
In February 2012, I went to Ishinomaki, a town North of Tokyo that was half destroyed by the tsunami of March 11th, 2011, to meet the disaster victims who now live in temporary housing. I spent several days in the North, under the snow, listening to these people talk candidly about what they had lived through, telling their own stories without the media as an intermediary. Their testimonies were terrifying, harsh and sad, but at the same time touching, sincere and human. From the pictures and interviews that I collected, I decided to make a film, not to reflect how awful the events were, but to communicate the singular and even surreal nature of each person’s experience. My intention wasn’t so much to focus on this particular event in Japan, but rather to make these stories more universal as a way of paying tribute to all the victims of natural disasters throughout the world.


In February 2012, I went to Ishinomaki, a town North of Tokyo that was half destroyed by the tsunami of March 11th, 2011, to meet the disaster victims who now live in temporary housing. I spent several days in the North, under the snow, listening to these people talk candidly about what they had lived through, telling their own stories without the media as an intermediary. Their testimonies were terrifying, harsh and sad, but at the same time touching, sincere and human. From the pictures and interviews that I collected, I decided to make a film, not to reflect how awful the events were, but to communicate the singular and even surreal nature of each person’s experience. My intention wasn’t so much to focus on this particular event in Japan, but rather to make these stories more universal as a way of paying tribute to all the victims of natural disasters throughout the world.
2013-02-19
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6.2A badger is lying motionless on a local road. A police patrol approaches the body in the dark. They soon realise that the animal is not dead; the badger is dead drunk! When the police attempt to drag the creature off the road, he wakes up and things take a strange turn.
8.5In the middle of a broadcast about Typhoon Yolanda's initial impact, reporter Jiggy Manicad was faced with the reality that he no longer had communication with his station. They were, for all intents and purposes, stranded in Tacloban. With little option, and his crew started the six hour walk to Alto, where the closest broadcast antenna was to be found. Letting the world know what was happening to was a priority, but they were driven by the need to let their families and friends know they were all still alive. Along the way, they encountered residents and victims of the massive typhoon, and with each step it became increasingly clear just how devastating this storm was. This was a storm that was going to change lives.
10.0Mahmoud Darwish was a Palestinian poet and author who was regarded as the Palestinian national poet. He won numerous awards for his works. Darwish used Palestine as a metaphor for the loss of Eden, birth and resurrection, and the anguish of dispossession and exile.
4.6A wordless man stages an unexplained hunger strike and the people surrounding him exploit his silence to further their own cause...
3.8A usual chain mail is forwarded to a group of people. Some pass it while others ignore. One dies and is followed by series of sudden and unexplainable deaths of others. Soon after, a revelation begins to unfold, the chain mail is cursed and so she has to find the origin and mystery behind to stop the misfortunes it may cause to anyone who fails to pass it before another life perish again. Sandra also suspects Anne is behind the tragic incidents that happened to their friends. Will she break the curse before it's too late or will she become one of the victims?
7.0The wife of a prison warden falls in love with one of his prisoners.
5.0The demonic Nicholas Diabolus is put on trial accused of interfering with people's lives.
6.4Acrobat Eddie Marsh is in the army now. His first act is to become friendly with Kathryn Jones, the colonel's pretty daughter. Their romance hits a few snags, including disapproval from her father. Eddie's also plagued by fear of having an accident during his family's trapeze act in the army variety show, which also features a gallery of MGM stars.
5.0The thrilling story of a lonely Russian immigrant trying to find the "American dream" in present day Los Angeles. To provide care for his dying sister he works as an assistant to a mysterious and dangerous man, but his desire to achieve something more takes him down a dark and risky path. When a seductive call girl enters his life his world is thrown upside down and the choices he makes may have deadly consequences.
6.1Rocklin Colorado, 1925. A hard cold winter. Young Arturo Bandini loves his father Svevo, his mother Maria and his brothers. Even though his bricklayer father wastes the little money he has in the Imperial Poolhall and his time with the rich American widow, Hildegarde. Even though his beautiful and pious mother lets his father get away with that, even if his little brother wets the bed. Arturo loves them all. He also loves to play baseball, even though he has to wait until spring. And he also loves the movies ... and Rosa. But she doesn't love him ...
7.0The psychological drama of a mining town in the Apuseni mountains, where the lure of gold acquisition and pathology lead to cruelty, murder and madness.
5.8The filmmaker goes to discover Meir the village where her great-grandparents were born, the place her grandparents left, but continued to love. When she goes, she discovers a village that people are trying to leave.
