmé(fr)

Stéphane Mallarmé is one of the many educational documentaries that Éric Rohmer did for the television during the 1960’s. At the beginning of the film, Rohmer states that he has placed in Mallarmé’s mouth words taken from an interview with the writer by Jules Heuret published in 1891.

Rumi: The Dance of Love(tr)

A dramatised documentary about the life of Rumi, a Persian mystical poet whose images of universal love and divine mystery continue to be celebrated more than 700 years after his death.

Samuel Beckett: Silence to Silence(en)

The elusive author of Waiting for Godot cooperated in the production of this portrait, which traces Beckett’s artistic life through his prose, plays, and poetry. Billie Whitelaw, Jack McGowran, and Patrick Magee—Beckett’s great dramatic interpreters—appear in selected extracts from the plays; Beckett specialist David Warrilow narrates a variety of texts.

Who's Afraid of Kathy Acker?(en)

Documentary tracing the extreme life of outlaw writer, performance artist and punk icon, Kathy Acker. Through animation, archival footage, interviews and dramatic reenactments, director Barbara Caspar explores Acker's colorful history, from her well-heeled upbringing to her role as the scribe of society's fringe.