In Spain, a poor country ruined by the recent Civil War (1936-39), and in the midst of Franco's dictatorship, a film school was created in Madrid in 1947, which became, almost unintentionally, a space of freedom and pure experimentation until its closure in 1976.
In Spain, a poor country ruined by the recent Civil War (1936-39), and in the midst of Franco's dictatorship, a film school was created in Madrid in 1947, which became, almost unintentionally, a space of freedom and pure experimentation until its closure in 1976.
2024-04-07
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In the late sixties, Spanish cinema began to produce a huge amount of horror genre films: international markets were opened, the production was continuous, a small star-system was created, as well as a solid group of specialized directors. Although foreign trends were imitated, Spanish horror offered a particular approach to sex, blood and violence. It was an extremely unusual artistic movement in Franco's Spain.
Kingdom of Castile, 15th century. A group of nobles, who question the dynastic legitimacy of Princess Juana, daughter of King Enrique IV, conspire with the purpose of overthrowing him.
An attempt to create a bridge between the different political positions that coexist, sometimes violently, in the Basque Country, in northern Spain.
A portrait of French filmmaker Michel Gondry, creator, for three decades, of an imperfect, astonishing, fascinating, damaged and poetic work.
How could the Cannes Film Festival become the biggest cinema event in the world? For 75 years, Cannes has succeeded in this prodigy of placing cinema, its sometimes paltry splendors but also its requirements of great modern art, at the center of everything, as if, for ten days in May, nothing was more important than it. This film tells how Cannes has become the largest film festival in the world by opening up to cinematic modernity while never forgetting that cinema remains a performing art, a popular art.
In 1982, Wim Wenders asked 16 of his fellow directors to speak on the future of cinema, resulting in the film Room 666. Now, 40 years later, in Cannes, director Lubna Playoust asks Wim Wenders himself and a new generation of filmmakers (James Gray, Rebecca Zlotowski, Claire Denis, Olivier Assayas, Nadav Lapid, Asghar Farhadi, Alice Rohrwacher and more) the same question: “is cinema a language about to get lost, an art about to die?”
As Hong Kong's foremost filmmaker, Johnnie To himself becomes the protagonist of this painstaking documentary exploring him and his Boundless world of film. A film student from Beijing and avid Johnnie To fan, Ferris Lin boldly approached To with a proposal to document the master director for his graduation thesis. To agreed immediately and Lin's camera closely followed him for over two years, capturing the man behind the movies and the myths. The result is Boundless, a candid profile of one of Hong Kong's greatest directors and a heartfelt love letter to Hong Kong cinema.
The story of Salvador Puig Antich, one of the last political prisoners to be executed under Franco's Fascist State in 1974.
An unprejudiced portrait of Spanish folklore and a crude analysis in black and white of its intimate relationship with atavism and superstition, with violence and pain, with blood and death; a story of terror, a journey to the most sinister and ancestral Spain; the one that lived far from the most visited tourist destinations, from the economic miracle and unstoppable progress, relentlessly promoted by the Franco regime during the sixties.
The history of Frankenstein's journey from novel to stage to screen to icon.
In 1981, a film about the misadventures of a German U-boat crew in 1941 becomes a worldwide hit almost four decades after the end of the World War II. Millions of viewers worldwide make Das Boot the most internationally successful German film of all time. But due to disputes over the script, accidents on the set, and voices accusing the makers of glorifying the war, the project was many times on the verge of being cancelled.
How Don Quixote de la Mancha, the immortal character created by Miguel de Cervantes in 1605, has been depicted in cinema, television, cartoons, theater, opera, ballet and other artistic disciplines. An adventure that began more than four hundred years ago in the pages of a book and is far from coming to an end.
Robert Altman's life and career contained multitudes. This father of American independent cinema left an indelible mark, not merely on the evolution of his art form, but also on the western zeitgeist. With its use of rare interviews, representative film clips, archival images, and musings from his family and most recognizable collaborators, Altman is a dynamic and heartfelt mediation on an artist whose expression, passion and appetite knew few bounds.
Born in Berlin in 1896, Lotte Eisner became famous for her passionate involvement in the world of both German and French cinema. In 1936, together with Henri Langlois, she founded the Cinémathèque Française with the goal of saving from destruction films, costumes, sets, posters, and other treasures of the 7th Art. A Jew exiled in Paris, she became a pillar of the capital's cultural scene, where she promoted German cinema.
Kirby Dick's provocative documentary investigates the secretive and inconsistent process by which the Motion Picture Association of America rates films, revealing the organization's underhanded efforts to control culture. Dick questions whether certain studios get preferential treatment and exposes the discrepancies in how the MPAA views sex and violence.
The history of the comic book superhero, Superman, in his various media incarnations.
« Emmanuelle » was released 50 years ago. Its main character, played by the young Sylvia Kristel, delve freely into her sexuality, without taboo. This bold movie became one of the great success of french cinema in the 70s, and Emmanuelle became the face of sexual liberation. Through the gaze of a woman, the character is back on the screen in 2024. This new Emmanuelle, written by Audrey Diwan, go in quest of a lost pleasure.
In the summer of 1961, a group of young Italian anthropologists made a clandestine journey through Spain, in order to record popular songs that supported anti-Franco resistance. As a result of their work, they were prosecuted and their recordings were censored. Sixty years later, and guided by Emilio Jona, aged 92, the last living member of that group of travellers, we recover the unpublished recordings and reconstruct the journey, today, across an emotional and political landscape, regaining historical memories through these songs, as relevant today as they were then.
The story of the making and subsequent success of The Day of the Beast, the Spanish cult film directed by Álex de la Iglesia and released in 1995.