Frau Mercedes (2008)

Into Great Silence

An intimate portrayal of the everyday lives of Carthusian monks of the Grande Chartreuse, high in the French Alps (Chartreuse Mountains). The idea for the film was proposed to the monks in 1984, but the Carthusians said they wanted time to think about it. The Carthusians finally contacted Gröning 16 years later to say they were now willing to permit Gröning to shoot the movie, if he was still interested.

The Paris Opera

A behind-the-scenes look at the of how the Paris Opera is run under the direction of Stephane Lissner.

Sex, Lies And Zumba

A behind-the-scenes inside a news story that swept the US: a Zumba instructor, Alexis Wright, who lead a double life as a prostitute. With never-before-seen interviews from men on “the List,” local media and even her husband, Sex, Lies and Zumba will delve deeper into the operation, those involved, and just how this scandal took place in the small town of Kennebunk, Maine.

Architecture of Infinity

How can structures, which take up defined, rigid portions of space, make us feel transcendence? How can chapels turn into places of introspection? How can walls grant boundless freedom? Driven by intense childhood impressions, director Christoph Schaub visits extraordinary churches, both ancient and futuristic, and discovers works of art that take him up to the skies and all the way down to the bottom of the ocean. With the help of architects Peter Zumthor, Peter Märkli, and Álvaro Siza Vieira, artists James Turrell and Cristina Iglesias, and drummer Sergé “Jojo” Mayer, he tries to make sense of the world and decipher our spiritual experiences using the seemingly abstract concepts of light, time, rhythm, sound, and shape. The superb cinematography turns this contemplative search into a multi-sensory experience.

Show!

A surprisingly intimate portrait of how the dream of running one’s own business can take on monstrous contours. Managed by the father of one of the singers, over the course of five years the girl band 5Angels had reached the gates of pop fame. But it is a path paved not only with the songs of Michal David, but also with the dogged determination of a man who loses any notion of where his role as manager ends and his role as parent begins. An emotionally moved Karel Gott, five angelic girls, and one overly involved father, thanks to whom the behind-the-scenes pre-Christmas atmosphere melts away just as rapidly as the fat should disappear from the belly. “A singer can’t be a lard bucket!”

The Three Michaels

Desperate to become as rich and successful as their idol, a trio of Michael Jackson impersonators hustle their way into Hollywood agencies, are accosted by paparazzi, and cross paths with Grammy-winning musicians as the American dream seems tantalisingly close. But as they perform for dollar bills and sleep in their car, the reality of the ruthless entertainment industry they dream about hits home.

Lorena: Light-Footed Woman

A young woman of the Tarahumara, well-known for their extraordinary long distance running abilities, wins ultramarathons seemingly out of nowhere despite running in sandals.

Étienne Robial, un spécimen de caractère(s)

Documentary on the French graphic and visual artist and designer, editor, artistic director, and teacher who is known for his widely-used fonts.

The Grass Dwellers

Juan Méndez Bernal leaves his house on the 9th of april of 1936 to fight in the imminent Spanish Civil War. 83 years later, his body is still one of the Grass Dwellers. The only thing that he leaves from those years on the front is a collection of 28 letters in his own writing.

Urban Amazons

Modern Amazons are fierce heroines. They are ready to fight for what is important to them. Without explaining, without compromising, always persisting. They fight for victory in the ring for acceptance, and too, for fellow sufferers and humanity.

The Shelter

It is winter at an emergency shelter for the homeless in Lausanne. Every night at the door of this little-known basement facility the same entry ritual takes place, resulting in confrontations which can sometimes turn violent. Those on duty at the shelter have the difficult task of “triaging the poor”: the women and children first, then the men. Although the total capacity at the shelter is 100, only 50 “chosen ones” will be admitted inside and granted a warm meal and a bed. The others know it will be a long night.

GLOW

She was a muse, model and performer – a star, dazzling and intense. Lady Shiva managed to rise from street prostitution to the top. She lived in the fast lane and died tragically young. Her dream was to become a singer. With her companions, we trace her life during a vibrant time that kindles a yearning and provokes until today. The story of a woman’s meteoric fate and a great dream. An irrepressible desire for freedom in all its beauty and destructive force - and a stirring friendship and love.

