The Ozu Diaries

North Bergen, North Bergen(en)

Footage shot in and around North Bergen, New Jersey presented in a minimalist series of fixed camera angles and long-takes accompanied by the ambient noise of city streets.

A Train Arrives at the Station(en)

“This film was a gift to me. I make no claims for it, nor do I offer any apologies. It comes from work on The Thoughts That Once We Had. There was one shot we had to cut whose loss I particularly regretted. It was a shot of a train pulling into Tokyo Station from Ozu’s The Only Son (1936). So I decided to make a film around this shot, an anthology of train arrivals. It comprises 26 scenes or shots from movies, 1904-2015. It has a simple serial structure: each black & white sequence in the first half rhymes with a color sequence in the second half. Thus the first shot and the final shot show trains arriving at stations in Japan from a low camera height. In the first shot (The Only Son), the train moves toward the right; in the last shot, it moves toward the left. A bullet train has replaced a steam locomotive. So after all these years, I’ve made another structural film, although that was not my original intention.”

I Lived, But...(ja)

An extremely lovely tribute to Ozu, on the 20th anniversary of his death. It uses a combination of footage from vintage films and new material (both interviews and Ozu-related locations) shot by Ozu's long-time camera-man (who came out of retirement to work on this). Surprisingly (or perhaps not), it focuses less on Ozu's accomplishments as a film-maker than on his impact on the lives of the people he worked with..

Au fil de l'eau, les anguilles sacrées de Polynésie(fr)

Dukla - areál spomienok(sk)

Jak se žije převozníkům podle Romana Vávry(cs)

Kardinál Jozef Tomko(sk)

Berlin: Hasenheide(de)

Documentary about the social microcosm of Hasenheide, a 50 hectar green area in Berlin, located between Kreuzberg and Neukölln. In this park, you'll find old women with their dogs, young football players, Turks at the barbecue, as well as nudists. For the residents, Hasenheide is sports area, living room, pub and runway all at once. A refutation of the media panic surrounding the park as a place of drug dealing and violence.

Russian History Through the Eyes of Children - 2(ru)

The series is based on the memories of children, participants and witnesses of various events in Russia in the 20th century. How children who grew up in Russia in different years of the 20th century perceived the world around them, and with it the everyday life of Russian history. Life, the behavior of parents, the behavior of friends and enemies of the family, the external environment, social upheavals, political events, all this is noticed by children, all this adds up to that picture of history that we will not find either in official reports or in historical research.

Wainwright: The Man Who Loved The Lakes(en)

Documentary telling the life story of cult author and renowned fell-walker Alfred Wainwright in England's Lake District.

From Parade to the Oscar(ru)

The filming history of the first Soviet film to win an Oscar in 1943, the documentary "Moscow strikes back", tells about the defeat of the Nazis near Moscow.

Hasret(tr)

The communist poet Nazim Hikmet, after serving 17 years in Turkish prisons, fled to the Soviet Union as the country of victorious communism. Communism turned out to be a hoax, it lost its homeland forever. The Turkish word "hasret" (longing) is one of the few Turkish words that his adopted daughter learned. His heart could not stand the melancholy and hypocrisy of Soviet life, he died early and was buried in Moscow, where he was safely forgotten. But this old story becomes suddenly very relevant during the referendum in Istanbul.

Lord's Summer(ru)

Peasant summer from early spring to late autumn. Today there are no peasant farms in the Voronezh steppes for a long time, the collective farms are a thing of the past, and the various firms created in their place, the land was bought up by huge holdings. Others today are tractor drivers, those who are lucky with work. Other news on the radios, the Donbass is very close, and in that summer of 2015 there were battles going on there. But summer is still a whole life that still needs to be lived.

16 Ways to Change the World(ru)

The Almanac of the Laboratory of Scientific Cinema. 16 directors selected the most interesting scientific developments and research at Skoltech and created 16 short films.

Miroslav Vitouš – jazzová legenda(cs)

The Golden Wedding(ru)

The Mohicans(ru)

The action takes place in the house of cinema veterans. Life has changed in recent years. Our heroes are from a previous time. They are almost like Mohican Indians and their living space is also limited to a small area. But life goes on at the same time…

Living Water(ru)

Love in the Time of Corona(en)

A video essay by Mark Rappaport, which spans René Magritte and Michelangelo to Bonnie & Clyde. Let’s mask up to rob a bank! But make sure that you are home before the curfew.

Bear Island(en)

The majestic Alaskan brown bear is the largest predator in southeastern Alaska, but everywhere, its ancient haunts are under siege. As the modern world closes in, the great bear’s world is shrinking and encounters between humans and bears are on the rise. Join researcher LaVern Beier as he uses cutting edge technology to protect this extraordinary species. To observe them on their turf, without risking life and limb, LaVern attempts to deploy National Geographic’s CRITTERCAM. Until now, CRITTERCAM has been used almost exclusively on marine animals. Vern and his colleagues are on the cusp of a revolution in terrestrial field science…the opportunity to vicariously walk with bears into the deepest corners of their habitats, where even great hunters barely dare venture.