After a long career as a commercial and portrait photographer, mischievous San Francisco artist Michael Jang sat for decades on a hidden treasure of pictures taken in his 20s—both candid celebrity shots and a down-to-earth cross-section of Chinese American family life rarely captured so playfully. Then, during the pandemic, Jang set out to share his work with the world, street guerilla-style.
Considerations on collage as a cognitive act in artists’ cinema. A pedagogical film adrift: 35mm photographs and other materials collected over the last fifteen years by artist Stefano Miraglia meet a text written by Baptiste Jopeck and the voice of Margaux Guillemard.
A rampant, street level story of mentorship and everyday heroism in tough circumstances. An inner city coach's son, estranged in his youth from his father, spends five years on ball fields in inner city Oakland and Havana, following the lives of two extraordinary youth baseball coaches, Roscoe in Oakland and Nicolas in Havana. The coaches meet on videotape and two years of red tape later, Coach Roscoe and nine Oakland players travel to Havana to play Coach Nicolas' team. For one week, the players and coaches eat, dance, swim, argue and play baseball together. But when the parent of an Oakland player is murdered back home, it brings back the inescapable reality and challenges of life in an American inner city.
This look behind the scenes shows how worldwide camera crews climbed, dived and froze to capture the documentary's groundbreaking night footage.
Errol Morris examines the incidents of abuse and torture of suspected terrorists at the hands of U.S. forces at the Abu Ghraib prison.
Documentary celebrating the life and career of world-renowned Magnum photographer David Hurn, possibly Wales's most important living photographer.
The world's greatest pin-up model and cult icon, Bettie Page, recounts the true story of how her free expression overcame government witch-hunts to help launch America's sexual revolution. When she saw the film The Notorious Bettie Page, produced by HBO in 2006, the main person concerned reacted unequivocally: “Lies! Lies!” In a long interview recorded shortly before her death, the woman who entered the collective unconscious as the ultimate pin-up gave her version of events to director Mark Mori. In a gravelly voice, Bettie Page tells her own story and lifts the veil on areas often hidden by images that have made so many men and women fantasize since the 1950s: her abused childhood, an eclipse that lasted forty years, her mental illness. Through testimonies and unpublished archives, this documentary brings back to life a body and a face endlessly declined before our eyes, just as Bettie wanted: “I would like people to remember me as I was in the photos.”
IT CAME FROM AQUARIUS RECORDS tells the story about the San Francisco based independent record store, Aquarius Records. Having closed in 2016 after 47 years, this small apartment-sized store championed local, underground, independent, and challenging music to the masses - most memorably with their infamous bi-weekly, college essay-length, new-release lists. Six years in the making, interviewing collectors, musicians, and store owners, the film has a very personal angle, with lots of behind-the-scenes footage (and drama) that shows both the joy and excruciating stress that comes with running — and closing — a store like this, helped in no part by the changing city around them.
Completely topless. Completely uninhibited. The craze that began in San Francisco is now exploding across the USA and Europe.
Documentary about the work of photographer Alair Gomes, one of the first artists to introduce male nudity in Brazilian photography.
A heartwarming exploration of a community art project by photographer Tawfik Elgazzar providing free portraits for locals and passers-by in Sydney, Australia's Inner West. The film explores the nature of individuality, cultural diversity and the positive joy for the photographer of seeing his subjects smile.
In 1983, photographer Gocho Shigeo met an early death at the young age of 36. The view we see reflected in Gocho’s photographic images has become more profound over time since his death and has struck a chord in people’s hearts. While focusing on Gocho’s collection of photographs Self and Others, the film also visits places associated with him, creating a collage with the manuscripts, letters, photographs and voice recordings remaining in an attempt to capture “one more gesture”—a theme pursued by Gocho through photographic expression. This film is neither a critical biography nor a monograph on the photographer. Rather, we are offered a new perception. As if mesmerized, the photographs Gocho left behind captivate us in their gaze.
Bunny Yeager, 'The world's prettiest photographer', started out as a beauty contest winner and professional photographer's model in the 50's. She became one of America's top ten glamour photographers during the 50's and 60's. This pictorial shows 100 of her most glamorous models, featuring Bettie Page, and includes photographs and original footage of Bunny with the girls behind the scenes.
On June 13, 1978, the punk bands the Cramps and the Mutants played a free show for psychiatric patients at the Napa State Hospital in California. We Were There to Be There chronicles the people, politics, and cultural currents that led to the show and its live recording.
Documentary following the career of Brooklyn-born photographer Jamel Shabazz, who captured hip-hop in its infancy long before it became a worldwide phenomenon. His iconic images of kids sporting sneakers and savvy street style caught the essence of hip-hop as it exploded onto the streets of New York. Intimate interviews with Shabazz and hip hop pioneers explore the hundreds of individual stories and urban history behind a revolutionary cultural movement.
Porn stars Sharon Mitchell and Tigr navigate the ups and downs of being in love while working in the sex industry.
The Bridge is a controversial documentary that shows people jumping to their death from the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco - the world's most popular suicide destination. Interviews with the victims' loved ones describe their lives and mental health.
La Garoupe, a beach in Antibes, in 1937. For one summer, the painter and photographer Man Ray films his friends Pablo Picasso, Dora Maar, Paul Eluard and his wife Nusch, as well as Lee Miller. During these few weeks, love, friendship, poetry, photography and painting are still mixed in the carefree and the creativity specific to the artistic movements of the interwar period.