Carta para Raúl Ruiz (2023)

40 Days to Learn Film

For just forty days, filmmaker and writer Mark Cousins embarks on a peculiar journey in order to explore topics as the passion for cinema and certain aspects related to making films as style, ideas, emotions and practicalities; an ambitious exploration of the universal language of cinema by analyzing pieces of work that cross every artistic and cultural boundaries.

From Dust to Light

Filmed In the heart of the mountainous villages of Greece and North Macedonia, the documentary follows a group of conservators of antiquities and works of art on their journey, with the goal of preserving Byzantine iconography. The dialogue between them and the hagiographers of the past comes to life.

Visions of Europe

Twenty-five films from twenty-five European countries by twenty-five European directors.

Kino Kopf

Born from steel and glass Kino Kopf is created by two inventors. They are assembled by their mother, a nurturing artist, and their Father a greedy entrepreneur. Kino Kopf is the first of its kind a sentient humanoid VHS camera. They are given a life by their mother but presented to the world by their father. Kino Kopf is the next big sensation and spurs a technological revolution. They are soon forgotten and alone as new models surpass them. Kino Kopf is left alone to contemplate if they ever had a soul, as visions of an electric cowboy dance through their dreams.

Once There Was Everything

Kogonada looks at how the motif of doors reverberates through Robert Bresson's work.

Non-Stop

Province of Ciudad Real, Spain, December 29, 1990. During the annual march to the Herrera de la Mancha prison, held in support of the members of the terrorist gang ETA imprisoned there, the Basque rock band Negu Gorriak holds a concert, which is recorded, edited on video and turned into a tool of vindication. Decades later, a film crew tries to elaborate a personal essay around this event and its meaning.

Lake

Lake gazes down at a still body of water from a birds-eye view, while a group of artists peacefully float in and out of the frame or work to stay at the surface. As they glide farther away and draw closer together, they reach out in collective queer and desirous exchanges — holding hands, drifting over and under their neighbors, making space, taking care of each other with a casual, gentle intimacy while they come together as individual parts of a whole. The video reflects on notions of togetherness and feminist theorist Silvia Federici’s call to “reconnect what capitalism has divided: our relation with nature, with others, and our bodies.”

October in Madrid

Initially a made-to-order documentary on Spain, the film becomes an open-ended work-in-the-making about the creative process. “Settling in the Spanish capital to make a documentary, Hanoun sketches out for us the different steps involved in making a film. The author turns his hesitations, his doubts and difficult working conditions into the constituents of his work”. (Raphaël Bassan)

Magritte or the Object Lesson

The surrealist painter René Magritte questions the objective reality and emphasizes the arbitrariness of the relationship between an object, its image and its name: the evocation of mystery consists of images of familiar things gathered or transformed in such a way that they no longer conform to our ideas, whether naive or wise.

Todo Todo Teros

Basically an artist is also a terrorist, the protagonist thinks in an unguarded moment. And if he is a terrorist after all, then he might just as well be one. Not an instant product, but an experimental feature in which diary material is brought together to form an intriguing puzzle.

Donosti 2730

A youngster writes a letter to his grandmother about his last trip to Donosti (Spain). This city inspires him to ponder about the language of cinema, time, cities, and sharing memories with our loved ones.

Boobs

A witty, forthright dive into the wonderful world of boobs by singer and filmmaker Elizabeth Sankey - from enhanced boobs to 'free the nipple', bras, Baywatch, and the stars of reality TV.

The Twenty One Pilots Universe: Welcome to Trench

A documentary series finale analysing the entirety of Twenty One Pilots' new full-length studio album "Trench". Jimmy not only uncovers the stories of internal pain and fear that Tyler Joseph tells through the songs on the album. But, he also learns to overcome his own personal fears.

This is Not a Game

Angela Su’s fictional artist Rosie Leavers is the last remaining person to upload her consciousness to a video game. Contemplating during a pandemic year which also saw people’s resistance movements in many parts of the world, the work pinpoints the uncanny affinities between gaming and warfare strategies. They have mutually informed the infrastructure of both worlds since time immemorial when diplomatic conflicts played out on the battlefield of the 64 squares of a chess board to flight simulation technologies which were adapted to shape gaming experiences as we know it now. When the conflict is between the state and its people, she speculates that gaming strategies empower civilians in resistance movements to counter imperialism through its own operative logic. But once we upload our consciousness, are we able to return to the sensibilities and political motivation that inspired the revolution to begin with?

