The Living Theatre - a video retrospective

The Living Theatre is an experimental company founded in New York in 1947 by Julian Beck (New York 1925-1985), painter and poet, and the actress and stage director Judith Malina (Kiel 1926), a student of Erwin Piscator. From the very beginning the group’s activities bore the stamp of social and political commitment, imbued with a strong libertarian matrix. A video montage of films and videos from The Living Theatre Archives.

Signals Through the Flames

Signals Through the Flames is at once a history and a celebration of the Living Theatre. Founded in the late 1940s by husband-and-wife performers Julian Beck and Judith Malina, the Living Theatre was for many years the predominent American outlet for the avant-garde movement. There were occasional self-imposed exiles to Europe in the 1950s and 1960s, but the group returned full-force during the Aquarius Age to entertain a new generation of theatregoers.

Merci Zaza - La folle histoire de la Cage aux Folles

A look back at "La Cage aux Folles", which ran non-stop for five years, from February 1973, on the stage of the Théâtre du Palais Royal in Paris. At a time when homosexuality was considered a crime by the law, Poiret and Serrault achieved great success in boulevard theater. Their success continued on the silver screen, with three Oscar nominations and a Broadway musical. Combining never-before-seen archives from the play, extracts from the film, confessions by Poiret and Serrault, and interviews with witnesses, this is the story of a wild epic.

Inside/Outside

Truth becomes the source of creativity; actions are a result of being, not thinking. This film, INSIDE/OUTSIDE is based upon Monika’s processes over many years. Robert Golden has had the privilege of meeting and photographing some of Monika’s late work. Although her teaching is for performers, Robert has said that her gift of understanding humanity has been gifted in some small ways to him. Monika’s inspirational way of working, helps actors to find a unity between their inner psyche and its outer expression. The 46-minute film shows a precise description of her work. Monika explains it in detail along with thoughts about movement, performance and theatre. The insightful and entertaining book and film are relevant to actors, dancers, Laban yoga, Feldenkrais, Pilates and other sports and movement systems and to people working with children.

Discovering Hamlet

Journey into "Hamlet"-the play and the man-through the experiences of some of the major actors and directors who have brought Shakespeare's great tragedy to life. Christopher Plummer, David Tennant, John Nettles, John Simm, Sir Trevor Nunn, Franco Zeffirelli, Philip Saville, and others explore the enduring appeal of the Prince of Denmark more than 400 years after his stage debut.

Cimrmani

Who Killed the Federal Theatre?

Part journalistic investigation and part performance documentary, "Who Killed The Federal Theater?" tells the story of the Federal Theatre Project within the context of a volatile period in the political, social and cultural history of the United States. The film features interview segments with playwrights, including Arthur Miller, and with actors, directors, designers, and historians. It also incorporates rare archival materials and dramatic sequences, including professionally re-created scenes from Federal Theatre productions that transport viewers back in time to a bygone era in American history and entertainment.

Performing the Goddess

"Chapal Bhaduri, a leading lady of Bengal’s traditional folk traveling theatre-in-the-round, the Jatra, spent his life playing women. This film is an intimate biography that brings you face to face with this unique individual, sharing what it means to him to become a woman night after night, talking of the woman inside his body, of troubled sexuality, of a long partnership with his older lover, of the loneliness of living on the edges of conventional society–and showing how he metamorphoses into the goddess to perform her story." - The Bangalore International Centre

Ústřední loutkové divadlo

The King of Laughter

In early 20th-century Naples, a theatrical parody lands beloved thespian and playwright Eduardo Scarpetta in court, facing a malicious lawsuit that could compromise his freedom of expression and the economic security of his extended family—including his son's, young Eduardo De Filippo.

The Trials of Oscar Wilde

England, 1890s. The brutal and embittered Marquis of Queensberry, who believes that his youngest son, Bosie, has an inappropriate relationship with the famous Irish writer Oscar Wilde, maintains an ongoing feud with the latter in order to ruin his reputation and cause his fall from grace.

Eisenhower's Revenge

After the attack on Pearl Harbour, President Eisenhower committed to a reigme of ruthlessness. The blood of Americans would not have been spilt in vein and what followed was a furious and vicious series of retaliation strikes at key point around the world.

Like an abortion, for the very first time

The Umbrella Movement was a wave of street protests that took place in Hong Kong from September to December 2014 as a reaction to oppressive practices of the Chinese government against the citizens of Hong Kong dissatisfied with planned changes in the electoral system. In her feature film debut, To Liu captured the citizens of the western part of Kowloon, Mong Kok, whose protests might not have been as visible as those of the leading activists, but were no less important. The documentary rhythmized by opening entries and darkening of the scene, much like the director’s first film, follows two characters, a master and an apprentice.

The Hit: An Investigative Documentary

Award-winning investigative journalists and forensic engineers analyze never-before-seen evidence that indicates NASCAR legend Tony Stewart killed a competitor after accelerating his car and fishtailing it toward the defenseless man.

Interview with Robert Kramer

This last testimony of Robert Kramer (1939-1999) is a moving documentary with the independent American film director, in which he speaks of his political activism, his way of filmmaking, his relationship with Portugal and the revolutionary movements.

La divina cometa

The Monsters of Florence

It is a cold case that after 50 years still haunts Italy today - an epic travesty of justice shrouded in mystery and deception involving he ritualistic serial murder of eight young couples in the country lanes around Florence in the 1980s.

Kennedys Liebe zu Europa

A docudrama on John F. Kennedy's early travels through Europe with his best friend Lem Billings. A road trip that would lay the foundation for JFK's later love for Europe and its countries, such as Germany.

Amate sponde

As in a long suite, the cinematographic story of a country, Italy, in its current physiognomy, in a film made only of images and music. A home atlas of wonders that are sometimes misunderstood and of places known, loved and often lost. And of people cultured in their living in a highly stratified territory, between the still usable grandeur of the past and the apparent stasis of the present. A country marked by strong inequalities and nevertheless in continuous transformation in the difficult race towards sustainable development, problematically suspended between the old and the new and the increasingly difficult search for a balance to safeguard its éthos.

Camilo Torres Restrepo, el amor eficaz

An experimental documentary that dares to gather diverse and plural audiovisual archive materials, which gives itself the possibility of creating an imaginary, but concrete, intense and profound conversation between the filmmaker Marta Rodríguez and the indefinable Camilo Torres Restrepo. A film that invents the opportunity to talk to a dead man, why yes, Camilo died, but his questions, his ideas and his effective love remain strong and powerful within Marta's life and political and artistic reflection. Who was Camilo Torres Restrepo? The documentary tries to answer this question by looking at Colombia today, analyzing it, and understanding it, perhaps a little more, in its inequalities and its constant violence. Perhaps this is the greatest legacy that Camilo left to those who are still alive.