Horizontes de piedra (1956)

Divine Horsemen: The Living Gods of Haiti

This intimate ethnographic study of Voudoun dances and rituals was shot by Maya Deren during her years in Haiti (1947-1951); she never edited the footage, so this “finished” version was made by Teiji Ito and Cherel Ito after Deren’s death.

Moana

Robert J. Flaherty's South Seas follow-up to Nanook of the North is a Gauguin idyll moved by "pride of beauty... pride of strength."

Forest of Bliss

Forest of Bliss is an unsparing yet redemptive account of the inevitable griefs, religious passions and frequent happinesses that punctuate daily life in Benares, India's most holy city. The film unfolds from one sunrise to the next without commentary, subtitles or dialogue. It is an attempt to give the viewer a wholly authentic, though greatly magnified and concentrated, sense of participation in the experiences examined by the film.

Savage Memory

Founding father of Anthropology, Bronislaw Malinowski's work raises powerful and disturbing questions today. This is a look at his legacy and the imprints it has made on the generations that followed.

Ghostland: The View of the Ju'Hoansi

Remember the culture clash in THE GODS MUST BE CRAZY? This time it's real. One of the most ancient cultures on our planet is undergoing a major change. The Ju/Hoansi Bushmen in Namibia are not allowed to hunt anymore and need to converge with our so called “civilized” lifestyle. For the first time the Ju/Hoansi Bushmen travel through the Kalahari and then right into the heart of Europe. What starts as a look at their fascinating culture becomes an even more fascinating look at our Western lifestyle. A warm and humorous reflection of our habits through the eyes of people who are about to give up their million year old traditions.

Hampi

A ritual vase, the hampi, is placed in the center of the Musée de plein air de la République du Niger in Niamey, during a ritual ceremony featuring possession dances. With this film, Jean Rouch continues his ethnological and cinematographic study of Songhay ritual objects. He demonstrates that, in a particular context, the transfer of a hampi vase to a museum requires the organization of a ritual ceremony to obtain the gods' approval. At the time, however, reservations about filming a possession dance for the opening of a shrine in a museum made the move "questionable from a museological point of view".

The Bounty Hunter of Mongolia

In the Darhat valley in northern Mongolia, the horses of nomadic tribes are stolen by bandits who then sell them to Russian slaughterhouses. Shukhert, a brave horseman, relentlessly pursues them through the Mongolian taiga, bordering Siberia.

Hommage à Marcel Mauss. Germaine Dieterlen

Germaine Dierterlen talks about Dogon mythology at a conference on the Bandiagara cliffs. The Songo canopy is a sacred site in Bandiagara. Its walls are covered with paintings depicting the different phases of creation. A little further on, in a cave near the village of Bongo, symposium participants are discussing the Tellem, the people who lived in the houses built into the cliffs before the arrival of the Dogon. The archaeological remains and migratory movements of these two peoples are discussed.

Behind the Shadows

The Greek shadow puppetry began 130 years ago. A student of Greek shadow puppetry travels to China, where shadow puppetry began over 2000 years ago. There he follows Chinese shadow puppeteer master He Shihong in Wushan of China. Watching his performances and listening to him talk about his art and his career in it, many parallels are drawn and he expresses them by including his Greek shadow puppetry teacher in the film. This documentary is a cultural bridge between Greece and China through the art of shadow puppetry.

Ainu Puri

Shigeki, one of the Ainu people of northern Japan, follows the traditions of his ancestors and teaches his son Motoki about their heritage. But how can old customs be revived after centuries of suppression?

Horendi

The title of this film translates literally as 'to put on a hori,' a hori being the Songhay term for ceremony of festival. Here it is used to refer to a ganandi, literally 'to make dance' This film concerns two women whom the zima [priest] had diagnosed some months before as being ill through possession by spirits. In the meantime, their families have gathered together the resources to pay for the musicians, dancers, and the priest himself to put on an initiation dance lasting seven days This is a film of documentation, simply recording various moments in the progress of the ceremony, without any form of explanation, neither in intertitle cards nor in voice-over. (Paul Henley, The Adventure of the Real)

Creature Catalogue

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Germaine chez elle

In front of Jean Rouch's camera, Germaine Dieterlen recalls her ethnographic itinerary, at the Musée de l'Homme, in Mali and in the Paris of the 1930s.

