Lights and Shadows

State of Bacon(en)

State of Bacon tells the kinda real but mostly fake tale of an oddball group of characters leading up to the annual Blue Ribbon Bacon Festival. Bacon-enthusiasts, Governor Branstad, a bacon queen, Hacksaw Jim Duggan, members of PETA, and an envoy of Icelanders are not excluded from this bacon party and during the course of the film become intertwined with the organizers of the festival to show that bacon diplomacy is not dead.

Innucadie (festival du conte et de la légende de Natashquan, 1er édition)(cr)

Mexican Police on Parade(en)

This Traveltalk series short showcases the Mexico City police department's various units as they participate in a yearly festival. Included are a marching band, a parade of patrol cars, the motorcycle unit, equestrian unit, and the department's pistol team.

The Kumbha Mela: Same As It Ever Was(en)

This is a silent film, with a musical soundtrack, shot during a boat journey along the waterways of Kashmir that took him to the festival. Using the simplest equipment, a Super-8-camera with a special lens, and directing his attention at simple things--the rhythmic splashing of a heart-shaped oar, the sparkle of evening sun on still waters--Albert Falzon has captured the timeless slow motion of Northern India.

Belles of the South Seas(en)

A tour through the South Sea islands including Tahiti, New Zealand, Fiji, Pago Pago, Papua and Kalabahai

Cairo Jazzman(en)

A documentary about Cairo Jazz Festival's Amr Salah and his struggle every year to bring people and arts together in a country where 70% of people are under 30 and the Officials do not care about culture too much.

Naked Gardens(en)

A visually stunning narrative documentary, NAKED GARDENS immerses audiences in the complex, unseen world of a family nudist resort in the Florida Everglades. Filmed over one season at this lush tropical campsite, the film follows the stories of individuals drawn to an unusual community, which promises both non-conformist values and, more importantly for some, a cheap place to live. As aging owner Morley and his residents prepare for the largest gathering of nudists in the US, the Mid-Winter Naturist Festival, they are faced with challenges both as a community and as individuals.

The Show Must Go On: The Queen + Adam Lambert Story(en)

A documentary chronicling Queen and Lambert's incredible journey since they first shared the stage together on "American Idol" in 2009.

The Endless Summer(en)

Bruce Brown's The Endless Summer is one of the first and most influential surf movies of all time. The film documents American surfers Mike Hynson and Robert August as they travel the world during California’s winter (which, back in 1965 was off-season for surfing) in search of the perfect wave and ultimately, an endless summer.

Niue: This Is Your Land(en)

A third generation NZ born Niuean Female surfer, visits her Island of heritage for the first time only to discover there is no surf on Niue. But Mella's visit opens her eyes to the island's other beautiful qualities, the magical water, warm people, and clean unpolluted land. However she also discovers the low population has left the countries future hanging by a thread. This documentary is a record of Mella's journey to regaining her identity and first steps at becoming part of the solution in Niue's restoration of itself.

Shaping Bamboo(en)

For the 'Are'are people of the Solomon Islands, the most valued music is that of the four types of panpipe ensembles. With the exception of slit drums, all musical instruments are made of bamboo; therefore the general word for instruments and the music performed with them is "bamboo" ('au). This film shows the making of panpipes, from the cutting the bamboo in the forest to the making of the final bindings. The most important part of the work consists in shaping each tube to its necessary length. Most 'Are'are panpipe makers measure the length of old instruments before they shape new tubes. Master musician 'Irisipau, surprisingly, takes the measure using his body, and adjusts the final tuning by ear. For the first time we can see here how the instruments and their artificial equiheptatonic scale-seven equidistant degrees in an octave-are practically tuned.

Lord of the Dance/Destroyer of Illusion(en)

The documentary focuses on the annual Mani Rimdu festival of Tibet and Nepal, an event which encapsulates the Himalayan Buddhist experience.

Cannes : Palmes, scandales et tapis rouge(fr)

How could the Cannes Film Festival become the biggest cinema event in the world? For 75 years, Cannes has succeeded in this prodigy of placing cinema, its sometimes paltry splendors but also its requirements of great modern art, at the center of everything, as if, for ten days in May, nothing was more important than it. This film tells how Cannes has become the largest film festival in the world by opening up to cinematic modernity while never forgetting that cinema remains a performing art, a popular art.

Keepers of the Kingdom(en)

This documentary, produced in 2001, profiles the unique characters found at Texas Renaissance Faires. It screened at a few festivals and was accepted to screen at New Yorks' IFP (Independent Feature Project).

Crashed: $800m Festival Fail(en)

The jaw-dropping story of the spectacular rise and dramatic fall of British music and festival company Pollen. The company was launched in 2014 by two young British brothers, Callum and Liam Negus-Fancey. Riding the wave of the tech boom which saw start-ups like Deliveroo, Airbnb and Uber become ‘unicorn’ giants valued at $1bn or more, the brothers created a simple idea that soon attracted huge investment. Beginning as a ticketing platform – giving festivals goers the chance to earn VIP rewards for selling tickets to their friends – the company tapped into a lucrative area when music festivals and Instagram influencing were flourishing. They promised their customers a ‘bigger life’, gave staff a glamorous, party-fuelled workplace and soon went global.

Sea Spiders(en)

A look at the everyday life of Tahitian natives.

Animation Outlaws(en)

Walt Disney said “We have created characters and animated them in the dimension of depth, revealing through them to our perturbed world that the things we have in common far outnumber and outweigh those that divide us.” Outside of Walt himself there are few people who have brought together and united more animators in the history of the genre than Craig "Spike" Decker and Mike Gribble, known to all as Spike & Mike. They created an animation festival that helped launch the careers of John Lasseter, Peter Lord, Will Vinton, Bill Plympton and Mike Judge to name just a few. Their Spike & Mike festival had an enormous impact on animation that was felt the world over. The festival was known as much for the breakthrough animation it presented as the outrageous antics of the founders.

Welcome to Kiribati(en)

A oneminutesjr. workshop held in June 2012 in The Republic of Kiribati.

Nauru, an Island Adrift(fr)

A quiet island, lost in the pacific ocean. Nothing worth of interest, until the day a stroke of luck, phosphate, provided by the island's coral core, led the country to incredible heights: in 1975, it became the second richest country per inhabitant in the world after Saudi Arabia... Only to plunge into ruins a few years later.

Sacred Vessels: Navigating Tradition and Identity in Micronesia(en)

A 1997 documentary by Micronesian scholar, Vicente M. Diaz, that follows a new generation of traditional outrigger canoe builders and navigators from Polowat, Central Carolines, Federated States of Micronesia, and Guam in their respective efforts to continue and resuscitate an ancient tradition of outrigger canoe carving and sailing in the late twentieth century. Like the motif of water that flows through the documentary and blurs lines between surface and depth, and between water, land and air, an indefatigable tradition and aesthetic of seafaring is shown to also challenge pat and problematic distinctions between past and present, tradition and modernity, indigenous and Christian religiosity and spirituality, that prevail in conventional understandings of Micronesian culture and history.