Pictures of Ghosts

Shivtown(en)

"Surrounded by dozens of soldiers like me, I was led by bus to a remote camp in the desert, a place I knew nothing about. As a military photographer, I collected fragments of moments in my photos, serving as solid evidence for me." Shivtown is the story of an ordinary soldier who, in an intimate and courageous act, revisits memories from his military service through the still images he captured with an analog camera.

Please Hold(en)

An experimental documentary engaging with decades of DIY activist media, two death bed/legacy videos, and the wisdom of many living AIDS workers, as we all sit together in one (changing) format, video—VHS, hi-8, digital, Zoom—to address these and other questions: How do neighborhoods, sweaters and scarves, videotapes and queer bars hold ghosts? How do we let them go?

Dysphonias(es)

After a premonition of an unusual bird, a father loses his voice. His daughter undertakes a search to rediscover him, through an intimate narrative that explores the past, the new facets and the silences of a man who is no longer the same.

Rosans, Bitter Honey(fr)

In 1963, Rosans, a village in the Hautes-Alpes region depopulated by the rural exodus, welcomed Harkis (military soldiers) forced to leave Algeria for supporting France during the Algerian War. Around thirty families settled in a camp below Rosans. Nearly half a century after their arrival, first- and second-generation Harkis and native Rosanais recount their experiences of this culture clash, often painful, sometimes happy. Language barriers, religious differences, living in barracks for 14 years, and unemployment were all obstacles to overcome in order to be accepted and then achieve mutual enrichment. Enriched with archive footage to explain the historical context of the time, the film seeks above all to express feelings and unspoken words.

A Remembering of Disremembering(tl)

Told through the tales of love of a retiring film projectionist and a late-blooming actress, the short documentary delves into the journey of Manila’s oldest movie theater from grandiosity to obsolescence.

Ballymanus(en)

10 May 1943. Something is spotted drifting ashore off the coast of Northwest Donegal, Ireland. Something that would change the lives of the local people forever.

Forms of Forgetting(tr)

Nesrin and Erdem talk about their relationship, which they don’t remember in exactly the same way. Çevik’s visually stunning essay uses their conversations to forge a pensive treatise on what it means to forget, where word and image play an equal role.

La France de l'épuration, entre vengeance et justice(fr)

Mind Games - The Experiment(en)

Can exercise sharpen the brightest minds? In this ground-breaking experiment, four world-class gamers, competing in eSports, Chess, Mahjong and Memory Games, put this to the test.

Carnations(en)

Seven strangers are interviewed to talk about the relationship they have with their mother.

Tricky Memory(en)

The lastest neuroscience discoveries show surprising results: false memories, distortion, modification, déjà vus. Our memory is affected in many ways, and deceives us every day. The very fact of recalling souvenirs modifies them. The everyday consequences are manyfold. To what extent can we rely on our souvenirs? How much credit can we give them during trials? Even more shocking, scientists have proved to be able to manipulate our memory: creating artificial souvenirs, deleting, emphasizing or restoring them on demand.

La Caissière fait son cinéma(en)

Paris, Latin Quarter. A small cinema that is both famous and marginal, Action Christine. The cashier has taken her camcorder and takes us to this public place, her workplace. Place of life, of passage, of meeting, a window open on the street, behind the hygienic phone, it is the daily life of the cashiers and the openers punctuated by the alternation of surging entrances and idle intersession.

History and Memory: For Akiko and Takashige(en)

This film is a poetic composition of recorded history and non-recorded memory. Filmmaker Rea Tajiri’s family was among the 120,000 Japanese and Japanese Americans who were imprisoned in internment camps after the attack on Pearl Harbor. And like so many who were in the camps, Tajiri’s family wrapped their memories of that experience in a shroud of silence and forgetting. This film raises questions about collective history – questions that prompt Tajiri to daringly re-imagine and re-create what has been stolen and what has been lost.

L'Épopée des gueules noires(fr)

L'heure exquise(fr)

In the streets of Marseille, René Allio encounters, once again, the spaces of his childhood, and remembers his family history.

At the Drive-In(en)

Unable to purchase a $50,000 digital projector, a group of film fanatics in rural Pennsylvania fight to keep a dying drive-in theater alive by screening only vintage 35mm film prints and working entirely for free.

The Boy Who Can't Forget(en)

Can you remember what you were doing on 15th March 2003? Or what the weather was like on 30th May 2007? Twenty-year-old British student Aurelien can. He is one of a handful of people in the world baffling scientists with their ability to recall an incredible amount of their lives. This remarkable documentary explores the recently discovered phenomenon known as superior autobiographical memory.

Ergui as Mãos aos Céus e Não Havia Mais Luz(pt)

Madagascar: The Red Island Uprising(fr)

On March 29, 1947, peasants armed with sticks and knives attacked the French garrisons in Madagascar. The revolt would end twenty months later with the death of the last insurgents, shot down by the expeditionary force. France, accustomed to memory lapses, knew nothing of this insurrection and its trail of torture and abuses. In Madagascar, well after independence, the events of 1947 were never discussed. For more than a generation, parents refused to speak of them to their children. It wasn't until the 1980s that the silence was broken.

