At the turn of the 19th and 20th century Finnish philologist G. J. Ramstedt travelled around Mongolia and Central-Asia. In this documentary Ramstedt’s memoirs are heard in the modern day setting, where tradition is replaced with hunger for money, and deserts give way to cities.
G. J. Ramstedt (voice)
G. J. Ramstedt (voice)
Join Haseo on his quest to track down Tri-Edge, the devious PK responsible for leaving one of his closest friends in a coma. Along the way he meets Atolli, a gentle girl who takes an interest in him despite his chilly demeanor. Together, Haseo and Atolli will attempt to survive long enough to decipher the riddle of the entities known as AIDAs—and save their fellow gamers from permanent sleep.
A human drama of crew and passengers on a special express train named “Sakura” from Tokyo to Nagasaki...
Vladimir 518, uncompromising rapper, artist, stage designer and activist, is a rare phenomenon, who not only writes books, but publishes them as well. Today also a respected authority primarily on pre-1989 architecture, he has written not only a major publication on the subject, but also the story for two audiovisual works treating the same theme, which were shot by Jan Zajíček, renowned director of music videos. In addition to the recent TV series we have the eagerly anticipated feature-length film which, through its fascinating and impressive exploration of Czech and Slovak architecture of the latter half of the 20th century, offers exclusive insight into extraordinary buildings and unique individuals living below the Tatra Mountains. Karel Och (kviff.com)
SONG 29: A portrait of the artist's mother (the Songs are a cycle of silent color 8mm films by the American experimental filmmaker Stan Brakhage produced from 1964 to 1969).
Punish: a reading of parts of a novel in which a military officer gives a clinical, amoral account about his role in the violent oppression of revolutionaries in 1848. Discipline: a collection of photographs of a chubby and harmless soldier at home and at work from the 1950s to the 70s.
Fresh out of the academy, White Cop experiences his first taste of Aboriginal community life, as Black Cop puts him to the test.
Tells a timeless story based on Irish folklore of good versus evil, & through the media of dance & music it is understood and appreciated by every culture.
Beware Pickpocket is a compelling character study, a stylistic heist film and a genre shifting love story set in the city of Toronto. It intimately focuses on a twenty-four-hour period in the life of a mysterious and lascivious pickpocket who has come to Toronto to win back the love of his life -an escort named Charlotte. Problem is he isn't nearly as gifted a con-artist as he believes he is and the love of his life doesn't react kindly to his forced reunion.
A childless middle-age couple adopt a troubled youth they find living in their crawlspace and attempt to get him to rejoin society with tragic results.
An old ballplayer, thrown out of baseball due to a bribery scandal, becomes friends with a young phenom. The younger player is at first tainted by his association with the oldtimer, but eventually the truth about the scandal is revealed.
A ring passes between a lot of different people, giving the bearer or someone close a new meaning to life. Actors, embezzlers, old ladies and cheated husbands all seem to gain temporary hope from misery and disillusionment.
The film starts with the main character Laura, a young woman with advanced cancer, entering quite upset the home of her parents and claiming to have stopped chemo therapy and having left her husband. The worried parents call the other three adult daughters into the house and they arrive one by one. For the first time in 6 years the entire family is united again. The characters are drawn as tensions rise from old conflicts and as the situation sinks in that Laura might be terminally ill. The movie eventually shifts from a lively sometimes comical beginning into the serious theme of dying and does handle this quite tactfully and moving. While the film touches on many areas surrounding death (including religion, graveyard, care, eutanasia) the main focus is on the transformation of the characters that are thrown out of their busy lifes into this situation, eventually accepting it and dealing with it.
A musician walks the Camino de Santiago with a cello on his back.
A group of actors meet with little money in a unofficial theatre in Naples' Spanish Boroughs. Director's plan is to travel to Sarajevo, still under siege, to stage a classic Eschilus' play about civil war in Tebe. While they rehearse in the theatre cast members come and go and another kind of war goes on every day in nearby streets of old Naples.
What is peace? What is coexistence? And what are the basis for them? PEACE is a visual-essay-like observational documentary, which contemplates these questions by observing the daily lives of people and cats in Okayama city, Japan, where life and death, acceptance and rejection are intermingled.
