Bumming in Beijing: The Last Dreamers(1990)

The Stranger(en)

An investigator from the War Crimes Commission travels to Connecticut to find an infamous Nazi, who may be hiding out in a small town in the guise of a distinguished professor engaged to the Supreme Court Justice’s daughter.

Heaven's Gate(en)

Harvard graduate James Averill is the sheriff of prosperous Jackson County, Wyo., when a battle erupts between the area's poverty-stricken immigrants and its wealthy cattle farmers. The politically connected ranch owners fight the immigrants with the help of Nathan Champion, a mercenary competing with Averill for the love of local madam Ella Watson. As the struggle escalates, Averill and Champion begin to question their decisions.

Dhrupad(hi)

A documentary story told through images, poetry and the Dhrupad, a vocal genre in Hindustani classical music, said to be the oldest still in use in that musical tradition.

My Brothers(en)

Set over Halloween weekend of 1987, My Brothers is the story of three young brothers' epic quest to replace their dying father's watch. Noel, 17, serious, weighed down by responsibility; Paudie: 11, cocky, not so bright and dreams of playing in goals for Liverpool and Scwally: 7, naive and obsessed with Star Wars (despite never actually having seen the films). Using a battered bread van, the brothers embark on a journey across the wild Irish landscape on the Halloween weekend, grinding gears and screaming at each other to get to an arcade machine in Ballybunion. Along the way they are detoured by escalating brotherly battles in an off-beat and moving journey that can only lead them home.

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade(en)

In 1938, an art collector appeals to eminent archaeologist Dr. Indiana Jones to embark on a search for the Holy Grail. Indy learns that a medieval historian has vanished while searching for it, and the missing man is his own father, Dr. Henry Jones Sr.. He sets out to rescue his father by following clues in the old man's notebook, which his father had mailed to him before he went missing. Indy arrives in Venice, where he enlists the help of a beautiful academic, Dr. Elsa Schneider, along with Marcus Brody and Sallah. Together they must stop the Nazis from recovering the power of eternal life and taking over the world!

Trainspotting(en)

Heroin addict Mark Renton stumbles through bad ideas and sobriety attempts with his unreliable friends -- Sick Boy, Begbie, Spud and Tommy. He also has an underage girlfriend, Diane, along for the ride. After cleaning up and moving from Edinburgh to London, Mark finds he can't escape the life he left behind when Begbie shows up at his front door on the lam, and a scheming Sick Boy follows.

Citizen Kane(en)

Newspaper magnate Charles Foster Kane is taken from his mother as a boy and made the ward of a rich industrialist. As a result, every well-meaning, tyrannical or self-destructive move he makes for the rest of his life appears in some way to be a reaction to that deeply wounding event.

For a Few Dollars More(it)

Two bounty hunters are in pursuit of "El Indio," one of the most wanted fugitives in the western territories, and his gang.

Casino(en)

In early-1970s Las Vegas, Sam "Ace" Rothstein gets tapped by his bosses to head the Tangiers Casino. At first, he's a great success in the job, but over the years, problems with his loose-cannon enforcer Nicky Santoro, his ex-hustler wife Ginger, her con-artist ex Lester Diamond and a handful of corrupt politicians put Sam in ever-increasing danger.

Doctor Zhivago(en)

The life of a Russian physician and poet who, although married to another, falls in love with a political activist's wife and experiences hardship during World War I and then the October Revolution.

Johnny Stecchino(it)

Good hearted but not very wordly-wise, Dante is happy driving the school bus for a group of mentally handicapped children, while feeling he is somehow missing out on life and love. So he is very excited when after nearly being knocked down by her car he meets Maria, who seems immediately enamoured of him. He is soon invited to her sumptuous Palermo villa, little suspecting that this is part of a plot. He bears an amazing likeness to Maria's stool-pigeon gangster husband and it would be convenient for them if the mobster, in the shape of Dante, was seen to be dead and buried.

Life of Brian(en)

Brian Cohen is an average young Jewish man, but through a series of ridiculous events, he gains a reputation as the Messiah. When he's not dodging his followers or being scolded by his shrill mother, the hapless Brian has to contend with the pompous Pontius Pilate and acronym-obsessed members of a separatist movement. Rife with Monty Python's signature absurdity, the tale finds Brian's life paralleling Biblical lore, albeit with many more laughs.

Wild Strawberries(sv)

Crotchety retired doctor Isak Borg travels from Stockholm to Lund, Sweden, with his pregnant and unhappy daughter-in-law, Marianne, in order to receive an honorary degree from his alma mater. Along the way, they encounter a series of hitchhikers, each of whom causes the elderly doctor to muse upon the pleasures and failures of his own life. These include the vivacious young Sara, a dead ringer for the doctor's own first love.

