Dichterbij

To Stay Alive: A Method(en)

Iggy Pop reads and recites Michel Houellebecq’s manifesto. The documentary features real people from Houellebecq’s life with the text based on their life stories.

Nice Chinese Girls Don't!(en)

Kitty Tsui, Chinese American writer, poet, body builder, and lesbian activist, tells of her arrival as an immigrant to San Francisco and, amidst the anti-Vietnam war protests, finding her way to San Francisco State, which influenced her on her path as an activist and poet. In this first ever documentary about a Chinese American Lesbian, Tsui brings to life her coming of age in San Francisco in the 1970s, her challenges, and her continued rise to celebrity by being re-discovered by a whole new generation of Feminists.

OG: The Harry Jumonji Story(en)

'OG' is a film about a legendary, Brazilian born, NYC skateboarder, Harry Jumonji. In the course of telling his story, through his triumphs and travails, Jumonji emerges in this portrait as an adolescent innocent, much like skateboarding itself. He is irrepressible, manically energetic and ultimately, pure. He has a transcendent presence, well beyond charm or charisma, of such unalloyed joy that nothing he does is unforgiveable. This is fortunate because, as a drug addict, unsurprisingly, he lies, cheats and steals. Harry is rendered as the poet, the sprite, the artist and the street saint he is.

Do Útero Ao Túmulo(pt)

Wood Mountain Poems(en)

In this short documentary, Canadian poet Andrew Suknaski introduces us to Wood Mountain, the south central Saskatchewan village he calls home. In between musings on his poetry, which is tinged with nostalgia and the vast loneliness of the plains, the poet discusses the area’s multicultural background and Native heritage, as well as the customs and stories of these various ethnic groups.

sucking on words(en)

sucking on words is a documentary film that features interviews with, and extensive performances by, the American poet Kenneth Goldsmith. It also features critical commentary on his intense and ground-breaking conceptualist practice from three of North America’s leading voices on avant-garde poetics. Shot on location in New York in 2007, the lively conversations featured in sucking on words are an ideal introduction to Goldsmith’s witty and provocative works, which are already regarded as hallmarks of 21st-century literature. The film showcases readings from some of his notorious books: No.111 (found phrases ending in the ‘r’ rhyme and filtered alphabetically by syllable count); Soliloquy (a transcription of every word Goldsmith spoke for a week); Day (a retyping of one day’s New York Times newspaper); Traffic (one day’s worth of hourly radio traffic bulletins); and The Weather (one year’s worth of radio weather bulletins).

Francisco Massiani(es)

This documentary is a chronicle of the journey through the most important sites of the life of venezuelan writer Francisco Massiani who reveals the details of his work and the love of his life.

Khamsin(fr)

Lebanon today. The traces of the civil war are all too tangible as government corruption becomes unbearable. In a country where conflict and peace are caught in an endless cycle, musicians from different backgrounds pool their talents to create an underground music scene. Each evokes his or her representation of Lebanon: its shifting geographical, political, historical and social borders, its painful passage through conflict and instability. A touching portrait of a young generation trying to build an oasis in a hostile environment where the forces of destruction continue to wreak havoc.

Bert Schierbeek/The Door(nl)

A short portrait of poet Bert Schierbeek, who reads from his poetry.

Great Spirit(ru)

Documentary video journey in search of the missing Tatar poet Rahim Sattar. The path from the present to the past runs through a polylogue of experts, folk music, works by contemporary artists, musical and creative interpretation of poems by Rahim Sattar and unique archival newsreels shot at the dawn of cinema.

North by Current(en)

Filmmaker Angelo Madsen Minax returns to his rural Michigan hometown following the death of his infant niece and the subsequent arrest of his brother-in-law as the culprit. Using the audio-visual approaches of essay film, first-person cinema vérité, staged actions, and decades of home movies, Madsen navigates a town steeped in opioid addiction, economic depression, and religious fervor, while using the act of filmmaking to rebuild familial bonds and reimagine justice. Posing empathy as a tool for creating a more just world, North By Current does not seek to investigate a crime, but creates a relentless portrait of an enduring pastoral family, poised to reframe and reimagine narratives about incarceration, addiction, trans embodiment, and ruralness.

Chubai. Speaking Again(uk)

A theatrical documentary about Hrytsko Chubai, a genius of Ukrainian poetry, a connoisseur of literature, art and music and the brightest representative of Lviv underground culture of late 60s early 70s.

Alternate Spaces(en)

A short documentary on the River Ouse, following it downstream from Lewes to Newhaven, meditating on the surrounding area.

Catalan Poets(ca)

At underground film of the 1st Popular Festival of Catalan Poetry filmed in the Proce Theater in Barcelona on May 25, 1970, in solidarity with political prisoners. The participating poets were: Agustí Bartra, Joan Oliver (Pere IV), Salvador Espriu, Joan Brossa, Francesc Vallverdú and Gabriel Ferrater.

Searching Eva(de)

This is the tale of a young woman, growing up in the age of the internet and turning the search for oneself into a public spectacle, allowing kids from all over the world to live their life through hers. Through her fragmented personalities you see the emergence of a new generation, in which the concept of a fixed identity has grown old.

Esse poema vai se chamar: A gente tem mania de só olhar pra frente(pt)

Dread Beat an' Blood(en)

Follows dub poet master Linton Kwesi Johnson out of the recording studio onto the Brixton streets.

Rita Dove: An American Poet(en)

A series of in-depth conversations with Poet Laureate Rita Dove—conducted and recorded by Eduardo Montes-Bradley between September 2012, and October 2013. The film explores the poet's life, exposing fundamental facts of Dove's childhood and formative years growing up in Akron, Ohio in the 1950s and during the turbulent 1960s, supplemented by selections from hundreds of still images and several hours of home movies from the Dove family's collection.

Hi, My Name is Dicky(en)

Hi, My Name is Dicky is a sports documentary about hockey player Richard Clune, and his struggle with substance use disorder while playing in the National Hockey League (NHL). The story begins in Toronto, where we learn about his typical Canadian childhood, then moves onto his teenage experience with the Ontario Hockey League’s (OHL) Sarnia Sting. During his time in the OHL, Rich developed a crippling addiction to drugs and alcohol, which threatened to derail both his personal life and professional career. Shortly after debuting in the NHL with the Los Angeles Kings, Rich made the choice to get sober, embarking on a wild journey to the rehab clinic back home in Canada, from his brother's dormitory in Worcester, Massachusetts. Sober for over ten years, the viewer learns how Rich leads a fascinating life off the ice, and has become a mentor to many players in the NHL, now in the twilight of his career playing for his hometown Toronto Maple Leafs.

The Weird World of LSD(en)

The 60s equivalent of Reefer Madness and all those other 30s drug exploitation flicks. Apparently, dropping acid leads to stripteases, cat fights, promiscuous sex, playing with kittens, and being convinced your dinner is much larger than it actually is. This is all illustrated in a series of silent sketches accompanied by a droll narrator who seems positively doped out of his mind.