Belmondo, le magnifique

With more than 70 films and 160 million cumulative tickets in France, Jean-Paul Belmondo is one of the essential stars of French cinema.

Hardcore Chambermusic

This documentary follows Swiss improvisation musicians and tells their stories.

David Wants to Fly

A documentary. David Sieveking takes the advice of his idol, David Lynch and tries out Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's transcendental meditation technique.

Little Girl

7-year-old Sasha has always known that she is a girl. Sasha’s family has recently accepted her gender identity, embracing their daughter for who she truly is while working to confront outdated norms and find affirmation in a small community of rural France.

Body Without Soul

Documentary look at doomed male prostitutes in Prague, ages 15 to 18, who troll at the public swimming pool, the train station, a video arcade, and a disco. After the boys talk about how they got in the game, the camera follows them to the home of Pavel Rousek. Under the name Hans Miller, he makes gay porno videos, primarily for German distribution. Intercut with a movie shoot chez Rousek is an interview that follows him to his day job at a morgue, where he performs an autopsy as he talks about his work. The sex is without protection; the boys are without family. They talk about their bodies and souls, money, their sexual orientation, AIDS, their dreams, and death.

Chained Girls

This exploitation classic purports to expose the secrets of the 1960s lesbian underworld.

Igor Levit: No Fear

Follows the artist over two years as he explores his „life after Beethoven“, as he searches for his next challenge, his identity as an artist.

Pigerne på Halmtorvet

Plot unavailable

The Great Ecstasy of Woodcarver Steiner

A study of the psychology of a champion ski-flyer, whose full-time occupation is carpentry.

Iraqi Odyssey

Tracing the emigrations of his family over more than half a century, this riveting documentary epic from acclaimed expatriate Iraqi filmmaker Samir pays moving homage to the frustrated democratic dreams of a people successively plagued by the horrors of dictatorship, war and foreign occupation of Iraq.

La Meilleure Façon de tracer

Plot unavailable

With Sea Views

After consolidating itself as a tourist destination in the mid-1960s, this small coastal village has become the dormitory town for the workers of a Nuclear Power Plant. With the liberal promise of prosperity and socioeconomic wellfare, many workers left their homes to move to the small city and started working at the new Nuclear Power Plant. The collective unrest and the silence, cut off by the great gusts of wind, articulate the landscape of the village that is now under the aid of the Nuclear Power Plant.

Valparaiso

In 1962 Joris Ivens was invited to Chile for teaching and filmmaking. Together with students he made …A Valparaíso, one of his most poetic films. Contrasting the prestigious history of the seaport with the present the film sketches a portrait of the city, built on 42 hills, with its wealth and poverty, its daily life on the streets, the stairs, the rack railways and in the bars. Although the port has lost its importance, the rich past is still present in the impoverished city. The film echoes this ambiguous situation in its dialectical poetic style, interweaving the daily life reality (of 1963) with the history of the city and changing from black and white to colour, finally leaving us with hopeful perspective for the children who are playing on the stairs and hills of this beautiful town.

Painting Pain

The film approaches the work of the Greek artist Nikos Koniaris. The particular way in which the painter depicts human suffering is presented through a film - a hybrid of real recording and directed material. The grief, the sick body, is reflected in self portraits, portraits of dying strangers and paintings of dead models. The paintings, apart from his work, also express a different version of himself. All together contribute to the depiction of man as a "garment of pain".

Brassens by Brassens

An intimate portrait of Georges Brassens, giant of French song.

The Disappearance of Shere Hite

Shere Hite’s 1976 bestselling book, The Hite Report, liberated the female orgasm by revealing the most private experiences of thousands of anonymous survey respondents. Her findings rocked the American establishment and presaged current conversations about gender, sexuality, and bodily autonomy. So how did Shere Hite disappear?

Invisible Beauty

Fashion revolutionary Bethann Hardison looks back on her journey as a pioneering Black model, modeling agent, and activist, shining a light on an untold chapter in the fight for racial diversity.

Is There Anybody Out There?

While navigating daily discrimination, a filmmaker who inhabits and loves her unusual body searches the world for another person like her, and explores what it takes to love oneself fiercely despite the pervasiveness of ableism.

