Notes of Resistance and Erasure

Ferguson Rises(en)

Before George Floyd, before Breonna Taylor, before America knew about Black Lives Matter, there was Michael Brown, Jr. On August 9th, 2014, in Ferguson, Missouri, a white police officer fatally shot an unarmed Brown. The community reacted in protest, anger, frustration, and fear. Six years later, a new story emerges - one filled with hope, love, and beauty.

Apple Juice(en)

Apple Juice is an classic skateboarding documentary shot by SKATE NYC locals from the late 80’s early 90’s. SKATE NYC is a legendary skateboard store that was on Ave A and 9th St. in the East Village in NY from 1986-91.

Susanne Bartsch: On Top(en)

Dubbed New York's "Queen of the Night," proto–club kid Susanne Bartsch has been throwing unforgettable parties for over 30 years and is still going strong.

A Million Debt Is Normal, Says My Grandfather(de)

"In A MILLION IN DEBT IS NORMAL, SAYS MY GRANDFATHER, Gabriele Mathes traces the consequences of the decline of her father’s furniture factory via her family’s Super-8 footage(..)" (Viennale)

The Birds Changed Names And The World Turned Into Ice(es)

Migrant families experience violence, but they also keep beautiful memories when they arrive in new lands. Fantastic and intimate stories, recalled from childhood, travel across time and space, magically intermingling with the help of the four elements and breaking the boundaries of cinema.

Pico Sacro [The Holy Mountain](gl)

In a leafy forest, a Galician sovereign who longs to attain wisdom meets a sorcerer, who tells him: “Go back to your country and study the Earth and the Stars in the sky; anywhere in the world reflects an image of it. You will ride on this arrow, which you must keep for a hundred years and a day. After this time, stick it in the widest valley of all those you possess, with the tip facing the sky. Then the Moon will come and, just as it exerts its action on the waters of the sea, it will act on the arrow, turning it into a holy mountain." - Legend about the Pico Sacro Inspired by Hokusai's views of Mount Fuji and Cézanne's paintings of Mont Sainte-Victoire, "Pico Sacro [The Holy Mountain]" aims to reveal the mystery and the magic that underlie reality.

Sur les Gratte-Ciel de New York(fr)

Under the Weight of a Waking Dream(en)

‘Under the Weight of a Waking Dream’ is Zefier's debut swan song to the ending year. Comprised of poetry and endless enumerations is a diaristic film chronicling the lessons and contradictions found throughout the human experience.

Make Me Famous(en)

An investigation of Edward Brezinski, an ambitious, charismatic Lower East Side painter hell-bent on sucess, who thwarted his own career with antics that roiled NYC’s art elite. Brezinski’s quest for fame gives an intimate portrait of the art world’s attitude towards success and failure, fame and fortune, notoriety and erasure.

Salsa Lives(es)

La Salsa Vive is a vibrant cinematic exploration of Afro-Cuban music's history, tracing its roots from New York's lively streets to Cali, Colombia, now the global salsa capital.

Empire Skate(en)

Empire Skate chronicles the colorful rise and enduring influence of New York skateboarding culture in the 1990s, through the global phenomenon of Supreme and intimate portraits of the skaters who breathed life into that world. From the highs of breakout film success and the creation of a brand and movement to the lows of fractured families and the loss of close friends, it is a style-and-substance trip through a unique moment when multiple trends converged on one city to create something timeless.

How the Monuments Came Down(en)

How the Monuments Came Down is a timely and searing look at the history of white supremacy and Black resistance in Richmond. The feature-length film-brought to life by history-makers, descendants, scholars, and activists-reveals how monuments to Confederate leaders stood for more than a century, and why they fell.

Ottimismo democratico(it)

The B Side Fighter(en)

L’angle du monde(fr)

'The angle of the world allows us to see the real as an outer and inner presence at the same time, an opaque otherness, yet capable of becoming an intimate space. These incommensurable lengths and distances of an interior that opens up: The mysterious movement of the clouds, the cadence of the waves against the light, or the silent slippage of a barely identifiable human silhouette, everything seems transfigured, derealized and reinvented by light in a poetic world that evokes the paintings of Turner or Friedrich, the writings of Poe or Baudelaire.’ — Violeta Salvatierra

Resistir e Florescer: A ocupação estudantil do IFRJ Campus Realengo(pt)

Style Wars(en)

Tony Silver and Henry Chalfant's PBS documentary tracks the rise and fall of subway graffiti in New York in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Democracy Is ...(en)

The film is a controversy on democracy. Is our society really democratic? Can everyone be part of it? Or is the act of being part in democracy dependent to the access on technology, progression or any resources of information, as philosophers like Paul Virilio or Jean Baudrillard already claimed?

The End Of The Line: Rochester's Subway(en)

"The End of the Line - Rochester's Subway" tells the little-known story of the rail line that operated in a former section of the Erie Canal from 1927 until its abandonment in 1956. Produced in 1994 by filmmakers Fredrick Armstrong and James P. Harte, the forty-five minute documentary recounts the tale of an American city's bumpy ride through the Twentieth Century, from the perspective of a little engine that could, but didn't. The film has since been rereleased (2005) and now contains the main feature with special portions that were added as part of the rereleased version. These include a look at the only surviving subway car from the lines and a Phantom tun through the tunnels in their abandoned state, among others, for a total of 90 minutes of unique and well preserved historical information.

The Iron Triangle: Willets Point and the Remaking of New York(en)

Targeted for several failed redevelopment plans dating back to the days of Robert Moses, Willets Point, a gritty area in New York City known as the “Iron Triangle,” is the home of hundreds of immigrant-run, auto repair shops that thrive despite a lack of municipal infrastructure support. During the last year of the Bloomberg Administration, NYC’s government advanced plans for a “dynamic” high-end entertainment district that would completely wipe out this historic industrial core. The year is 2013, and the workers of Willets Point are racing against the clock to forestall their impending eviction. Their story launches an investigation into New York City’s history as the front line of deindustrialization, urban renewal, and gentrification.