Cycle of Memory(en)

Mel Schwartz escaped the Great Depression on a bicycle adventure he'd remember for the rest of his life... until Mel lost his memory to Alzheimer's. Now over seventy-five years later, his grandchildren set out to recreate his life-changing journey and find those memories before they slip away. Cycle of Memory explores the importance of intergenerational connection, healing painful pasts, and leaving a meaningful time capsule for the future.

Our Dream(pt)

The life story of Claudinho e Buchecha, greatest icons and most successful duo of the Brazilian funk melody in all time, showing how the rhythm and poetry of the periphery conquered Brazil.

Zorro(it)

A newly arrived governor finds his province under the control of the corrupt Colonel Huerta. To avoid assassination by Huerta, he pretends to be weak and indecisive so Huerta will believe he poses no threat. But secretly he masquerades as Zorro, and joins the monk Francisco and the beautiful aristocrat Hortensia in their fight for justice against Huerta and his soldiers.

Racionais MC's: From the Streets of São Paulo(pt)

Armed with music and a message, influential hip-hop group Racionais MC's turned their street poetry into a powerful movement in Brazil and beyond.

Elena(pt)

Petra heads to New York in search of her older sister after a long time of being separated. They are both movie actresses and heirs of the wounds of the Brazilian dictatorship. But Petra has only a few clues: home movies, newspaper clippings, a diary...

City of Ghosts(en)

With unprecedented access, this documentary follows the extraordinary journey of “Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently”—a group of anonymous citizen journalists who banded together after their homeland was overtaken by ISIS—as they risk their lives to stand up against one of the greatest evils in the world today.

Os Doces Bárbaros(pt)

The film records the commemorative tour of the ten years of the career of the Bahia singers Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, Maria Bethânia and Gal Costa, who formed the group with the name of Doces Bárbaros (Sweet Barbarians), at the suggestion of Bethânia. Conceived to present the shows of the live album that would be released (Doces Bárbaros - Live), the documentary changed of tone when registering the arrest and judgment of Gilberto Gil and of a companion by possession of drugs. Gil was forced to go to a detox clinic, and only went out to participate in the programmed shows.

Barbarella(en)

In the far future, a highly sexual woman is tasked with finding and stopping the evil Durand-Durand. Along the way she encounters various unusual people.

In the Heights(en)

The story of Usnavi, a bodega owner who has mixed feelings about closing his store and retiring to the Dominican Republic or staying in Washington Heights.

Once Upon a Studio(en)

Created for Disney's 100th anniversary, the short features Mickey Mouse corralling a gallery of legendary Disney characters for a group photo.

The Craft(en)

A Catholic school newcomer falls in with a clique of teen witches who wield their powers against all who dare to cross them -- be they teachers, rivals or meddlesome parents.

Uglies(en)

In a futuristic dystopia with enforced beauty standards, a teen awaiting mandatory cosmetic surgery embarks on a journey to find her missing friend.

The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim(en)

A sudden attack by Wulf, a clever and traitorous lord of Rohan seeking vengeance for the death of his father, forces Helm Hammerhand, the King of Rohan, and his people to make a daring last stand in the ancient stronghold of the Hornburg.

The Creator(en)

Amid a future war between the human race and the forces of artificial intelligence, a hardened ex-special forces agent grieving the disappearance of his wife, is recruited to hunt down and kill the Creator, the elusive architect of advanced AI who has developed a mysterious weapon with the power to end the war—and mankind itself.

Dune: Part Two(en)

Follow the mythic journey of Paul Atreides as he unites with Chani and the Fremen while on a path of revenge against the conspirators who destroyed his family. Facing a choice between the love of his life and the fate of the known universe, Paul endeavors to prevent a terrible future only he can foresee.

The Godfather(en)

Spanning the years 1945 to 1955, a chronicle of the fictional Italian-American Corleone crime family. When organized crime family patriarch, Vito Corleone barely survives an attempt on his life, his youngest son, Michael steps in to take care of the would-be killers, launching a campaign of bloody revenge.

Oppenheimer(en)

The story of J. Robert Oppenheimer's role in the development of the atomic bomb during World War II.

Titanic(en)

101-year-old Rose DeWitt Bukater tells the story of her life aboard the Titanic, 84 years later. A young Rose boards the ship with her mother and fiancé. Meanwhile, Jack Dawson and Fabrizio De Rossi win third-class tickets aboard the ship. Rose tells the whole story from Titanic's departure through to its death—on its first and last voyage—on April 15, 1912.

Shutter Island(en)

World War II soldier-turned-U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels investigates the disappearance of a patient from a hospital for the criminally insane, but his efforts are compromised by troubling visions and a mysterious doctor.

Ex Machina(en)

Caleb, a coder at the world's largest internet company, wins a competition to spend a week at a private mountain retreat belonging to Nathan, the reclusive CEO of the company. But when Caleb arrives at the remote location he finds that he will have to participate in a strange and fascinating experiment in which he must interact with the world's first true artificial intelligence, housed in the body of a beautiful robot girl.