The Five Obstructions

The Sound of Identity(en)

In the spotlight of global media coverage, the first transgender woman ever to perform as Don Giovanni in a professional opera, makes her historic debut in one of the reddest states in the U.S.

Hellborn(en)

Conrad Brooks discusses "Hellborn," his unfinished movie with Ed Wood, and other projects

Milestone No. 2(en)

A documentary showcasing a family as they pack up their home of twelve years and begin looking towards the future.

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird(pt)

Taking its title from the poem by Wallace Stevens, the film is composed of a series of attempts at looking and being looked at. Beginning as a city state commission under the name and attitude of “Unschool”, the film became a kaleidoscope of the experiences, questions and wonders of a couple of high school students after a year of experiences with filmmaker Ana Vaz questioning what cinema can be. Here, the camera becomes an instrument of inquiry, a pencil, a song.

The Dinosaur(fi)

Acclaimed Finnish director Rauni Mollberg made several scandalous yet widely appreciated films. Former co-worker Veikko Aaltonen’s eye-opening documentary The Dinosaur looks at the relentless, often disturbing directing techniques behind Mollberg’s art and success.

Pensando em Pluralidade(pt)

Contágio(pt)

Several Portuguese creators occupy the director's chair in this collective short film shot during the COVID-19 pandemic shutdown in an unfolding of personal perspectives.

Das Boot Revisited: An Underwater Success Story(de)

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.

Indiana Jones: The Search for the Lost Golden Age(fr)

Hawaii, May 1977. After the success of Star Wars, George Lucas and Steven Spielberg meet to find a new project to work on together, the former as producer, the latter as director. The story of how the charismatic archaeologist Indiana Jones was born and how his first adventure, released in 1981, triumphed at box offices around the world.

Un été à la Garoupe(fr)

La Garoupe, a beach in Antibes, in 1937. For one summer, the painter and photographer Man Ray films his friends Pablo Picasso, Dora Maar, Paul Eluard and his wife Nusch, as well as Lee Miller. During these few weeks, love, friendship, poetry, photography and painting are still mixed in the carefree and the creativity specific to the artistic movements of the interwar period.

Hibiscus(en)

'Hibiscus' highlights the city's hidden beauty and the warmth of its people that may go by unnoticed on a daily basis but are beautiful reminders to appreciate.

Solidão no Fundo da Agulha(pt)

Notes before the Wind(cn)

A loose collection of scenes in Hong Kong shot over a five-year period, this film begins with the Umbrella Movement in 2014 and ends right before the summer of 2019, when large-scale social unrest and violent resistance erupted. The everyday scenes capture the ambience and the landscape of change in the city, standing as a quiet prelude to the ensuing conflicts.

Making 'M*A*S*H'(en)

An in-depth look at the highly successful TV series, including a study of the philosophical approach of the program.

-YAMASE-(ja)

Film by Kenji Onishi. With friends. Mr. Yamase as main character, Sasakubo and Shinojima. And the girls having a good time. The camera is all you need. Looking still at the Mt. Buko which is disappearing.

A Night of Soap Water(en)

The film is an observational telling of a watchman in an apartment complex in Guwahati, Assam, India. It blends documentary to explore his alienation and raise the question of empathy vis-a-vis his occupation: its existence beyond what may be referred to as a linear time or the time occupied by the privileged. His time is interpreted as existing in an another time characterised by the banal quality of his job. The film attempts to do away with any narrative control where the subject (the spectator) too exercises a reciprocal gaze on the filmer: by becoming an observer to his own filming, the film's own privileged gaze is confronted.

welcome_home.exe(en)

As technology accelerates, our species' collective imagination of the future grows ever more kaleidoscopic. We are all haunted by temporal distortion, perhaps no more than when we attempt to remember what the future looked like to our younger selves. As the mist of time devours our memories, the future recedes; each of us burdened by the gaping mouth of entropy. Yet, emerging technology provides a glimmer of hope; transhumanism promises a future free from mortality, disease and pain. Does our salvation lie in digital simulacra? We're here to sell you the answer to that question, for the low, low price of four hundred and seventy seconds.

I Am Alfred Hitchcock(en)

Interviews and archival footage weave together to tell the story of the Master of Suspense, one of the most influential and studied filmmakers in the history of cinema.

Dying for Drugs(en)

Every year many new drugs come to market which offer hope to the sick and dying. This documentary film investigates just how far drug companies are prepared to go to get their drugs approved, what they will do to make sure they get the prices they want, and what happens when profits are put before people.

Srećan Put(en)

A playful engagement with memory and moving images, employing experimental visuals, voice journals, and staged dialogs.