Celebrity(en)

The career and personal life of writer Lee are at a standstill, so he divorces his bashful wife, Robin, and dives into a new job as an entertainment journalist. His assignments take him to the swankiest corners of Manhattan, but as he jumps from one lavish party to another and engages in numerous empty romances, he starts to doubt the worth of his work. Meanwhile, top TV producer Tony falls for Robin and introduces her to the world of celebrity.

Metropolis(de)

In a futuristic city sharply divided between the rich and the poor, the son of the city's mastermind meets a prophet who predicts the coming of a savior to mediate their differences.

Persona(sv)

A young nurse, Alma, is put in charge of Elisabeth Vogler: an actress who is seemingly healthy in all respects, but will not talk. As they spend time together, Alma speaks to Elisabeth constantly, never receiving any answer.

Mary Poppins(en)

Mr Banks is looking for a nanny for his two mischievous children and comes across Mary Poppins, an angelic nanny. She not only brings a change in their lives but also spreads happiness.

A Fistful of Dollars(it)

The Man With No Name enters the Mexican village of San Miguel in the midst of a power struggle among the three Rojo brothers and sheriff John Baxter. When a regiment of Mexican soldiers bearing gold intended to pay for new weapons is waylaid by the Rojo brothers, the stranger inserts himself into the middle of the long-simmering battle, selling false information to both sides for his own benefit.

Un Chien Andalou(fr)

Un Chien Andalou is an European avant-garde surrealist film, a collaboration between director Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dali.

The Big Shave(en)

A young man walks into a meticulously clean and sterile bathroom and proceeds to shave away hair, then skin, in an increasingly bloody and graphic bathroom scene. Many film critics have interpreted the young man's process of self-mutilation as a metaphor for the self-destructive involvement of the United States in the Vietnam War.

Daidō Moriyama: Stray Dog of Tokyo(ja)

A documentary that follows the life of photographer Daido Moriyama in the present, which has never been revealed before. Even though his charismatic presence has reigned over the world of photography since the late 60’s, his true persona had been hidden behind a veil of mystery, since he had refused any major appearances in front of any media in the past. Follow the charismatic photographer Daido Moriyama as he takes his first digital photos and observe his style of quick snapshots without looking in the finder. His stark and contrasting black and white images symbolize his fervent lifestyle.

Jasper Johns: Ideas in Paint(en)

In the late 1950's, Jasper Johns emerged as force in the American art scene. His richly worked paintings of maps, flags, and targets led the artistic community away from Abstract Expressionism toward a new emphasis on the concrete

Alison Watt: Phantom(en)

Alison Watt became the National Gallery's Seventh Associate Artist in 2006. This art film records her two-year residency, as she created paintings inspired by masterpieces in the National Gallery. She already had a lifelong attachment to paintings in the collection, yet the prolonged contact, particularly with Saint Francis in Meditation by Francisco de Zurbarán, led her to notice new details and unexpected nuances which influenced her own art. Through a series of interviews with Watt, this art film documents the formation of this exhibition, with particular emphasis on the creative process.

A Sonorous Melody(id)

Growing up as a Deaf individual in Indonesia, Mufi was taught to speak instead of sign. As an adult, now she carves her music career to inspire others to express themselves through sign language.

The Living Stone(en)

The Living Stone is a 1958 Canadian short documentary film directed by John Feeney about Inuit art. It shows the inspiration behind Inuit sculpture. The Inuit approach to the work is to release the image the artist sees imprisoned in the rough stone. The film centres on an old legend about the carving of the image of a sea spirit to bring food to a hungry camp. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Short.

Eskimo Artist: Kenojuak(en)

This documentary shows how an Inuit artist's drawings are transferred to stone, printed and sold. Kenojuak Ashevak became the first woman involved with the printmaking co-operative in Cape Dorset. This film was nominated for the 1963 Documentary Short Subject Oscar.

Masks(sr)

It is difficult to characterize Slobodan Tišma. He is unique and versatile. He wanders with joy throughout the artistic landscape, drawing it with his words since the early sixties. He started as a poet, he was a conceptualist, an "invisible artist" and a rock musician ("Luna"/"La Strada"- former Yugoslav New Wave bands). Currently, he is a prose writer, and sometimes he engages in minimalistic performances. Wearing different masks he moved from one artistic space to another breaking the stereotypes and creating an aesthetic phenomenon out of his own existence. His mainstay is margin. Through trees and ocean he communicates with the universe. He loves the game of seeking, and hiding again. He is a persistent walker. With his silent steps he pops up daily in the corners of Novi Sad, searching for his own pleasure. Similar to his writings, this film has no formal completeness and comprehensiveness. It wonders who Slobodan Tišma is.