Days after

In Isère, in the mountainous region of Trièves, is the Tournesol farm, an experiential farm totally autonomous in energy, a veritable laboratory for renewable energies. Jean-Philippe and his family live there from sheep farming and organic market gardening. But in September 2017, a violent fire destroyed the farm and its facilities. While the family has lost everything, a surge of solidarity is taking place so that the Tournesol farm is reborn from its ashes.

Las Hurdes, país de leyenda

An account of the journey that King Alfonso XIII of Spain made to the impoverished shire of Las Hurdes, in the province of Cáceres, in the region of Extremadura, in 1922.

Journey Through Setomaa

Estonia's first ethnographic film. Made by Johannes Pääsuke in 1913 on his expedition to Setomaa, the South-Eastern region in Estonia.

Pam Kuso Kar (Breaking Pam's Vases)

In February 1974, Pam Sambo Zima, the oldest of the priests of possession in Niamey, Niger, died at the age of seventy-plus years. In his backyard, the followers from the possession cult symbolically break the dead priest's ritual vases and cry for the deceased while dividing up the clothes of the divinities.

Germaine et ses copains

In Sangha, through the window of her house, Germaine greets Djamgouno, her main informant. He then translates for her a conversation she has with a half-blind old man. She recounts her memories of a past party at which Amadigné worked with her as an informant. Later, in front of the cliff, Germaine, Djamgouno and Pangalé are sitting on rocks, and Germaine talks about the many caves that can be visited by climbing small spelunking ladders. Rouch intervenes during the interview, asking the protagonists about the settlement of the cliff by the Dogon, who learned from the Tellem how to climb the cliff. Rouch then asks about the Tellem's predecessors who lived there 2,400 years ago. Germaine admits the ignorance of researchers on the subject, and Rouch concludes by joking about the new task that now falls to Germaine Dieterlen.

The Lyrical Rongdanis

A musical documentary woven around the endangered musical culture of the Rangdani Rabhas from Manikganj, Meghalaya, North East India.

A Certain Seductive Summer

Saeko had an affair with Kuno, a photographer, but after the car they were driving in had an accident, she has withdrawn into a villa in Shonan. One day, she meets Shinji, who rides his motorcycle in front of her beach villa every day.

Stare

Dead bodies with eyeballs ruptured are continuously found. Their direct causes of death are heart attacks and they acted like they were possessed right before their deaths. Mizuki is a university student. Her friend dies in front of her. Meanwhile, Haruo’s younger brother dies. Mizuki and Haruo begin to investigate together. They learn that Eiko holds a key to the mystery. Soon, Eiko's eyeballs rupture and she dies by a heart attack. Before she dies, she mentions the word "Shirai-san.”

Nighthawks

Wide-eyed Midwest transplant Stan agrees to play wingman to his calculating and privileged roommate Chad as they embark upon an exploration of glittering New York nightlife, whose darkest secrets are held captive by an elite band of millennials known as Nighthawks.

Liberation

Based on real life events, the film is set in January 1949 and focuses around a group of soldiers involved in the final stages of the Battle of Pingjin

Delitto di mafia - Mario Francese

Plot unavailable

La scorta di Borsellino - Emanuela Loi

Plot unavailable

A Writer's Odyssey

Kongwen Lu is the author of a fantasy novel series following a heroic teenager, also named Kongwen, on a quest to end the tyrannical rule of Lord Redmane, under the guidance of a Black Armor. But through a strange twist of fate, the fantasy world of the novel begins to impact life in the real world, leading Guan Ning to accept a mission from Tu Ling to kill the author.

The Swallow

In a small house, on the Irish coast, a woman writes a letter to an unknown correspondent. She ponders the evanescence of memory and art. Her home brims with traces of life—faded photographs, scattered artworks, some unfinished. All is shrouded by the constant murmur of the sea: that vast canvas of everything that was and will be.

The Rules of the Game

A weekend at a marquis’ country château lays bare some ugly truths about a group of haut bourgeois acquaintances.