Shadows(en)

The relationship between Lelia, a light-skinned black woman, and Tony, a white man is put in jeopardy when Tony meets Lelia’s darker-skinned jazz singer brother, Hugh, and discovers that her racial heritage is not what he thought it was.

The Element of Crime(da)

Fisher, an ex-detective, decides to take one final case when a mysterious serial killer claims the lives of several young girls. Fisher, unable to find the culprit, turns to Osbourne, a writer who was once respected for his contributions to the field of criminology. Fisher begins to use Osbourne's technique, which involves empathizing with serial killers; however, as the detective becomes increasingly engrossed in this method, things take a disturbing turn.

The Kingdom(da)

At The Kingdom, Denmark's most technologically advanced hospital, a number of strange and otherworldly events begin occurring, much to the dismay of its doctors and patients. A ghostly ambulance appears and disappears, the voice of a little girl calls to a patient in an elevator shaft, and a doctor's fetus begins growing at an alarming rate.

The Idiots(da)

A group of people gather at a Copenhagen suburban home to break all the limitations and to bring out the 'inner idiot' in themselves.

As I Was Moving Ahead, Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty(en)

A compilation of over 30 years of private home movie footage shot by Lithuanian-American avant-garde director Jonas Mekas, assembled by Mekas "purely by chance", without concern for chronological order.

The Perfect Human(da)

An elegant and humorous film—in the guise of a serious anthropological treatise—spotlights "The Perfect Human," a model of the modern Dane created by our wishful thinking.

Mercy, the Mummy Mumbled(en)

Mercy, the Mummy Mumbled pokes fun at both mad scientists and the Egyptian mummy craze that followed the discovery of King Tut's tomb early in the 20th century. A young man wooing the daughter of a scientist hatches a get rich quick scheme when he spots a classified ad searching for "a mummy for experimental purposes." While he wraps up a phony for the scientist, two Egyptian agents (outfitted in a crazy mix of ancient fashion and modern style) tracking stolen relics get tangled in the confusion.

Sybil(en)

A true story of a young woman whose abusive childhood results in her developing a multiple personality disorder.

Liliom(en)

A carousel barker falls in love with a young woman. Both are fired from their jobs, and when the young woman becomes pregnant, the carousel barker tries to help pull off a robbery, which goes wrong. Because of the robbery, he dies, and after spending time in hell, is sent back to earth for one day to try to make amends. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive.

EO(pl)

The world is a mysterious place when seen through the eyes of an animal. EO, a grey donkey with melancholic eyes, meets good and bad people on his life’s path, experiences joy and pain, endures the wheel of fortune randomly turn his luck into disaster and his despair into unexpected bliss. But not even for a moment does he lose his innocence.

Woman in the Dunes(ja)

A vacationing entomologist suffers extreme physical and psychological trauma after being taken captive by the residents of a poor seaside village and made to live with a woman whose life task is shoveling sand for them.

Zelig(en)

Fictional documentary about the life of human chameleon Leonard Zelig, a man who becomes a celebrity in the 1920s due to his ability to look and act like whoever is around him. Clever editing places Zelig in real newsreel footage of Woodrow Wilson, Babe Ruth, and others.

Crash(en)

A car crash victim suddenly finds himself turned on by car accidents and becomes involved with an underground sub-culture of like-minded souls.

Three Colors: Blue(fr)

The wife of a famous composer survives a car accident that kills her husband and daughter. Now alone, she shakes off her old identity and explores her newfound freedom but finds that she is unbreakably bound to other humans, including her husband’s mistress, whose existence she never suspected.

Dancer in the Dark(en)

Selma, a Czech immigrant on the verge of blindness, struggles to make ends meet for herself and her son, who has inherited the same genetic disorder and will suffer the same fate without an expensive operation. When life gets too difficult, Selma learns to cope through her love of musicals, dreaming up little numbers to the rhythmic beats of her surroundings.

Dogville(en)

A woman on the run from the mob is reluctantly accepted in a small Colorado community in exchange for labor, but when a search visits the town, she learns that their support has a price.

Antichrist(en)

A grieving couple retreats to their cabin 'Eden' in the woods, hoping to repair their broken hearts and troubled marriage. But nature takes its course and things go from bad to worse.

Almost Famous(en)

In 1973, 15-year-old William Miller's unabashed love of music and aspiration to become a rock journalist lands him an assignment from Rolling Stone magazine to interview and tour with the up-and-coming band, Stillwater.

The Neon Demon(en)

When aspiring model Jesse moves to Los Angeles, her youth and vitality are devoured by a group of beauty-obsessed women who will take any means necessary to get what she has.

Mama(en)

Guillermo del Toro presents Mama, a supernatural thriller that tells the haunting tale of two little girls who disappeared into the woods the day that their parents were killed. When they are rescued years later and begin a new life, they find that someone or something still wants to come tuck them in at night.