A woman narrates the thoughts of a world traveler, meditations on time and memory expressed in words and images from places as far-flung as Japan, Guinea-Bissau, Iceland, and San Francisco.
Self (uncredited)
From the team behind Man on Wire comes the story of Nim, the chimpanzee who in the 1970s became the focus of a landmark experiment which aimed to show that an ape could learn to communicate with language if raised and nurtured like a human child. Following Nim's extraordinary journey through human society, and the enduring impact he makes on the people he meets along the way, the film is an unflinching and unsentimental biography of an animal we tried to make human. What we learn about his true nature - and indeed our own - is comic, revealing and profoundly unsettling.
Pure and honest, this intimate glimpse of future parenthood. Not least because protagonists Maria Rodríguez and David Verdaguer surrender themselves entirely to the process: during shooting, they really are expecting their first child. 'Els dies que vindran' captures all the beautiful and difficult moments of pregnancy.
French essay film focusing on global political turmoil in the 1960s and '70s, particularly the rise of the New Left in France and the development of socialist movements in Latin America.
Documentary about Santiago, a peculiar man who used to work for the director and his parents as a butler. The material was filmed in 1992 but, for some strange reason, the director felt he couldn't edit it and put it aside. In 2005 he remembers the unfinished film and starts its edition.
Candid interviews of ordinary people on the meaning of happiness, an often amorphous and inarticulable notion that evokes more basic and fundamentally egalitarian ideals of self-betterment, prosperity, tolerance, economic opportunity, and freedom.
"These portraits are encounters I wanted to be kept from oblivion, even if it is only while you are watching them. They are women who work, who have children, and who, at the same time, keep their independence of mind. I shot 24 portraits of 13 minutes each. I have chosen this short running time for several reasons: not becoming a bother, escape tv adds cuts, shoot the movie quickly, in one pace and without too many scratches. I am not a documentaries maker. I am more like a faces, hands and things lover. To show reality is not my goal. “Reality” is just a word, just like its twin sister “fiction”, which I practice as well, but with a different delight." (Alain Cavalier)
After a military coup d'état, political dissidents seek refuge in a foreign embassy. Over the next few days, they are joined by more and more people who are fleeing the military assault: teachers, students, intellectuals, artists, and politicians.
Filmed on the 100th anniversary of the labour union laws in France, the quasi-science fiction film is set in 2084. A robot moderator helps us look 'back' at the contemporary labour situation and different directions the movement could take.
An apocalyptic story of three wars in three film tales encompassing the end of the WWI,WWII, as well as a vision of the world destroyed by nuclear weapons. This film was honored at the film festivals in Venice and Sorrento. Immediately after that the copy with Italian subtitles was locked in a safe as evidence of the anti-communist activities of the director, who used real footage of the Soviet invasion.
Energy pictures; mindful kinesis. Light and shadow vigorously conjoin, conjuring delusion of depth and duration, fiction of space and time. The fool’s paradise of the illusory window is savored and shattered and seen for what it is.
During the Great Depression, all Broadway shows are closed down. A group of desperate unemployed showgirls find hope when a wealthy songwriter invests in a musical starring them, against the wishes of his high society brother. Thus start Carol, Trixie and Polly's schemes to bilk his money and keep the show going.
Hopeless romantic Gertrud inhabits a turn-of-the-century milieu of artists and musicians, where she pursues an idealized notion of love that will always elude her. She abandons her distinguished husband and embraces an affair with a young concert pianist, who falls short of her desire for lasting affection. When an old lover returns to her life, fresh disappointments follow, and Gertrud must try to come to terms with reality.
Returning by train to the French port of Le Havre, Jacques Lantier, a tormented railwayman, meets by chance the impulsive stationmaster Roubard and Séverine, his wife.
In France of the late 19th century, the wife of a wealthy general, the Countess Louise, sells the earrings her husband gave her on their wedding day to pay off debts; she claims to have lost them. Her husband quickly learns of the deceit, which is the beginning of many tragic misunderstandings, all involving the earrings, the general, the countess, & her new lover, the Italian Baron Donati.
Four vignettes on the lives of the Cuban people in the pre-revolutionary era. In Havana, Maria is ashamed when a man she loves discovers how she makes a living. Pedro, an old farmer, discovers that the land he cultivates is being sold to an American company. A student sees his friends attacked by the police while they distribute leaflets supporting Fidel Castro. Finally, a peasant family is threatened by Batista's army.
Actress Myrtle Gordon is a functioning alcoholic who is a few days from the opening night of her latest play, concerning a woman distraught about aging. One night a car kills one of Myrtle's fans who is chasing her limousine in an attempt to get the star's attention. Myrtle internalizes the accident and goes on a spiritual quest, but fails to finds the answers she is after. As opening night inches closer and closer, fragile Myrtle must find a way to make the show go on.
