"Against an adverse sky, Celeste raises her flight. If he went up, nobody knows, nobody saw."
2009-06-06
5
5.5James May celebrates the toys that made his childhood hell as he opens the lid on his sisters' toy box. Sandwiched between elder sister Jane and younger one Sarah, many of their favourites he couldn't understand - or stand the sight of - or see the point of.
0.0On the island of La Gomera, children imagine stories while they examine archeological remains. An ethno-fictional journey in which past and present coalesce, creating resonances between the volcanic landscape and Silbo, the whistled language of the island.
6.8As a young father, watching his daughter go through her life experiences, film director Alexandre Mourot discovered the Montessori approach and decided to set his camera up in a children's house (3 to 6 years of age) in the oldest Montessori school in France. Alexandre was warmly welcomed in a surprisingly calm and peaceful environment, filled with flowers, fruits and Montessori materials. He met happy children, who were free to move about, working alone or in small groups. The teacher remained very discreet. Some children were reading, others were making bread, doing division, laughing or sleeping. The children guided the film director throughout the whole school year, helping him to understand the magic of their autonomy and self-esteem - the seeds of a new society of peace and freedom, which Maria Montessori dedicated her life work to.
0.0An intimate portrait of Eric Carle, creator of more than 70 books for children including the best-selling "The Very Hungry Caterpillar". At 82, Eric is still at work in his studio making books and creating art. As he methodically layers a tissue paper collage of the caterpillar, he describes the feeling he achieves working in his studio, the sense of being at peace, all alone, when everything grows quiet and it is just himself and his work. The film taps into that deep creative need in each of us, a spirit that started in Eric as a very young child and is unceasing today.
0.0Nick and Michi roam the streets and meadows of their neighbourhood inseparably, but when Michi surprises Nick with unexpected news, they try to suppress it in their own way.
8.0A harsh and dreamy story of a young girl from the American West and her longing heart. Through Betty we experience a tight family clan of children born by children born by children where love and dependency go hand in hand.
0.0Karan and Rohan, two biracial brothers raised in a marginal environment, are finding ways to get stimulated on a normal summer day. They embark on a trip to buy candies to avoid boredom. This film plays with the sense of boundaries between what is real and what is fiction. It is a film about the love of two brothers and their singular reality in the countryside of Quebec.
0.0"The palm trees on the reverse are a delusion; so is the pink sand". This line, taken from a poem by Margaret Atwood, lights the path traced in "Postcard". As the years go by, landscapes transform, take on new meanings, and hold onto joys that will never be regained. The sea and the beach, once stages of happy summers, romances, and encounters, will turn into concentration camps or centers of detention and torture. This occurs across different times and places. In this piece, I embark on a journey through some of my works that explore the relationship between testimony, spaces, and time, engaging in dialogue with the beautiful film directed by Alejandro Segovia in 1972.
0.0In 2023, the Ombudsman presented a report on sexual abuse in the Church in Spain. Victims' accounts reached the European Parliament. Among them were the abuse suffered by two brothers at the boarding school where they attended as children.
7.2In the remote village of El Echo that exists outside of time, the children care for the sheep and their elders. While the frost and drought punish the land, they learn to understand death, illness and love with each act, word and silence of their parents. A story about the echo of what clings to the soul, about the certainty of shelter provided by those around us, about rebellion and vertigo in the face of life. About growing up.
0.0Homelessness in the United States takes many forms. For Elizabeth Herrera, David Lima and their four children, housing instability has meant moving between unsafe apartments, motels, relatives’ couches, shelters, the streets and their car. After 15 years of this uncertainty, the family moved into their first stable housing — an apartment in the San Francisco Bay Area — in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.
7.0Equal parts punk and psychedelia, the Flaming Lips emerged from Oklahoma City as one of the most bracing bands of the late 1980s. The Fearless Freaks documents their rise from Butthole Surfers-imitating noisemakers to grand poobahs of orchestral pop masterpieces. Filmmaker Bradley Beesely had the good fortune of living in the same neighborhood as lead Lip Wayne Coyne, who quickly enlisted his buddy to document his band's many concerts and assorted exploits. The early footage is a riot, with tragic hair styles on proud display as the boys attempt to cover up their lack of natural talent with sheer volume. During one show, they even have a friend bring a motorcycle on stage, which is then miked for sound and revved throughout the performance, clearing the club with toxic levels of carbon monoxide. Great punk rock stuff. Interspersed among the live bits are interviews with the band's family and friends, revealing the often tragic circumstances of their childhoods and early career.
0.0Kim and Bob have been inseparable since childhood. Does puberty end their friendship?
