This documentary is a journey into our own fascination, a collection of portraits of folk musicians living in New England, and a study of the ground on which their music is founded. We listen to them as they tell their stories and play their music. First and foremost, Behind a Hill is a tribute to these musicians and a rare peep into the house parties and basement jams of New England, in the northwestern corner of the USA, with the vain hope attached that maybe you, the viewer, will grow as fond of the music as we have. When we first encountered these musicians, we were overwhelmed by the quality of their musical output. We were entranced by the melodies, harmonies, rhythms, and tempos and every other element that constitutes a song (or, as is often the case, a piece of abstract drone music, heavy feedback, or someone banging a steel pipe against a bag of dirt while chanting in a yet undiscovered language, or...).
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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).
Owls are remarkable, highly resourceful birds that have carved out a unique way to live. They have colonized terrains from tundra to rain forest and will hunt almost anything.
"Rescue Dawn: The Making of a True Story" is a documentary film that provides a behind-the-scenes look at the production of the movie "Rescue Dawn" (2006). Directed by Werner Herzog, the documentary delves into the process of bringing the captivating true story of Dieter Dengler to the big screen. This documentary film provides a fascinating insight into the filmmaking process, shedding light on the director's vision, the authenticity of the settings, the grueling conditions endured by the actors during filming, and the passion that drove everyone involved to create a powerful and authentic portrayal of a remarkable real-life hero.
Gordon has a loving wife and two sons, Bryan and Keith, but he favors his spoiled younger son Keith over Bryan, who is defiant and not good at sports. As Gordon begins to yell and hit Bryan, Bryan's behavior slips towards the psychotic side and he takes it out on beings who can't defend themselves until he goes way too far one day during a summer camping trip.
The Last Fight is a documentary by Victor Vroegindeweij about Marloes Coenen, a superstar and pioneer in the world of Mixed Martial Arts (MMA). Marloes is close to the end of her career, but she feels a great urge to go for the title fight one last time, to become world champion at Bellator MMA.
An italian woman scapes from de WWII to Mexico where her uncle lives. She gets trapped in a brothel threatened to be involved in a crime that she was innocent. Meanwhile, she finds her true love who ignores where she lived and worked.
An adaptation of Xuan Xiaofo’s novel of the same name
Amidst radical changes in nicotine use globally, one filmmaker's journey through the confusion & fear leads to a startling discovery about Earth's most hated stimulant. Society may be changed forever.
Joseph just broke up with his girlfriend and is not taking it very well. He thinks she is plotting against him with their mutual psychiatrist. His dog is missing and he suspects the people at work might be behind it. Then there is the unshakable guilt over his past. It just might all be bearable, somehow possible to live through, if it weren't for those damned 'monsters' that keep trying to kill him. Through an allegorical 'fable' that is told in parallel with Joseph's struggle, we are left to decide for ourselves in the end, who is the crow and who is the wolf., was someone out to get Joseph, was it a stroke of bad luck, or was it all in his head?
The wife of Patouillard begs him for new clothes according to the latest fashion in the newspapers. So they go out for some shopping. Afterwards she is going out in her new dress, which is so tight that she can hardly walk in it. She changes the skirt for a pair of trousers, but finds herself being laughed at, and when the trousers get wet at the seaside, Patouillard finally puts her in a jute bag and makes her hop back home.
Plague: From the Latin word “plaga” meaning 'blow', 'wound'. Meaning: Massive, sudden appearance of living beings of the same species that cause serious damage to animal or plant populations. Abundance of something harmful.
Two teenage girls, Alice Mitchell and Freda Ward, fall deeply in love until jealousy and outside forces turn their romance into an unstable obsession.
Franco and Ciccio are two cousins who, in the old West, have opened a service station, where they carry out the washing and drying of the horses and a bar service for the passing riders. One day a stranger saves them from an attempted robbery against them: the girl introduces herself as Calamity Jane, as well as Franco and Ciccio's aunt.
In this wildly entertaining vision of one of the twentieth century’s greatest artists, Bob Dylan is surrounded by teen fans, gets into heated philosophical jousts with journalists, and kicks back with fellow musicians Joan Baez, Donovan, and Alan Price.
A confessional, cautionary, and occasionally humorous tale of Robbie Robertson's young life and the creation of one of the most enduring groups in the history of popular music, The Band.
Gérard Courant applies the Lettrist editing techniques of Isidore Isou to footage of late 70's pop culture. Courant posits that his cinema offers an aggressive détournement to the French mainstream, reifying a Duchampian view of film: "I believe in impossible movies and works without meaning... I believe in the anti-movie. I believe in the non-movie. I believe in Urgent... My first full length movie that is so anti-everything that I sometimes wonder if it really does exist!"
Documentary looking at the culture of three motels and their owners who remain untouched by homogenization and corporatism, located in Santa Fe, New Mexico; Florence, Arizona; and the semi-ghost town of Death Valley Junction, California. Everyone has an unusual story to tell.
The music speaks for itself in this performance documentary that highlights some of the biggest names within the country-folk scene in Texas and Tennessee during the last weeks of 1975 and the first weeks of 1976, eschewing narration and staged interviews.
One morning, the late Karlheinz Stockhausen awoke from a dream that told him to take to the sky. Stockhausen envisioned four helicopters swirling in the clouds, with each of a quartet’s members tucked inside his own chopper, communicating through headsets, stringing away in sync to the rotor-blade motors. He immediately set forth to make that dream a reality. In 1995, Dutch film director Scheffer followed Stockhausen in the days leading up to the premiere performance of his Helicopter String Quartet in Amsterdam. The resulting film offers a rare glimpse of Stockhausen as he patiently dictates every agonizingly detailed measure to the Arditti Quartet.