Cloudy Times

Arami Ullón must return to Paraguay to make an important decision: what will happen to her sick mother, Mirna? The heartfelt gaze of the camera reveals a relationship filled with love, but also unspoken and unresolved issues. A sensitive film which examines the inner turmoil of the daughter during the final stages of her mother’s degenerative illness.

Above and Below

Above and Below is a rough and rhythmic roller coaster ride seating five survivors in their daily hustle through an apocalyptic world. A journey of challenges and beauty in uncomfortable places: Rick & Cindy, Godfather Lalo in the flood channels deep down under the shiny strip of Sin City. Dave in the dry and lonesome Californian desert and April in simulation for a Mars mission in the Utah desert. Through the hustle, the pain and the laughs, we are whisked away to an unfamiliar world, yet quickly discover the souls we encounter are perhaps not that different from our own.

Black Mother

Part film, part baptism, in BLACK MOTHER director Khalik Allah brings us on a spiritual journey through Jamaica. Soaking up its bustling metropolises and tranquil countryside, Allah introduces us to a succession of vividly rendered souls who call this island home. Their candid testimonies create a polyphonic symphony, set against a visual prayer of indelible portraiture. Thoroughly immersed between the sacred and profane, BLACK MOTHER channels rebellion and reverence into a deeply personal ode informed by Jamaica’s turbulent history but existing in the urgent present.

Ivan the Terrible

Ivan, first tsar of Russia. History will remember him as "the Terrible. Russian people love him for centuries. He liberates Russia from foreign oppressors, demands absolute obedience and loyalty in order to radically modernise Russia? Ivan IV, Grand Duke of Moscow, first Tsar of Russia by the grace of God. A madman? A sadist?

Everything's Better than a Hooker

The tragedy of Eva-Marree, deprived of her children for prostitution then killed by their father. In a convincing indictment, director Ovidie denounces the abuse of power by a supposedly protective Swedish state.

Winter Nomads

Pascal, 53, and Carole, 28, are shepherds. In the month of November 2010, they embark on their long winter transhumance: four months during which they will have to cover 600 km in the Swiss-French region, accompanied by three donkeys, four dogs and eight hundred sheep. An exceptional adventure is about to begin: they brave the cold and the bad weather day in day out, with a canvas cover and animal skins as their only shelter at night. This saga reveals a tough and exacting profession, requiring constant improvisation and unflinching attention to nature, the animals and the cosmos. An eventful journey with surprise encounters, moving reunions with farmer friends, nostalgic figures of country life that is shrinking away fast. Αn adventure film, a contemporary road movie, a reflection of our current world, which takes us back to our roots and our inner questions.

François Mitterrand, à bout portant : 1993-1996

"What could be more unsettling than a man close to death whose profound arrogance drives him relentlessly to hang onto both his power and his writing, to the bitter end?" In the twilight of his second seven-year term, François Mitterrand was alone. Ravaged by illness and abandoned by a large majority of the Socialist Party, who would not forgive him for the disastrous outcome of the March 1993 elections, the Head of State was preparing to tackle a second round of cohabitation with the right wing. However a series of unexpected tragedies and revelations would arise, casting a shadow over the end of his reign…

Petropolis: Aerial Perspectives on the Alberta Tar Sands

The huge tar sands in Alberta are a potentially profitable resource, but the environmental impact could be heavy and long-term.

Mon Chirac

At the close of Jacques Chirac's life, politician Jean-Louis Debré has wished to make a film to celebrate his friend, to tell the story of their friendship and professional understanding, and to make an intimate portrait of the former President of France through the accounts of a few very close friends. Thanks to Jean-Louis Debré's presence, Claude Chirac and some of Jacques Chirac's closest friends, famous or unknown, agreed to talk to the camera, sometimes for the first time, to evoke their untold-before memories and tell about the moments that bonded the two men for a lifetime.

