Self (archive footage)
2003-01-01
0
7.5An in-depth look at the Canadian rock band Rush, chronicling the band's musical evolution from their progressive rock sound of the '70s to their current heavy rock style.
6.8On January 31, 1857, the French writer Gustave Flaubert (1821-80) took his place in the dock for contempt of public morality and religion. The accused, the real one, is, through him, Emma Bovary, heroine with a thousand faces and a thousand desires, guilty without doubt of an unforgivable desire to live.
6.1In 1991, American Psycho, the third novel by controversial writer Bret Easton Ellis, provoked heated discussions among critics and readers alike; an extraordinarily disturbing book that transported its readers into the mind of Patrick Bateman, a cynical mergers and acquisitions executive obsessed with brands, inconsequential details, pop culture and brutal murder.
8.4Mark Gatiss explores and celebrates Dracula, an icon of popular culture, asking just why we keep coming back to the count.
8.5An installation film that consists of a six-hour-long monologue performed by Edith Clever, who reads texts by Syberberg and many different authors, such as Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Heinrich von Kleist, Plato, Friedrich Hölderlin, Novalis, Friedrich Nietzsche, Eduard Mörike, Richard Wagner, William Shakespeare, Samuel Beckett, and Chief Seattle.
0.0Documentary about the Dutch author, illustrator and performer Joke van Leeuwen, who has won various awards for her literature for children which sometimes uses a quest as a theme.
8.0In 1847, British writer Emily Brontë (1818-48), perhaps the most enigmatic of the three Brontë sisters, published her novel Wuthering Heights, a dark romance set in the desolation of the moors, a unique work of early Victorian literature that stunned contemporary critics.
0.0Twenty years ago, novelist Salman Rushdie was a wanted man with a million pound bounty on his head. His novel, The Satanic Verses, had sparked riots across the Muslim world. The ailing religious leader of Iran, the Ayatollah Khomeini, had invoked a little-known religious opinion - a fatwa - and effectively sentenced Rushdie to death. This film looks back on the extraordinary events which followed the publication of the book and the ten year campaign to get the fatwa lifted. Interviews with Rushdie's friends and family and testimony from leaders of Britain's Muslim community and the Government reveal the inside story of the affair.
4.2This documentary contains dramatized episodes about the lives of Erika and Klaus Mann, the brilliant children of German writer Thomas Mann.
0.0In a world that spins faster and faster, bibliomaniacs take refuge from the rush and the noise inside the library. Amid whispers, they confess the meaning of life. A celebration of thought and obsession, where libraries reveal their inhabitants
0.0VPRO icon Wim Brands died on April 4, 2016. He was known to the general public as a presenter of the VPRO Boeken program and also closer, with six collections of poetry to his name. This documentary about his life and work, built entirely from archive material, pays tribute to this television personality. A portrait in which attention is also paid to his complicated relationship with death. With a.o. Karl Ove Knausgård, David Sedaris, Ellen Deckwitz and Pieter Boskma. Brands' work merges with his rich inner life and that he chose death at the age of 56 casts a shadow over everything.
0.0Cartoneras is a documentary that grapples with Latin America’s urban realities, and the cardboard publishing movement that has emerged from these in the 21st century. Reflecting on the different contexts that propelled this form of community publishing, like Argentina’s 2001 economic crisis, the independent art scene, and the movements which formed around waste-pickers, the film’s narrative is developed through conversations with important actors from the cartonera world.
5.0Beatriz Portinari is not only the name of the inspiring muse of Dante Alighieri, but also the pseudonym with which the Platense writer Aurora Venturini was presented in 2007 to the Nueva Novela contest, organized by the newspaper Página 12, in which she won the grand prize for their work The bonuses. Full of mischief and grace, vitality and mystery, with great character and lucidity, this woman who throughout her ninety-one years never stopped writing, had a life totally linked to the literature and history of the twentieth century: she knew , was a friend and worked with Eva Perón in a minority center; in his exile he became associated with Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre, among others; and received a prize from Jorge Luis Borges, among many other things.
7.3Well known for its exploration of seduction and revenge, the “Dangerous Liaisons” by Choderlos de Laclos caused a scandal from its first publication in 1782. Despite – or because of the scandal – the book was a top-seller. Since then, it stood the test of time. Combining eras, continents and people, the novel is adapted around the world. Marvelous tool for reflection on the female condition, social satire announcing the Revolution, remarkable work on the conflicting nature of love but also of the gender war, consecration of the power of the words, a libertine manual… “Dangerous Liaisons” is all of these at once.
6.0Hours and historical meetings, Pierre Assouline has composed an anthology of the best extracts presented in the form of a primer, which he had commented on by a surprised Bernard Pivot.
0.0Robert van Gulik (1910-1967) is one of the world’s most read authors from the Netherlands. This diplomat, Sinologist and scholar is mainly known for his detective novels, starring 'Judge Dee'. Filmmaker Rob Rombout follows in his footsteps to discover the author’s legacy - via his diaries, the people he inspired and those who witnessed his extraordinary life.
8.0An account of the life of the French poet Jean de la Fontaine (1621-95), author of more than one hundred fables and a model for many other European fabulists of later times.
6.8The views and thoughts of Canadian writer Margaret Atwood have never been more relevant than today. Readers turn to her work for answers as they confront the rise of authoritarian leaders, deal with increasingly intrusive technologies, and discuss climate change. Her books are useful as survival tools for hard times. But few know her private life. Who is the woman behind the stories? How does she always seem to know what is coming?