Colours of the Alphabet (2016)

School of Babel

They just arrived in France. They are Irish, Serbs, Brazilians Tunisians, Chinese and Senegalese ... For a year, Julie Bertuccelli filmed talks, conflicts and joys of this group of students aged 11 to 15 years, together in the same class to learn French.

Writing the Land

In this short documentary, a Musqueam elder rediscovers his Native language and traditions in the city of Vancouver, in the vicinity of which the Musqueam people have lived for thousands of years. Writing the Land captures the ever-changing nature of a modern city - the glass and steel towers cut against the sky, grass, trees and a sudden flash of birds in flight and the enduring power of language to shape perception and create memory.

Stay Maybe? We Think We Made a Film

An Asian film crew’s attemptsat making a film while navigating the strict laws of filming in the UK. They don’t have a budget or enough preparation, all they have is a shared passion to create. Stay Maybe is a comparison of cultures, at times sublimely political and desperately hilarious; it is made by and for the people who are divided by language but united by cinema; a film about filmmaking – blurring the lines between fiction and reality.

Comprehensive School

The joys of 1960s modern education - as seen at a not-exactly-typical local comp.

Poto and Cabengo

Documentary by Jean-Pierre Gorin about twin girls who spontaneously developed their own unique language as children.

Language Matters with Bob Holman

There are over 6,000 languages in the world. We lose one every two weeks. Hundreds will be lost within the next generation. By the end of this century, half of the world's languages will have vanished. Language Matters with Bob Holman is a two hour documentary that asks: What do we lose when a language dies? What does it take to save a language?

Language Does Not Lie

Victor Klemperer (1881-1960), a professor of literature in Dresden, was Jewish; through the efforts of his wife, he survived the war. From 1933 when Hitler came to power to the war's end, he kept a journal paying attention to the Nazis' use of words. This film takes the end of 1945 as its vantage point, with a narrator looking back as if Klemperer reads from his journal. He examines the use of simple words like "folk," "eternal," and "to live." Interspersed are personal photographs, newsreel footage of Reich leaders and of life in Germany then, and a few other narrative devices. Although he's dispassionate, Klemperer's fear and dread resonate

The Universal Language

The Universal Language is a new documentary from Academy Award-nominated director Sam Green (The Weather Underground). This 30-minute film traces the history of Esperanto, an artificial language that was created in the late 1800s by a Polish eye doctor who believed that if everyone in the world spoke a common tongue, humanity could overcome racism and war. Fittingly, the word “Esperanto” means “one who hopes.” During the early 20th century, hundreds of thousands of people around the world spoke Esperanto and believed in its ideals. Today, surprisingly, a vibrant Esperanto movement still exists. In this first-ever documentary about Esperanto, Green creates a portrait of the language and those who speak it today that is at once humorous, poignant, stirring, and ultimately hopeful.

The Disunited States of Canada

Secessionnist movements in Canada outside Quebec.

I speak français

Plot unavailable

Grape Soda in the Parking Lot

Taqralik Partridge asks what if every language that had been lost to English — every word, every syllable — grew up out of the ground in flowers? Taqralik’s grandmother’s Scottish Gaelic and her father’s Inuktitut unfold in memories of her family, of pain, and of love.

Empire of My Melodious Mind

Be. Belonging. Words on vintage flash cards shuffle past in a stream-of-consciousness that shows the mind working, assigning labels and names to things through love and language. In the space of a moment, perception embarks on an epic journey of tongues, through Cantonese and English sounds and Ektachrome memories that form the characters and identity of this American-born Asian filmmaker.

put the goat in the goat boat

“Let’s think of nature as a big room. Nature is a room you know you’ll have to leave some day, most likely not by choice”. Heather Phillipson’s hallucinatory video put the goat in the goat boat explores endless declinations of nature—natural, naturing, finding a better nature, the nature construction, nature on loan, nature’s lack of nudity...—while revealing humanity’s ambiguous relationship to it.

The Wind Blows Round

The aging, conservative population of a small, sleepy village in the Italian Alps are surprised to see that a former French professor has settled there with his young wife and their three children to produce goat cheese, in order to escape the wrongs of civilization. At first they are suspicious of his unconventional ideas and lifestyle, then are conquered by the enthusiasm, kindness, helpfulness of the young family and start to see in them a possible rebirth of the place. But little by little misunderstandings, envy and conflicts take over.

Land of the Heads

Emile is an unhappy little vampire, doing a job he detests, in a world plunged into perpetual gloom. He serves a despotic mistress who loathes wrinkles, in the most extreme way.

Patient Zero

After an unprecedented global pandemic has turned the majority of humankind into violent infected beings, Morgan, a man gifted with the ability to speak the infected's new language, leads the last survivors on a hunt for patient zero and a cure.

Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues

With the 70s behind him, San Diego's top rated newsman, Ron Burgundy, returns to take New York's first 24-hour news channel by storm.

Yu Ming Is Ainm Dom

Yu Ming is bored of his life in China and decides to go to Ireland. He studies the language, but is dismayed to find that no one understands him when he gets there.

Arrival

Taking place after alien crafts land around the world, an expert linguist is recruited by the military to determine whether they come in peace or are a threat.

The Language of Love

In the middle of a French exam, 17 year old Charlie struggles to find the words to be true to himself…and his best friend.

Away with Words

A Japanese man and a gay bar-owner in Hong Kong drink beer as they talk about their childhood and experiences.

Twice Upon a Time

This short satirical film takes us to Stereoville, a city where citizens must literally double up in their efforts to deal with the community’s 2 official languages. In Stereoville, each speaker of one language is tied to a speaker of the other, back-to-back. Into this two-stepping society stumbles a character whose very existence causes considerable consternation among locals: an unattached individual with command of both languages.

Sneezed-out Ideas

Come back to this day, next year. Ain't nothing, chief.

Talk

In a world embracing change, Ajeng distances herself from her Javanese roots. She explores the consequences as she grapples with the clash between tradition and modernity. "Wicanten" is a poignant reflection on the evolving dynamics of language and its profound impact on personal and cultural connections.