Portrait Serie - Jonas Mekas

Heartbeat(sv)

A dazzling musical about a young Arab woman facing deportation just as she is about to receive a heart transplant.

Harmony Lane(en)

The first British 3D short, this delightful 27 minute short is like spending a night at the Palladium with several variety acts. They include dancing by the Jack Billings Trio; a song by the Beverley Sisters; "Swan Lake" by Svetlana Beriosova and David Paltenghi of the Sadler's Wells Ballet; precision dancing by The Television Toppers and a comedy routine with Dora Bryan and Max Bygraves.

Double Solitaire(en)

The filmmaker's father and uncle, Norm and Stan, are third generation Japanese Americans. They are "all American" guys who love bowling, cards and pinball. Placed in the Amache internment camp as children during World War II, they don't think the experience affected them that much. But in the course of navigating the maze of her father's and uncle's pursuits while simultaneously trying to inquire about their past, the filmmaker is able to find connections between their lives now and the history that was left behind.

The Island(en)

The Island is a short film shot entirely on Pulau Bidong, an island off the coast of Malaysia that became the largest and longest-operating refugee camp after the Vietnam War. The artist and his family were some of the 250,000 people who inhabited the tiny island between 1978 and 1991; it was once one of the most densely populated places in the world. After the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees shuttered the camp in 1991, Pulau Bidong became overgrown by jungle, filled with crumbling monuments and relics. The film takes place in a dystopian future in which the last man on earth - having escaped forced repatriation to Vietnam - finds a United Nations scientists who has washed ashore after teh world’s last nuclear battle. By weaving together footage from Bidong’s past with a narrative set in its future, Nguyen questions the individual’s relationship to history, trauma, nationhood, and displacement.

Amazing Journeys(en)

By land, by air, and by sea, viewers can now experience the struggle that millions of creatures endure in the name of migration as wildlife photographers show just how deeply survival instincts have become ingrained into to the animals of planet Earth. From the monarch butterflies that swarm the highlands of Mexico to the birds who navigate by the stars and the millions of red crabs who make the perilous land journey across Christmas Island, this release offers a look at animal instinct in it's purest form.

Gauche the Cellist(ja)

This is essentially a highly condensed remake of the famous 1982 Isao Takahara release. It tells the story of Gauche, a struggling cellist in a provincial orchestra. He is visited by four talking animals - a cat, a cuckoo, a tanuki, and a field mouse - on successive nights They help him to improve his playing, just in time for orchestra’s concert performance of Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony.

Fires of Kuwait(en)

After Saddam Hussein had the Kuwait Oil wells lit up, teams from all over the world fought those fires for months. They had to save the oil resources, as well as reduce air pollution. The different teams developed different techniques of extinguishing the fires. Man's emergency creativity can be seen at it's best.

The Fourth Kingdom(en)

The regular visitors to a recycling center in the Brooklyn borough of New York, run by René, a discreet Mexican who works and sleeps there, and by the Spaniard Ana de Luco, form a community capable of transcending their reality to turn it into a realm of their own, sometimes surreal, outside the great collective swindle of the American dream.

The Nobodies(en)

The lonely husband of a famous female comedian strikes up an unlikely friendship with the neighborhood's sad-sack mailman, ultimately forming a successful, albeit unusual, musical collaboration that blends the line between fantasy and reality.

As Day Goes By(xx)

On a summer day, from his balcony, the filmmaker observes two women diligently cutting grass for their cows on one of the last remaining vacant plots of Kathmandu.

My Spiritual Medicine(zh)

Two white-collar clerks setup a private radio program in Shanghai. An Otaku lady lives in isolation. As the random fates of individuals are linked and changed by the radiowave, love, in all possible forms, burgeons.

Origins of Life(fr)

A documentary that explores the natural world of the sea, from the single-celled organism to more complex forms of life, OCEAN ORIGINS was originally filmed in the IMAX large format, which adds a crispness and clarity to the images. This documentary film seeks to examine the process of evolution by looking at the many creatures of the sea that can illustrate the way multi-cellular life emerged over the course of four billion years. OCEAN ORIGINS is a creative film that uses fascinating documentary footage to look at scientific theories and principles in an interesting manner

Golden Surge(cn)

Hong Kong is facing tyranny, and a pair of brothers are marching on their own ways in the revolution. However, the horror is approaching, and it’s like this city knows everything, it reborns after it collapses. There seems to be a huge energy behind this, asking inwardly: What is the fight for?

Elogio da Graça(pt)

Taking Stock(en)

Using his failed attempts at creating profitable stock footage, a filmmaker reflects on the absurd, mundane and funny side of being trapped inside your own head as an out of work, self-employed freelancer.

The Swan(pl)

Animation with colored salt by Aleksandra Korejwo. Music by composer Camille Saint-Saëns performed by the Polish Radio Orchestra.

Autism(es)

A short documentary essay revolving around the phrase "The individual is in the past and the community is the future" done during the 100 hour challenge organized by DocsMx.

José Clemente Orozco, pintor del hombre(es)

A document that summarizes images of the energetic Mexican muralist's most significant works, using rhythmic montages that reflect the prevailing mood of each of his pictorial periods and a complex soundtrack composed of effects and various orchestral and choral interventions. Devoid of narration and didactic rigidity, this short film focuses its resources on the pure enjoyment of Orozco's work.

The Little Horse(es)

The novohispanic equestrian statue of Charles IV of Spain is relocated in Mexico city.

Seine Majestät von Bethlehem zurückkehrend(de)

Wilhelm II. returns from his trip to Bethlehem