This musical short features four songs associated with the western United States.
Singer-songwriter Paul Simon had been on the cutting-edge of pop music throughout most of the 1960s and the '70s, first as half of the seminal folk-rock duo Simon & Garfunkel, and then as a well-received solo artist. But the rise of 1980s rock and new wave saw a decline in Simon's commercial success, and the singer responded by experimenting with different musical styles--most notably, world beat--that culminated in his adventurous 1986 masterpiece GRACELAND. The album's fusion of American folk-rock songwriting and buoyant South African rhythms not only broke new ground in pop music, but became Simon's biggest-selling solo record. This episode of the CLASSIC ALBUMS series examines the making of Simon's groundbreaking work through interviews, behind-the-scenes footage, music videos, and live performances of album tracks such as "Boy in the Bubble," "Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes," "You Can Call Me Al," and "Under African Skies."
Follow Guy Clark, Susanna Clark, and Townes Van Zandt as they rise from obscurity to reverence: Guy, the Pancho to Van Zandt’s Lefty, struggling to establish himself as the Dylan Thomas of American music, while Susanna pens hit songs and paints album covers for top artists, and Townes spirals in self-destruction after writing some of Americana music’s most enduring and influential ballads.
Originally produced for PBS's Great Performances Series, La Pastorela is a musical retelling of the shepherds' journey to Bethlehem to see the Christ Child. We see the tale through the eyes of a modern young girl, the oldest child in a large rural Tex-Mex family. During a surrealistic dream, which brings to mind "The Wizard of Oz," the young chicana makes a fantastical journey with the shepherds and along the way; witnesses the triumph of God's Angels over Satan's diablo's. Full of drama, comedy, fantasy and wonderful music; this is a rare film the whole family can enjoy together.
A nostalgic, informative history of drive-in movie theaters, featuring extensive archival photographs and interviews with Leonard Maltin, John Bloom, Samuel Z. Arkoff, Barry Corbin and many others... Drive-In Movie Memories is a film celebration of America's greatest icon of youth, freedom and the automobile. What began as an auto parts owner's business venture to make some easy money accidentally became a magical place where romance, fun and a sense of community flourished. This film chronicles the drive-in's birth and development, its phenomenal popularity with audiences of all ages, its tragic decline, and its inevitable comeback as a classic form of Americana.
An exploration of the personal and creative struggles behind the music of four-time Grammy-winning singer-songwriter Jason Isbell.
Montreal of another time is reborn into screen through images from a hundred of movies and shorts produced by the National Film Board of Canada while at its first four decades of existence. Port activities, musical shows, presence of Church, labors life, hockey fever and the best years of "Red Light" are few of the chapters of this collective family album.
Since her debut at the age of 18, musician, civil rights campaigner and activist Joan Baez has been on stage for over 60 years. For the now 82-year-old, the personal has always been political, and her friendship with Martin Luther King and her pacifism have shaped her commitment. In this biography that opens with her farewell tour, Baez takes stock in an unsparing fashion and confronts sometimes painful memories.
Filmed at Runrig's 30th Anniversary Concert at Stirling Castle in Scotland in the summer of 2003. It feature the songs: Going Home - Hearthammer - Protect and Survive - Big Sky - Skye - Hearts of Olden Glory - Siol Ghoraidh - The Engine Room - Every River - Only the Brave - Dance Called America - Pride of the Summer - Proterra - Running to the Light - The Stamping Ground - Maymorning - Faileas Air An Airigh - Rocket to the Moon - Loch Lomond - Book of Golden Stories.
"In his description for A CHILD'S GARDEN, Brakhage quotes from poets Ronald Johnson and Charles Olson (and cites Johnson's poem "Beam 29" as inspiration). But the film also vaguely calls to mind William Blake—more perhaps for his art than his poetry: there is both a sense of darkness and of mystical transport in Brakhage's images. The first film in the loose "Vancouver Island" quartet, Brakhage films locations around the British Columbia locale where his second wife, Marilyn, grew up. He films land, sea, and sky and intercuts frequently between them. Shots are often out-of-focus, to accentuate color and light; they are hand-held, upside down, and fleeting. All of this is no surprise for those who know Brakhage's work: anything and everything is valid, as long as it works." - Cine-File.info
As children, British actor Paul Blackthorne and Australian photographer Mister Basquali both fell in love with America. Later they each fulfilled their dream to live here, but after two wars, a near economic collapse, and uncertainty about the country's direction, these two expats began to have doubts -- was America still the great place they once dreamed of? They drive across America to find out, interviewing random people about issues that affect and confront us all. From the ghetto to the gun show, the courthouse to the cattle yard, they are touched by the wisdom and insight of the people they meet. This American Journey is a cinematic postcard from the people to the people, teaching us that hearts can be healed at the most unexpected times and in the most unexpected places.
"I was visiting Jerome Hill. Jerome loved France, especially Provence. He spent all his summers in Cassis. My window overlooked the sea. I sat in my little room, reading or writing, and looked at the sea. I decided to place my Bolex exactly at the angle of light as what Signac saw from his studio which was just behind where I was staying, and film the view from morning till after sunset, frame by frame. One day of the Cassis port filmed in one shot." -JM
A profile of the Hippest band of the 60's and 70's as they prepare for a reunion gig.