The true story of the seven weeks that changed China forever. On June 4, 1989, pro-democracy demonstrations were violently and bloodily repressed. Thousands of people died, but the basis for China's future was definitely planted.
Chinese teenagers from the wealthy elite, with big American dreams, settle into a boarding school in small-town Maine. As their fuzzy visions of the American dream slowly gain more clarity, their relationship to home takes on a poignant new aspect.
This exploration of Japan's fascination with girl bands and their music follows an aspiring pop singer and her fans, delving into the cultural obsession with young female sexuality and the growing disconnect between men and women in hypermodern societies.
A documentary on the dark and brutal side of the Samurai warrior clans featuring the life of peasant Masa who is pressganged into the ruthless world of the Samurai.
Based on three different places, the film portrays the infractions to which people living in modern day China are subjected due to rapid developments: in the deceptively idyllic Yangshuo in the rainy south; in the apocalyptic coal mining site of Wuhai in the parched north; and in Chongqing, the urban behemoth on the Yangtze River. The protagonists give their accounts of the unsurmounted past, the precarious present and their tentative steps into the future. The film thus paints a complex image of the mental state of the people in this complicated country.
When the MV Sewol ferry sank off the coast of South Korea in 2014, over three hundred people lost their lives, most of them schoolchildren. Years later, the victims’ families and survivors are still demanding justice from national authorities.
By exploring the relationship between the watched and the watching, our film uncovers the trauma and hope engendered by the Chinese all-surveilling state and lends a voice to those that stand in resilient defiance of such blatant abuse of power.
After starting a family of his very own in the United States, a gay filmmaker documents his loving, traditional Chinese family's process of acceptance.
When a Mongolian nomadic family's newest camel colt is rejected by its mother, a musician is needed for a ritual to change her mind.
Welcome to The Great Happiness Space: Rakkyo Café. The club's owner, Issei (22), has a staff of twenty boys all under his training to become the top escorts of Osaka's underground love scene. During their training, they learn how to dress, how to talk, how to walk, and most importantly, how to fake relationships with the girls who become their source of income. Join us as Osaka's number one host boy takes us on a journey through the complex and heartrenching world of love for sale in the Japanese underground.
MANUFACTURED LANDSCAPES is the striking new documentary on the world and work of renowned artist Edward Burtynsky. Internationally acclaimed for his large-scale photographs of “manufactured landscapes”—quarries, recycling yards, factories, mines and dams—Burtynsky creates stunningly beautiful art from civilization’s materials and debris.
The Cove tells the amazing true story of how an elite team of individuals, films makers and free divers embarked on a covert mission to penetrate the hidden cove in Japan, shining light on a dark and deadly secret. The shocking discoveries were only the tip of the iceberg.
The Japanese volleyball players called the “Oriental Witches” are now in their 70s. From the formation of the team at the factory until their victory at the Tokyo Olympics in 1964, memories and legends rise to the surface and blend inextricably.
A journey into the intricacies of mixed-race Japanese and their multicultural experiences in modern day Japan. For some hafus, Japan is the only home they know, for some living in Japan is an entirely new experience, and the others are caught somewhere between two different worlds.
In China more people are on death row than the rest of the world combined. The children of the convicts are often left alone, stigmatized and living in the streets. Grandma Zhang, as the kids call her, is a former prison guard who has founded an orphanage in Nanzhao.
A 49 minutes documentary on the footsteps of 87 years old "Grandma" Kuniko Shiiba, perpetuating a 4000 years traditional and sustainable form of agriculture. Shohei SHIBATA followed her a whole year through the forest and its medicinal plants, fire spirits and mountains.
As a decades-old state-run aeronautics munitions factory in downtown Chengdu, China is being torn down for the construction of the titular luxury apartment complex, director Jia Zhangke interviews various people affiliated with it about their experiences.
This documentary recounts the experiences of people on the ground in the earliest days of the novel coronavirus and the way two countries dealt with its initial spread, from the first days of the outbreak in Wuhan to its rampage across the United States.
A documentary about Caroll Spinney who has been Sesame Street's Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch since 1969. At 78-years-old, he has no intention of stopping.