The Legendary Rick Perry and the Art of Dimension 20(en)

Take an inside look at Rick Perry’s strange and wonderful life as Creative Producer for Dimension 20.

Jack Kirby: Story Teller(en)

A documentary on the life of Jack Kirby, co-creator of Captain America, The Fantastic Four, Iron Man, Thor, The Avengers, The Hulk, The X-Men and the New Gods, among other classic comic book superheroes.

Edward Hopper(en)

Hopper, one of America’s most admired artists, captured the shared realities of American life with poignancy and enigmatic beauty. His iconic images, set in unexceptional places, reveal the poetry of quiet, private moments. Hopper’s influences, which vary from French impressionism to the gangster films of the 1930s, are explored through archival photos, footage of locations he painted in New York and along the New England coast, and interviews with artists Eric Fischl and Red Grooms.

Bird's Nest - Herzog & de Meuron in China(en)

Schaub and Schindelm’s documentary follows two Swiss star architects, Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron, on two very different projects: the national stadium for the Olympic summer games in Peking 2008 and a city area in the provincial town of Jinhua, China.

Back To Africa(en)

Romantik – Kunst wider das Chaos(de)

Jesus Christ Saviour(de)

Klaus Kinski has perhaps the most ferocious reputation of all screen actors: his volatility was documented to electrifying effect in Werner Herzog’s 1999 portrait My Best Fiend. This documentary provides further fascinating insight into the talent and the tantrums of the great man. Beset by hecklers, Kinski tries to deliver an epic monologue about the life of Christ (with whom he perhaps identifies a little too closely). The performance becomes a stand-off, as Kinski fights for control of the crowd and alters the words to bait his tormentors. Indispensable for Kinski fans, and a riveting introduction for newcomers, this is a unique document, which Variety called ‘a time capsule of societal ideals and personal demons.’

Around China with a Movie Camera(en)

A new film compiled from the BFI National Archive's unparalleled holdings of early films of China, features films from 1900-48 filmed across China. The cinematic journey of Around China with a Movie Camera contains many films which may never have been seen in China, or at the very least not for over 70 years. These travelogues, newsreels and home movies were made by a diverse group of British and French filmmakers, some professionals, but mainly enthusiastic amateurs, including intrepid tourists, colonial-era expatriates and Christian missionaries.

David Hockney: Joiner Photographs(en)

David Hockney is unquestionably one of the most passionate and versatile experimental artists on the contemporary scene. In the late 1970s the British artist developed a pioneering concept which also changed his perspective on painting – his “joiners”. In this film, the artist himself talks about this photographic approach, a kind of Cubism-inspired photocollage which explores the space-time continuum. Hockney allows the viewer to share in the creative “joiner” process and leads us step by step into the universe of his artistic creativity.

John Singer Sargent: Fashion and Swagger(en)

Filmed at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and the Tate Britain, London, the exhibition reveals Sargent’s power to express distinctive personalities, power dynamics and gender identities during this fascinating period of cultural reinvention. Alongside 50 paintings by Sargent sit stunning items of clothing and accessories worn by his subjects, drawing the audience into the artist’s studio. Sargent’s sitters were often wealthy, their clothes costly, but what happens when you turn yourself over to the hands of a great artist? The manufacture of public identity is as controversial and contested today as it was at the turn of the 20th century, but somehow Sargent’s work transcends the social noise and captures an alluring truth with each brush stroke.

Alice Pasquini - Figlia del mondo(it)

The documentary, made by the students of RUFA documentary course, followed Alice Pasquini for many months, resuming her pictorial interventions, interviewing friends and family, collecting archival material and participating in meetings for the realization of the book. The flow of images is a sort of specific itinerary that Alice Pasquini takes when she decides to give form and substance to what her mind imagines.

The Kingdom of Dreams and Madness(ja)

Follows the behind-the-scenes work of Studio Ghibli, focusing on the notable figures Hayao Miyazaki, Isao Takahata, and Toshio Suzuki.

Inventata da un dio distratto(it)

This film is dedicated to Maria Lai, an artist born in 1919 in Ulassai, Sardinia. Surrounded and inspired by the ogliastra countryside, the cyclopic guardian of plots and landslides, Maria Lai uses inert materials like stone, concrete, asphalt, metal and wood to work old and new legends into librettos of individual works, installations and interventions, thus becoming part of the landscape that calls to her. In making this film the authors have confided in the artist’s role as a spokeperson, and it is as if one is listening to the voice of a wild olive tree - both millenary and contemporary - a voice that knows what to say (and can say whatever it wants) from beyond the boundaries of reality, history, nature and art. As that tree, the artist - confident of her roots - with a sound sense of rhythm and scansion, multiplies big and small stories, just as she did with the bread and fish in Santa Barbara di Ulassai along the way to the country church.