We Were the Scenery (2025)

The Stairway to Stardom Mixtape

Culled from over 15 hours of footage by the American Genre Film Archive (AGFA), THE STAIRWAY TO STARDOM MIXTAPE is the definitive presentation of public access TV’s most otherworldly show.

Farce of the Penguins

In this spoof of "March of the Penguins," nature footage of penguins near the South Pole gets a soundtrack of human voices. Carl and Jimmy, best friends, walk 70 miles to the mating grounds where the female penguins wait. The huddled masses of females - especially Melissa and Vicki - talk about males, mating, and what might happen this year. Carl, Jimmy, and the other males make the long trek talking about food, fornication and flatulence. Until this year, Carl's sex life has been dismal, but he falls hard for Melissa. She seems to like him. A crisis develops when Jimmy comes upon something soft in the dark. Can friends forgive? Does parenthood await Carl and Melissa?

Faces of Death

A collection of death scenes, ranging from TV-material to home-made super-8 movies. The common factor is death by some means.

Eldest Among the Seven

Sampaloc Lake - the most prominent of the seven lakes of San Pablo City has provided shelter, employment and inspiration to its immediate community for countless decades. In return, the natural resource suffered from indiscriminate use of the residents themselves and the consequences of rapid urbanization. Recently, the local government have implemented a clearing of all residential structures within the legal easement of the dying lake to pave the way for a tourism master plan that endeavors to balance revenue and environmental protection. In the eve of the clearing operations, film maker Dennis Empalmado documented the final musings of the residents, advocates, and artists whose lives revolved around the 99 hectare crater lake.

War Baby

Meet Duewand Collier Jr.-Male, 68 years old, American Citizen, a child conceived in the backdrop of the Philippines-American Mutual Defense Treaty, born and raised with Catholic guilt. He has made peace with his past and now tells his story-a story of love.

The Fog of War

Using archival footage, cabinet conversation recordings, and an interview of the 85-year-old Robert McNamara, The Fog of War depicts his life, from working as a WWII whiz-kid military officer, to being the Ford Motor Company's president, to managing the Vietnam War as defense secretary for presidents Kennedy and Johnson.

Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse

A chronicle of the production problems — including bad weather, actors' health, war near the filming locations, and more — which plagued the filming of Apocalypse Now, increasing costs and nearly destroying the life and career of Francis Ford Coppola.

Faces of Death II

Brief scenes of death related material: mortuaries, accidents and police work are filmed by TV crews and home video cameras. Some of it is most likely fake, some not as much.

Bloodline

One man's journey into the world of the so-called 'Bloodline' conspiracy, at the heart of Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code, where a secret society, the Priory of Sion, claims to have guarded evidence of the marriage of Mary Magdalene and Jesus Christ, their children and their descendants down through the centuries.

Becoming Madonna

Madonna's rise to fame from 1978 to 1992, exploring her personal life, controversies, and the challenges she faced during that period.

Jeffrey's Hell

In 2023, Writer/director Aaron Irons went deep into the Appalachian wilderness area known as Jeffrey's Hell to expand on the legends and stories from his 2022 found footage film, CHEST. He was never seen again. This documentary explores what really happened to Aaron and what secrets are being kept below the surface.

Faces of Death III

The third installment of the infamous "is it real or fake?" mondo series sets its sights primarily on serial killers, with lengthy reenactments of police investigations of bodies being found in dumpsters, and a staged courtroom sequence.

Going Attractions: The Definitive Story of the Movie Palace

Celebrating the splendor and grandeur of the great cinemas of the United States, built when movies were the acme of entertainment and the stories were larger than life, as were the venues designed to show them. The film also tracks the eventual decline of the palaces, through to today’s current preservation efforts. A tribute to America’s great art form and the great monuments created for audiences to enjoy them in.

CarOuzel

Hunting, a vicious merry go round, a carousel for savage adults against wildlife. Avoid the circular logic of thinking about hunting in a roundabout way. Hunting must be stopped now, discursive roundabouts about the possibility of regulating it are circumlocutory escape routes! In this video, you hear ouzels singing in a cellar, deprived of sunlight, exploited and commodified, sold as call birds. Ouzels are highly sought for their wondrous vocalization. In turn, as in a death carousel, they are then used for attracting other birds that will be killed by legalized exterminators, otherwise called hunters.

ICYMI: I See Me

A music documentary on MNL48, a franchise of the highly successful Japanese idol group, AKB48. The film looks into the girls as they perform within a music subculture that tries to get a foothold in a market of an overtly critical audience.

Appointment in Tokyo

Produced by the Army Pictorial Service, Signal Corps, with the cooperation of the Army Air Forces and the United States Navy, and released by Warner Bros. for the War Activities Committee shortly after the surrender of Japan. Follow General Douglas MacArthur and his men from their exile from the Philippines in early 1942, through the signing of the instrument of surrender on the USS Missouri on September 1, 1945. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2013.

Chicago 10

Archival footage, animation and music are used to look back at the eight anti-war protesters who were put on trial following the 1968 Democratic National Convention.

The Village Detective: A Song Cycle

Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of Iceland, July 9, 2016. The surprising discovery of a canister —containing four reels of The Village Detective (Деревенский детектив), a 1969 Soviet film—, caught in the nets of an Icelandic trawler, is the first step in a fascinating journey through the artistic life of film and stage actor Mikhail Ivanovich Zharov (1899-1981), icon and star of an entire era of Russian cinema.

Hollywood Hoax

A fame-hungry businessman stages a fake movie to propose to his girlfriend but the plan goes awry when she becomes convinced the movie will be a multi-million dollar success.

Frat House

Frat House is a documentary film exploring the darker side of fraternity life, largely filmed at Allentown, Pennsylvania's Muhlenberg College; the majority of the film was shot in the house of the Alpha Tau Omega fraternity.

A Life on the Farm

A strange story from Somerset, England about a filmmaking farmer and the inspiring legacy of his long-lost home movies.

Cropsey

Realizing the urban legend of their youth has actually come true, two filmmakers delve into the mystery surrounding five missing children and the real-life boogeyman linked to their disappearances.

Little Dieter Needs to Fly

Three decades after German-American pilot Dieter Dengler was shot down over Laos, he returns to the places where he was held prisoner during the early years of the Vietnam War. Accompanied by director Werner Herzog, Dengler describes in unusually candid detail his captivity, the friendships he made, and his daring escape. Not willing to stop there, Herzog even persuades his subject to re-enact certain tortures, with the help of some willing local villagers.

Windy City Heat

A man caught up in the glamor of being a Hollywood celebrity has no idea that the production he's in is a fake.

Russian Yeti: The Killer Lives

In 1959, the mutilated bodies of nine hikers were found in the Ural Mountains. Fifty years on, speculation surrounding the story endures.