Locations: Looking for Rusty James

A personal meditation on Rumble Fish, the legendary film directed by Francis Ford Coppola in 1983; the city of Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA, where it was shot; and its impact on the life of several people from Chile, Argentina and Uruguay related to film industry.

NOAH

An experimental "documentary" that depicts the life of 4 friends.

Director's First Minute After Death

The reflection of the first visions experienced by a young experimental film director after death. A film centered on understanding death itself as quickly as possible.

Desolate Rome

Chronicles of a male homosexual drug addict in 1980's in voice-over with long take scenes from Rome, television snippets of news of Gulf War and commercials.

The So-Called Caryatids

Commissioned by French television, this is a short documentary on the neo-classical statues found throughout Paris, predominantly on the walls of buildings, holding up windows, roofs etc.

Oat Boy

Folk portraiture, images of children in suburbia.

In the Intense Now

A personal essay which analyses and compares images of the political upheavals of the 1960s. From the military coup in Brazil to China's Cultural Revolution, from the student uprisings in Paris to the end of the Prague Spring.

F for Fake

Documents the lives of infamous fakers Elmyr de Hory and Clifford Irving. De Hory, who later committed suicide to avoid more prison time, made his name by selling forged works of art by painters like Picasso and Matisse. Irving was infamous for writing a fake autobiography of Howard Hughes. Welles moves between documentary and fiction as he examines the fundamental elements of fraud and the people who commit fraud at the expense of others.

The Green Fog

A tribute to a fascinating film shot by Alfred Hitchcock in 1958, starring James Stewart and Kim Novak, and to the city of San Francisco, California, where the magic was created; but also a challenge: how to pay homage to a masterpiece without using its footage; how to do it simply by gathering images from various sources, all of them haunted by the curse of a mysterious green fog that seems to cause irrepressible vertigo…

Personal Life of a Hole

A hole gapes in a house wall. A small flaw, something imperfect that we seldom consciously direct our attention to. Filmmaker Ondřej Vavrečka finds holes in every corner. His focus is on the imperfections of human existence. A hole can also mean an uncertain future, or an empty stomach. The gap that partners leave behind after a breakup. Ondřej Vavrečka does not only deal with visible holes. He looks at the incomplete from a philosophical perspective. He also lets a nuclear physicist, a theologian and an ethnologist have their say. He underscores their thoughts and theses with absurd everyday scenes: a woman with a chair on her head or an invisible skier. These scenes combine with interviews, sounds and stop-motion sequences to create a playful collage.

To Stay Alive: A Method

Iggy Pop reads and recites Michel Houellebecq’s manifesto. The documentary features real people from Houellebecq’s life with the text based on their life stories.

Nine Sevilles

"Nueve Sevillas" is a heterodox psycho-geographical profile of the new flamenco in Seville. Nine characters coexist with the great flamenco artists of today.

Frankenstein (Re)Membered

Since its publication 200 years ago, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein has influenced vast swathes of popular culture. Adaptations have starred cinema legends from Boris Karloff to Robert De Niro – and even Alvin and the Chipmunks. From tales of science gone mad (Jurassic Park) to stories of understanding the other (ET, The Hulk, Arrival), traces of the story and its themes have spread across our media. With Frankenstein Re-membered, video artist and film historian Chris Gerrard collects these diverse fragments from the birth of cinema until the present day and in the tradition of Victor Frankenstein himself, attempts to stitch them back together into an adaptation of the original Shelley novel.

From the Earth to the Moon

Humankind has always dreamt of the night sky. Of the infinite freedom offered by the black void, and of the strong, shining beacon inviting us to ascend. This is a story, a history of the events that led up to our conquest of space, and the consequences throughout wider humanity. The film is a collage. Of genres, documentary and comedy. Of media, drawing from painting and film. Of films, cannibalising all film history. Of truth, both objective and subjective. Watch the small steps and let your mind take a giant leap.

Long Live Hunting!

Plot unavailable

Lynch/Oz

Victor Fleming’s 1939 film The Wizard of Oz is one of David Lynch’s most enduring obsessions. This documentary goes over the rainbow to explore this Technicolor through-line in Lynch’s work.

The FRUSTRATION of SENSE

The times are fueled by anxiety, and our tweets will not say the opposite. A feeling of the end of the world hangs over our economic model. The frustration, for those who feel it, seems inevitable. The question of meaning has never been so acute. It’s time to talk about it, and who knows, to find answers.