6.9Before leaving for Rome with his mother, five year old Natan is taken by his father, Jorge, on an epic journey to the pristine Chinchorro reef off the coast of Mexico. As they fish, swim, and sail the turquoise waters of the open sea, Natan discovers the beauty of his Mayan heritage and learns to live in harmony with life above and below the surface, as the bond between father and son grows stronger before their inevitable farewell.
10.0For her entire professional life, renowned ecologist Nalini Nadkarni pioneered climbing techniques to study "what grows back” after an ecological disturbance in the rainforest canopy. Now, after surviving a life-threatening fall from a tree, she must turn her research question onto herself in order to understand the effects of disturbance and recovery throughout her life.
0.0What does it mean to belong to a place, a country? In a south Tel Aviv elementary school, that question is addressed head-on by a fourth-grade class and their teacher. The children are asylum seekers whose families mostly do not have a legal status in Israel, yet learn, sing and play in Hebrew all the while examining their identity and sense of belonging.
8.5In the middle of a broadcast about Typhoon Yolanda's initial impact, reporter Jiggy Manicad was faced with the reality that he no longer had communication with his station. They were, for all intents and purposes, stranded in Tacloban. With little option, and his crew started the six hour walk to Alto, where the closest broadcast antenna was to be found. Letting the world know what was happening to was a priority, but they were driven by the need to let their families and friends know they were all still alive. Along the way, they encountered residents and victims of the massive typhoon, and with each step it became increasingly clear just how devastating this storm was. This was a storm that was going to change lives.
9.9Ava, an award-winning chef at a big-city restaurant, has lost her spark. Her boss sends her out to find herself to save her menu and her job. She returns home and finds little to inspire her, but when she reunites with her childhood friend Logan, Ava has to get her head out of the clouds and her foot out of her mouth to rediscover her passion for food.
7.0Two dumb soda jerks dream of writing radio mysteries. When they try to pitch an idea at a radio station, they end up in the middle of a real murder when the station owner is killed during a broadcast.
7.4Valdis Nulle is a young and ambitious captain of fishing ship 'Dzintars'. He has his views on fishing methods but the sea makes its own rules. Kolkhoz authorities are forced to include dubious characters in his crew, for example, former captain Bauze and silent alcoholic Juhans. The young captain lacks experience in working with so many fishermen on board. Unexpectedly, pretty engineer Sabīne is ordered to test a new construction fishing net on Nulle's ship and 'production conflict' between her and the captain arises...
6.1Two Japanese men help a Vietnam war deserter escape from Japan for Sweden. They plan to fund the escape by selling LSD pills. After word of the drug deal gets spread around they find themselves fending off rival gangs.
6.0This documentary about the life and work of filmmaker Jean Painlevé was originally presented in eight parts on French television. It was edited to remove duplicated material from its original length of 240 minutes.
Jean Reno discusses his career and his role in the film Léon: The Professional (1994).
6.0'Oxygen for the Ears: Living Jazz' is a story of the trials and triumphs of jazz in America. Every jazz tune has a starting point - a simple note - from which the music starts its journey and rises. 'Oxygen for the Ears' portrays Washington D.C. as such a departure point for its documentary story, 'Living Jazz'.
A hitman is tasked to take out ex-mobsters when he suddenly hears a voice that questions his morality.
7.0San Sebastian, the year 2000, the Basque conflict continues. While writing a letter to her absent brother, Sara, a 15-year-old climber, is training for the most difficult climb of her life.
6.5Antonis Alaiporos has just been fired from his job and gets into the world of insurance market.
0.0A daughter confronts her mother with the most difficult question, and gets an answer she was not expecting.
5.9Anton and Erika started out as friends for five years and got into a romantic relationship for seven years. Anton is a commercial director while Erika is a former band member and becomes his stay-at-home partner. The day finally comes when he asks her to marry him.
8.3A collection of cartoons, each of which is a uniquely decorated folk tale.
A mentally-afflicted young man is accused of murdering his longtime benefactor. The real truth of what happened lies in his mad obsession with his supposed victim's old typewriter, on which he types relentlessly, day and night.
9.0Ji-eun, a member of North Korea's dance troupe and the daughter of the North Korean leader, escapes to the South after one of their perfomances. Eager to explore the liberal life in Seoul, Ji-eun searches for a new life of freedom in South Korea. She soon comes across Joon-ho, a leader of a local rock band. Their relationship then takes unexpected turns as they become closer to each other. Meanwhile, the intelligence agency in South Korea learns of a conspiracy being orchestrated by the American CIA to disrupt the peace on the Korean peninsula; the CIA plots to secretly kidnap Ji-eun. Secret forces from the North and South reluctantly agree to work together to prevent a possible war between their two countries.
10.0A short from artist William Strobeck. The film shows the complete opposites of two different friendships that William had caught on camera with one side being filmed in 1998 and the other side filmed this year.