Katka

“You bet on someone in the beginning of the process and then you wait and see what life does with them.” This is how Czech director Helena Trestikova explains her long-term documentaries. Following on from the European Film Academy Award winning RENE (2008), Trestikova brings us KATKA – 14 years in the life of a drug addict. KATKA is an extraordinarily raw and uncensored character portrait of a troubled young woman living on the edge of human existence, desperately searching for love and salvation. Will she find it in the rehab? Will she find it in the arms of the man she loves? Or in the first cry of her long-desired baby? Tagging along with her through the back streets and squalors of Prague, Trestikova gets deep under the skin of a person most of us would cross the road to avoid, and shows us Katka’s profoundly human face. You might be angry with Katka, or your heart may go out to her. One thing is certain – you will never forget her.

Genesis 2.0

A well-preserved mammoth carcass is found in the remote New Siberian Islands in the Arctic Ocean, opening up the possibility of a world-changing “Jurassic Park” moment in genetics.

Heidi Fleiss: Hollywood Madam

A documentary crew from the BBC arrives in L.A. intent on interviewing Heidi Fleiss, a year after her arrest for running a brothel but before her trial. Several months elapse before the interview, so the crew searches for anyone who'll talk about the young woman. Two people have a lot to say to the camera: a retired madam named Alex for whom Fleiss once worked and Fleiss's one-time boyfriend, Ivan Nagy, who introduced her to Alex. Alex and Nagy don't like each other, so the crew shuttles between them with "she said" and "he said." When they finally interview Fleiss, they spend their time reciting what Alex and Nagy have had to say and asking her reaction.

Porno Unplugged

Journalist Fabian Burstein looks behind the curtains of the porn industry. Starting in Budapest he heads westwards to explore a new world on its victory march rooted deeply in Austria. On this journey he meets the heroes and leading actors of this story: Austrians Mick Blue, Renee Pornero and Thomas Janisch. Porno Unplugged follows its native porn stars to where their lives happen. From east to west...

The Knowledge of Healing

A documentary film about Tibetan traditional medicine.

Hookers, Hustlers, Pimps and Their Johns

British filmmaker Beeban Kidron ventures onto the mean streets of the South Bronx and other New York locales to examine the lives of those involved in the city's thriving sex industry.

Bear-Like

At the far end of the Alaskan peninsula, for filmmaker Roman Droux a childhood dream comes true. He discovers together with the bear researcher David Bittner the universe of wild grizzlies. The two adventurists face bears at smelling-distance, experience the struggle for survival of a bear family and witness dramatic fighting scenes. Driven by a desire to explore the unknown the film tells a personal story of wilderness, framed in breathtaking pictures of unique creatures.

Europe in the Raw

Russ Meyer's documentary about the underground vice world of Europe.

The Sound of Insects: Record of a Mummy

The incredible story of how the mummified corpse of a 40-year-old man was discovered by a hunter in one of the most remote parts of the country. The dead man's detailed notes reveal that he actually committed suicide through self-imposed starvation only the summer before. Liechti's film is a stunning rapprochement of a fictional text, which itself is based upon a true event: a cinematic manifesto for life, challenged by the main character's radical renunciation of life itself.

The Lives of Albert Camus

Albert Camus died at 46 years old on January 4, 1960, two years after his Nobel Prize in literature. Author of “L'Etranger”, one of the most widely read novels in the world, philosopher of the absurd and of revolt, resistant, journalist, playwright, Albert Camus had an extraordinary destiny. Child of the poor districts of Algiers, tuberculosis patient, orphan of father, son of an illiterate and deaf mother, he tore himself away from his condition thanks to his teacher. French from Algeria, he never ceased to fight for equality with the Arabs and the Kabyle, while fearing the Independence of the FLN. Founded on restored and colorized archives, and first-hand accounts, this documentary attempts to paint the portrait of Camus as he was.

Muhai Tang - In The Ocean Of Music

MUHAI TANG – IN THE OCEAN OF MUSIC is a portrait of Chinese conductor Muhai Tang’s extraordinary life. Born in 1949, the founding year of the People’s Republic of China, and raised during the Cultural Revolution, it seemed as if he would have to abandon his dream of a career in music. However, his talent, perseverance and the support of Herbert von Karajan ultimately brought him to the world’s concert halls. Today, Muhai Tang is a global nomad. A wanderer between the worlds which he unites with music. His personal history, interspersed with historical caesurae, is typical for Chinese of his generation. He gained access to western culture early on through music. Muhai Tang’s life and work are exemplary of a changing China and the enrichment of the world by an artist between East and West.