Rainer Werner Fassbinder reflects on the various stages of his career, discusses how his motives behind filmmaking evolved up his film Despair.
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An exploration —manipulated and staged— of life in Las Hurdes, in the province of Cáceres, in Extremadura, Spain, as it was in 1932. Insalubrity, misery and lack of opportunities provoke the emigration of young people and the solitude of those who remain in the desolation of one of the poorest and least developed Spanish regions at that time.
A group of people are standing along the platform of a railway station in La Ciotat, waiting for a train. One is seen coming, at some distance, and eventually stops at the platform. Doors of the railway-cars open and attendants help passengers off and on. Popular legend has it that, when this film was shown, the first-night audience fled the café in terror, fearing being run over by the "approaching" train. This legend has since been identified as promotional embellishment, though there is evidence to suggest that people were astounded at the capabilities of the Lumières' cinématographe.
A short visual meditation, OF THE UNKNOWN is set in Hong Kong where millionaires and the ‘working poor’ live side by side in one of Asia’s wealthiest and most densely populated cities. The film explores how our notions of freedom and happiness are shaped by the place we occupy, both literally and metaphorically, in our society. What is the importance of freedom when one faces a daily struggle for survival? Is it even possible to have dreams, or to dream, if one was never given any opportunities in life? https://vimeo.com/113548756
Chantal Akerman investigates the American Deep South through the story of a lynching and grisly murder of an African-American man that took place in Texas in 1998.
14-year-old Mie is an elite dancer. When her partner stops dancing, her family decides to search for a new partner abroad. Russian Egor finds out that his mother has set up a try out for him, and if this turns out well, Egor will travel to Denmark. Since May 2011, he has lived with Mie and her parents in Denmark, where everything indicates that they are the perfect match on the dance floor. In Mie's home, however, problems are piling up. The family has suddenly gained a new member, and had it not been for the growing success, Egor would probably have been put on a plane back to his mum by now.
A portrait of poet Hugh MacDiarmid.
In the early-morning hours of July 23, 2007, in Cheshire, Conn., ex-convicts Steven Hayes and Joshua Komisarjevsky broke into the family home of William Petit, his wife, Jennifer, and their daughters, Michaela, 11, and Hayley, 17. Dr. Petit was beaten and tied to a pole in the basement. The three women were bound in their bedrooms while the men ransacked the house. The brutal ordeal continued throughout the morning, ending with rape, arson and a horrific triple homicide.
Starting with a long and lyrical overture, evoking the origins of the Olympic Games in ancient Greece, Riefenstahl covers twenty-one athletic events in the first half of this two-part love letter to the human body and spirit, culminating with the marathon, where Jesse Owens became the first track and field athlete to win four gold medals in a single Olympics.
Part two of Leni Riefenstahl's monumental examination of the 1938 Olympic Games, the cameras leave the main stadium and venture into the many halls and fields deployed for such sports as fencing, polo, cycling, and the modern pentathlon, which was won by American Glenn Morris.
Working men and women leave through the main gate of the Lumière factory in Lyon, France. Filmed on 22 March 1895, it is often referred to as the first real motion picture ever made, although Louis Le Prince's 1888 Roundhay Garden Scene pre-dated it by seven years. Three separate versions of this film exist, which differ from one another in numerous ways. The first version features a carriage drawn by one horse, while in the second version the carriage is drawn by two horses, and there is no carriage at all in the third version. The clothing style is also different between the three versions, demonstrating the different seasons in which each was filmed. This film was made in the 35 mm format with an aspect ratio of 1.33:1, and at a speed of 16 frames per second. At that rate, the 17 meters of film length provided a duration of 46 seconds, holding a total of 800 frames.
Breathing is about the thin space between life and death. 34-year-old Neil Platt plans his own funeral, muses about the meaning of life and the impossibility of terminating a mobile phone contract. With 5 months left to live, and paralyzed from the neck down by Motor Neurone Disease, he ponders how to communicate about his life in a letter for his baby son. How can he anticipate what he might want to know about his father in a future he can only imagine?
Marce, his wife Adriana, his two sons, Mario and Jacqueline, and groom it, Carmelo, are the only members of Aztlan Circus, who wanders through the villages of Texcoco, north of Mexico City. The tightrope is the history of resistance in this family that persists in taking forward an old-fashioned circus because she is convinced of the importance of his art.
Filmed over the course of two years, Our City Dreams is the story of a woman's struggles and successes as an artist in New York City. Told through five women artists, from youngest to oldest, the film features Swoon, Ghada Amer, Kiki Smith, Marina Abramovic, and Nancy Spero. From the studio to the streets of New York, from the canals of Venice to the alleys of Cairo and the beaches of Phuket, Our City Dreams takes us deep into the artists' worlds.
Filmmaker Estela Renner analyzes the effects that mass media and advertising have on children, showing how the industry discovered that they are the best targets for selling products. In addition to listening to them, the film talks to parents who report how influential their children are at home and how this is directly linked to advertisements, and experts debate the negative effects of this exposure.
A documentary that captures the loss of Athens’ neoclassical houses, portraying a city caught between its past identity and modern transformation.
A deep look at the class warfare and the contradictions that African-Americans face within their own community when many of them are ostracized because they are “not black enough.” An analysis of the reasons behind these absurd acts of hatred.