9.0Drug courier Sal has the war in him. When he meets the charismatic Sasha, his life goes off the rails and he botches an important coup. They flee together and Sal undergoes an astonishing metamorphosis.
The film is a continuous time-lapse with multiple exposures of the sunset from the same angle and position on 16mm film. The shoot was done in a span of 5 years. The title 13 is because the time-lapse has a 13-second interval per frame.
A frontier sheriff copes with a missing corpse, Briton Oscar Wilde and an assassination attempt.
6.7Working men and women leave through the main gate of the Lumière factory in Lyon, France. Filmed on 22 March 1895, it is often referred to as the first real motion picture ever made, although Louis Le Prince's 1888 Roundhay Garden Scene pre-dated it by seven years. Three separate versions of this film exist, which differ from one another in numerous ways. The first version features a carriage drawn by one horse, while in the second version the carriage is drawn by two horses, and there is no carriage at all in the third version. The clothing style is also different between the three versions, demonstrating the different seasons in which each was filmed. This film was made in the 35 mm format with an aspect ratio of 1.33:1, and at a speed of 16 frames per second. At that rate, the 17 meters of film length provided a duration of 46 seconds, holding a total of 800 frames.
A short film about the changing face of London Soho and the implications of gentrification on Mimi, an aging transvestite.
7.1An exploration —manipulated and staged— of life in Las Hurdes, in the province of Cáceres, in Extremadura, Spain, as it was in 1932. Insalubrity, misery and lack of opportunities provoke the emigration of young people and the solitude of those who remain in the desolation of one of the poorest and least developed Spanish regions at that time.
7.1A group of people are standing along the platform of a railway station in La Ciotat, waiting for a train. One is seen coming, at some distance, and eventually stops at the platform. Doors of the railway-cars open and attendants help passengers off and on. Popular legend has it that, when this film was shown, the first-night audience fled the café in terror, fearing being run over by the "approaching" train. This legend has since been identified as promotional embellishment, though there is evidence to suggest that people were astounded at the capabilities of the Lumières' cinématographe.
This documentary is featured on the DVD for Captain Blood (1935), released in 2005.
6.5Two old men enter an abandoned synagogue, look at the decay around them, and pray.
9.0Two rabbis show the ruins of an abandoned synagogue to a group of primary school-age Jewish children, and stand by as the children dip bread in honey, drink wine, pray, and sing.
10.0What we show in Milk is literally the best of the best when it comes to dairy farming, yet, as soon we view what happens from the perspective of the mother cow, it becomes clear that this is an industry that runs on the exploitation and suffering of animals. By using animation, we are able to show a unique perspective and tell the story of the mother cow in a way that cannot be done from investigative footage alone. Milk centres the cow as the protagonist of her own story and allows us to view what is happening to her from an up close and personal perspective. Organic, free-range, high-welfare, humanely raised. It doesn’t matter what label we put on dairy products, all dairy cows are victims of an industry that forcibly impregnates them, takes their babies from them, exploits their bodies and then sends them to a slaughterhouse to cut their throats. It's time to end the dairy industry.
This film describes the building of the drilling platform ADMA Enterprise in a shipyard on the Kiel Canal, from where it was rowed to the Arabian Gulf.
10.0A documentary that introduces FIT Hives, a student-run organization whose mission is to educate the FIT community about the importance of bees to the environment, the use of bee-derived resources in the industries related to the majors at FIT and its goal to put a beehive on the roof. FIT Hives is a recipient of an FIT Innovation Grant which also supported the making of this documentary.
4.0Here's a strange one. First, a song on a blackboard: a Polish translation of “I love my little rooster” by American folk writer Almeda Riddle. Then, two men roll around trash bins and lift them to the garbage truck. They do it several times. A woman shouts in the distance. At the end, the picture stops, and the woman sings the song. An early short by Piotr Szulkin.
6.1This sex education movie explore themes of body development, sexual hygiene, masturbation, menstruation, puberty, sex and giving birth.
7.1Set to a classic Duke Ellington recording "Daybreak Express", this is a five-minute short of the soon-to-be-demolished Third Avenue elevated subway station in New York City.
6.0Madrid, Spain, 1949. The Circo Americano arrives in the city. While the big top is pitched in a vacant lot, the troupe parades through the grand avenues: the band, a witty impersonator, the Balodys, acrobats, jugglers, acrobatic skaters, clowns and… Buffallo Bill.
4.8This short cautionary training film examines dangers associated with earthmoving equipment operation, showing many simulated accidents on construction sites.