Hiroko attends the memorial service of her fiancé, Itsuki Fujii, who died in a mountain-climbing incident. Although Itsuki's mother says that their old house is gone, Hiroko records the address listed under his name in his yearbook and sends him a letter. Surprisingly, she receives a reply, and discovers it came from his old classmate, a girl who also happens to also be called Itsuki Fujii.
A lonely Parisian woman comes to terms with her isolation and anxieties during a long summer vacation.
Inhabitants of a small village in Hungary deal with the effects of the fall of Communism. The town's source of revenue, a factory, has closed, and the locals, who include a doctor and three couples, await a cash payment offered in the wake of the shuttering. Irimias, a villager thought to be dead, returns and, unbeknownst to the locals, is a police informant. In a scheme, he persuades the villagers to form a commune with him.
In a strange and isolated chateau, a man becomes acquainted with a woman and insists that they have met before.
Commissioned to make a propaganda film about the 1936 Olympic Games in Germany, director Leni Riefenstahl created a celebration of the human form. This first half of her two-part film opens with a renowned introduction that compares modern Olympians to classical Greek heroes, then goes on to provide thrilling in-the-moment coverage of some of the games' most celebrated moments, including African-American athlete Jesse Owens winning a then-unprecedented four gold medals.
Commissioned to make a propaganda film about the 1936 Olympic Games in Germany, director Leni Riefenstahl created a celebration of the human form. Where the two-part epic's first half, Festival of the Nations, focused on the international aspects of the 1936 Olympic Games held in Berlin, part two, The Festival of Beauty, concentrates on individual athletes such as equestrians, gymnasts, and swimmers, climaxing with American Glenn Morris' performance in the decathalon and the games' majestic closing ceremonies.
A day in the city of Berlin, which experienced an industrial boom in the 1920s, and still provides an insight into the living and working conditions at that time. Germany had just recovered a little from the worst consequences of the First World War, the great economic crisis was still a few years away and Hitler was not yet an issue at the time.
A paralysingly beautiful documentary with a global vision—an odyssey through landscape and time—that attempts to capture the essence of life.
Carefully picked scenes of nature and civilization are viewed at high speed using time-lapse cinematography in an effort to demonstrate the history of various regions.
Two street artists with contrasting intentions about the artform tell the relevance of street art in society while accompanied by an enigmatic graffiti writing, “Bon Jovi.”
An exploration of technologically developing nations and the effect the transition to Western-style modernization has had on them.
A visual montage portrait of our contemporary world dominated by globalized technology and violence.
A documentary of insect life in meadows and ponds, using incredible close-ups, slow motion, and time-lapse photography. It includes bees collecting nectar, ladybugs eating mites, snails mating, spiders wrapping their catch, a scarab beetle relentlessly pushing its ball of dung uphill, endless lines of caterpillars, an underwater spider creating an air bubble to live in, and a mosquito hatching.
Takes us to locations all around the US and shows us the heavy toll that modern technology is having on humans and the earth. The visual tone poem contains neither dialogue nor a vocalized narration: its tone is set by the juxtaposition of images and the exceptional music by Philip Glass.
What starts off as a conventional travelogue turns into a satirical portrait of the town of Nice on the French Côte d'Azur, especially its wealthy inhabitants.
This short documentary, shot in the glass factories of Leerdam and Schiedam, demonstrates how glass blowers do their work. But thanks to the superbly edited ballet of working hands and the sequence of mechanical motions of the engines, is it especially a cinematic tour de force. That the industry can’t do without man’s involvement is shown in the scene where we hear the voice of Haanstra himself counting the bottles on the conveyor belt, until one bottle breaks…
Documentary portrait of the poet Karla Erbová is a confession of a creative personality who, despite many twists and turns in life, remains true to her ideals and moral values. We witness the final year of the author's life, during which, even at the age of ninety, she continues to engage in public appearances and, above all, actively works on her craft. Through letters that Erbová wrote to her friend, the film offers an intimate, often self-deprecating reflection on old age, solitude, and relationships with loved ones, as well as an indomitable faith in poetry. The film "Ulita" not only highlights the pivotal moments of her life but also serves as a sociological exploration of the lives of the oldest generation.
In 1952, Haanstra made Panta Rhei , another view of Holland through the eyes of a painter and filmmaker. Its poetic images of water, skies and clouds reflect Haanstra's own moods.
A documentary shot by filmmakers all over the world that serves as a time capsule to show future generations what it was like to be alive on the 24th of July, 2010.
A young filmmaker maintains an epistolary conversation with his deceased grandmother while he rediscovers the space they both inhabited for more than a decade.
Robert Drew shows the sights and sounds from the funeral of President John F. Kennedy in November, 1963. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2002.
Shot under extreme conditions and inspired by Mayan creation theory, the film contemplates the illusion of reality and the possibility of capturing for the camera something which is not there. It is about the mirages of nature—and the nature of mirage.
A short anecdotal documentary about the nature of destruction, a debilitating deadlock of humanity.
A teen with autism unlocks a joyous world of self-expression as she shares her voice for the first time using a letter board.