An intimate portrayal of life on the edge in the war-torn city of Sderot. Once known for its prolific rock scene that revolutionized Israeli music, for thirteen years the town has been the target of ongoing rocket fire from the Gaza strip. Through the personal lives and music of Sderot's diverse musicians, and the personal narrative of the filmmaker, who ends up calling the town home, the film chronicles the town's trauma and reveals its enduring spirit.
There is romance in every corner we turn. In this sequel to the documentary, Old Places, Old Romances takes us on a journey to experience Singapore through the collective voices of ordinary Singaporeans. Through their voices, we hear personal stories from members of the public who shared their anecdotes on radio. Everyday spaces come alive with these special memories, which are bonded forever with these places. Old Romances is a journal of love letters to places that we grew up with.
A study of Antoni Gaudí's architecture (especially the Church of the Holy Trinity in Barcelona), his sources of inspiration and his influence on Picasso. (BFI)
Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter lived a life of deception and crime before settling on his ultimate scam - impersonating a Rockefeller. How was Gerhartsreiter able to dupe so many people from so many walks of life? A story that begins in a Bavarian village, continues in the most exclusive clubs on the American East Coast, - and ends in a Los Angeles court.
Chico, one of the remaining members of The Magnificent Seven, now lives in the town that they (The Seven) helped. One day someone comes and takes most of the men prisoner. His wife seeks out Chris, the leader of The Seven for help. Chris also meets Vin another member of The Seven. They find four other men and they go to help Chico.
A killer for the Russian Mafia in Vienna wants to retire and write a book about his passion - cooking. The mafia godfather suspects treason.
Kathleen Madigan drops in on Detroit to deliver material derived from time spent with her Irish Catholic Midwest family, eating random pills out of her mother's purse, touring Afghanistan, and her love of John Denver and the Lunesta butterfly.
A quiet, neglected girl is sent away from her dysfunctional family to live with relatives for the summer. She blossoms in their care, but in this house where there are meant to be no secrets, she discovers one.
A town in Fengjie county is gradually being demolished and flooded to make way for the Three Gorges Dam. A man and woman visit the town to locate their estranged spouses, and become witness to the societal changes.
In the Sengoku period, a woman and her daughter are raped and murdered by soldiers during a time of civil war. Afterwards, a series of samurai returning from the war through that area are found mysteriously dead with their throats torn out. The governor calls in a wild and fierce young hero to quell what is evidently an Onryō ghost. He encounters the two beautiful women in an eerie, beautiful scene. After spiritual purification, he meets the demon in a thrilling fight.
Two sisters find out the existence of their long-lost mother, but the younger cannot accept the fact that she was abandoned as a child.
Mathieu lives in Paris, Alice in a small seaside resort in Western France. He is a famous actor, about to turn fifty. She is a piano teacher in her forties. They were in love fifteen years ago, then separated. Time has passed. They each went their ways and slowly healed. When Mathieu goes try to overcome his melancholia in a thermal spa, he stumbles upon Alice.
Single-channel video installation commissioned by Public Art Development Trust, London.
Ro-Man, an alien robot who greatly resembles a gorilla in a diving helmet, is sent to earth to destroy all human life. Ro-Man falls in love with one of the last six remaining humans, and struggles to understand how his programming can instruct him to kill her while his heart demands that he can't.
Dr. Clayton Forrester figures he can rule the world if he deadens his subjects' brains by making them endure terrible movies. Exploiting his access to nearby satellite-dwellers Mike Nelson and his robot pals, Crow T. Robot and Tom Servo, Forrester makes them watch "This Island Earth", a cheesy 1950s spaceship film. But when Mike and friends make funny comments throughout the movie and others that follow, Forrester's plan looks increasingly flimsy.
Wataru Hirayama's outwardly liberal views on marriage are severely tested when his daughter declares that she is in love with a coworker and is adamant to live life her own way, instead of agreeing to an arranged marriage. Outwitted by his female relatives, Hirayama stubbornly refuses to admit defeat.
A seven-hour epic adaptation of the novel by Leo Tolstoy. The love story of young Countess Natasha Rostova and Count Pierre Bezukhov is interwoven with the Great Patriotic War of 1812 against Napoleon's invading army.
A young French journalist repeatedly meets iconic surrealist artist Salvador Dalí for a documentary project that never came to be.
When a young rape victim takes justice into her own hands and becomes a serial killer, it's up to Dirty Harry Callahan, on suspension from the SFPD, to bring her to justice.
In a Tokyo love hotel district, a woman is found dead in a derelict apartment. As police investigate, a romance novelist's wife lives a life that seems simply a daily repetition without romance. To break away from the loveless monotony, she follows her desires and becomes a nude model enacting sex in front of a camera. Soon, she meets a mentor and begins selling her body to strangers, while at home, she hides behind the façade that she's still the doting wife she's supposed to be.
Juan and his urban family live in the Mexican countryside, where they enjoy and suffer a world apart. And nobody knows if these two worlds are complimentary or if they strive to eliminate one another.
A live broadcast of a late-night talk show in 1977 goes horribly wrong, unleashing evil into the nation's living rooms.
A man, his business partner, and his wife are enlisted to transport an unknown object from a Russian military base, only to discover that the object is a giant, genetically-altered python.
The final showdown, and the final reveal. who is Friend? How can he be stopped?
