The Human Factor 2014

Maria Bethânia: Música é Perfume(pt)

Brazilian singer Maria Bethania has a 40-year singing career. A documentary shows her concerts and famous family.

¡Al fútbol!(es)

Any given Sunday of 1974 in Spain, soccer games in several stadiums, the sarcastic voice of commentators, the inevitable presence of advertising. Goal! The victors and the defeated.

We Who Wait: The Adverts & TV Smith(en)

A documentary about the life and career of UK singer-songwriter and Adverts frontman, TV Smith.

Come il Bianco(fr)

Finding Fela(en)

Fela Anikulapo Kuti created the musical movement Afrobeat and used it as a political forum to oppose the Nigerian dictatorship and advocate for the rights of oppressed people. This is the story of his life, music, and political importance.

Concerning Violence(sv)

Concerning Violence is based on newly discovered, powerful archival material documenting the most daring moments in the struggle for liberation in the Third World, accompanied by classic text from The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon.

66 Months(en)

Over a period of six years, director James Bluemel and producer Gordon Wilson followed epileptic alcoholic Nigel (37) from Oxford, England, who managed to slip through the net of the welfare system for 66 months. Self-mutilation, alcohol, and childlike delusions mean Nigel is a vulnerable man. In the words of his social worker, "Nigel has been abused financially, sexually, and emotionally for years." She's referring to the days when, while out "in the wild," a man named Robbie took Nigel under his wings. He was like a father to Nigel, while at the same time absolutely unfit for the role of caregiver, especially because he couldn't keep his hands to himself.

Standard Operating Procedure(en)

Errol Morris examines the incidents of abuse and torture of suspected terrorists at the hands of U.S. forces at the Abu Ghraib prison.

I Ramones(en)

I Ramones is a half-hour of concert footage captured in Rome in 1980, just after the release of the Phil Spector-produced album End of the Century. Shot on film, it laid forgotten in the vaults of an Italian television station for two decades after its one-time broadcast.

CARA-B(ca)

A desktop documentary that focuses on the Golden Record that NASA sent into space in the late 1970s. The piece reflects on issues such as the power of scientific discourse to produce revisions of the world, the evolution of the concept of the archive and the resignification of borders in the rhetoric of space colonialism.

Shooting the Darkness(en)

The testimony of the men who unwittingly became war photographers on the streets of their own towns in Northern Ireland, when violence erupted around them. Instead of photographing weddings and celebrities, as they expected, they produced the images that crudely show the suffering of ordinary people between 1968 and 1998, the worst years of the conflict.

The Story of Skinhead(en)

Don Letts examines the history of this notorious subculture in a fascinating documentary, which features interviews with members of different skinhead scenes through the decades. Beginning in the late 1960s, Don fondly recalls a time of multiracial harmony as youngsters bonded over a love of ska, reggae and smart clothes as white working-class kids were attracted to Jamaican culture and adopted its music and fashions. But when far-right politics targeted skinheads in the 1970s and 1980s, an ugly intolerance emerged, and Don reveals how the once-harmonious subgroup has since struggled to shake this stigma.

Dr Tscharniblues(de)

Bern, 1979: a tower block called Tscharnergut. A group of friends get together to make a film about their experiences growing up in suburban Switzerland.

MMXIII(en)

An experimental self-portrait, MMXIII explores phenomenological subtlety, intersections of construct and verité, and the ways in which technology, landscape, and beauty coalesce.

Elvis Presley: The Searcher(en)

Two-part documentary about the life of Elvis Presley featuring interviews with his ex-wife Priscilla Presley, guitarist Scotty Moore, childhood friend Red West and musicians Tom Petty, Bruce Springsteen, Emmylou Harris and Robbie Robertson.

Art in Taos(en)

A documentary by husband and wife filmmakers, Mario Balibrera and Dana Evans, of the art colonies of Taos, New Mexico in the early part of the 20th century.

Jesus Christ Saviour(de)

Klaus Kinski has perhaps the most ferocious reputation of all screen actors: his volatility was documented to electrifying effect in Werner Herzog’s 1999 portrait My Best Fiend. This documentary provides further fascinating insight into the talent and the tantrums of the great man. Beset by hecklers, Kinski tries to deliver an epic monologue about the life of Christ (with whom he perhaps identifies a little too closely). The performance becomes a stand-off, as Kinski fights for control of the crowd and alters the words to bait his tormentors. Indispensable for Kinski fans, and a riveting introduction for newcomers, this is a unique document, which Variety called ‘a time capsule of societal ideals and personal demons.’

Sono Guido e non Guido(it)

Inside Deep Throat(en)

In 1972, a seemingly typical shoestring budget pornographic film was made in a Florida hotel: "Deep Throat," starring Linda Lovelace. This film would surpass the wildest expectation of everyone involved to become one of the most successful independent films of all time. It caught the public imagination which met the spirit of the times, even as the self-appointed guardians of public morality struggled to suppress it, and created, for a brief moment, a possible future where sexuality in film had a bold artistic potential. This film covers the story of the making of this controversial film, its stunning success, its hysterical opposition along with its dark side of mob influence and allegations of the on set mistreatment of the film's star.

The Antiquities of Rome(fr)

Rousseau's first full-length feature, and one of the best documentaries/experimental films of the past few decades, sprung equally from Robert Bresson, Michael Snow, and Jean-Marie Straub (who has called Rousseau one of the three best working artists in modern Europe). Again hard places played against drifting sounds from unseen sites beyond the image; the images and sounds, repeated, become inflections of each other. But this time there are historical inflections; Rousseau's film, like Straub's, takes place in a sort of meta-history as characters and ancient sites each become products of outside light and shadow.