Grand Illusion

A group of French soldiers, including the patrician Captain de Boeldieu and the working-class Lieutenant Maréchal, grapple with their own class differences after being captured and held in a World War I German prison camp. When the men are transferred to a high-security fortress, they must concoct a plan to escape beneath the watchful eye of aristocratic German officer von Rauffenstein, who has formed an unexpected bond with de Boeldieu.

The Passion of Joan of Arc

A classic of the silent age, this film tells the story of the doomed but ultimately canonized 15th-century teenage warrior. On trial for claiming she'd spoken to God, Jeanne d'Arc is subjected to inhumane treatment and scare tactics at the hands of church court officials. Initially bullied into changing her story, Jeanne eventually opts for what she sees as the truth. Her punishment, a famously brutal execution, earns her perpetual martyrdom.

Wintersleepers

Young blonde translator Rebecca lives with her boyfriend ski instructor Marco in a mountain villa owned by her friend, nurse Laura. Rene, local cinema projectionist, steals Marco's car and gets into a car crash with local Theo, whose daughter, after being in coma for a time, dies. Rene suffers from partial short term memory loss and starts a relationship with Laura. Meanwhile Marco is looking for the man who stole his car and Theo - for the man who killed his daughter...

Gandhi

In the early years of the 20th century, Mohandas K. Gandhi, a British-trained lawyer, forsakes all worldly possessions to take up the cause of Indian independence. Faced with armed resistance from the British government, Gandhi adopts a policy of 'passive resistance', endeavouring to win freedom for his people without resorting to bloodshed.

Kolya

After a fictitious marriage with a Russian emigrant, Cellisten Louka, a Czech man, must suddenly take responsibility for her son. However, it’s not long before the communication barrier is broken between the two new family members.

Kuhle Wampe or Who Owns the World?

Kuhle Wampe takes place in early-1930s Berlin. The film begins with a montage of newspaper headlines describing steadily-rising unemployment figures. This is followed by scenes of a young man looking for work in the city and the family discussing the unpaid back rent. The young man, brother of the protagonist Anni, removes his wristwatch and throws himself from a window out of despair. Shortly thereafter his family is evicted from their apartment. Now homeless, the family moves into a garden colony of sorts with the name “Kuhle Wampe.”

Almost Famous

In 1973, 15-year-old William Miller's unabashed love of music and aspiration to become a rock journalist lands him an assignment from Rolling Stone magazine to interview and tour with the up-and-coming band, Stillwater.

Mrs. Doubtfire

Loving but irresponsible dad Daniel Hillard, estranged from his exasperated spouse, is crushed by a court order allowing only weekly visits with his kids. When Daniel learns his ex needs a housekeeper, he gets the job -- disguised as a British nanny. Soon he becomes not only his children's best pal but the kind of parent he should have been from the start.

Closely Watched Trains

At a village railway station in occupied Czechoslovakia, a bumbling dispatcher’s apprentice longs to liberate himself from his virginity. Oblivious to the war and the resistance that surrounds him, this young man embarks on a journey of sexual awakening and self-discovery, encountering a universe of frustration, eroticism, and adventure within his sleepy backwater depot.

Platoon

As a young and naive recruit in Vietnam, Chris Taylor faces a moral crisis when confronted with the horrors of war and the duality of man.

Blue Velvet

The discovery of a severed human ear found in a field leads a young man on an investigation related to a beautiful, mysterious nightclub singer and a group of psychopathic criminals who have kidnapped her child.

City of Angels

When a guardian angel – who invisibly watches over the citizens of Los Angeles – becomes captivated by a strong-willed heart surgeon, he ponders trading in his pure, otherworldly existence for a mortal life with his beloved. The couple embarks on a tender but forbidden romance spanning heaven and Earth.

Persona

A young nurse, Alma, is put in charge of Elisabeth Vogler: an actress who is seemingly healthy in all respects, but will not talk. As they spend time together, Alma speaks to Elisabeth constantly, never receiving any answer.

Annaluise & Anton

Despite their social differences Luise, called Pünktchen, a girl from rich parentage befriends Anton, a boy who has to earn his own money in order to afford life for his sick mother and himself. Together they undergo different adventures, even preventing a theft in Pünktchens home

Annaluise & Anton

Luise, called Pünktchen, and Anton are closest of friends. Being the daughter of a wealthy surgeon, young Pünktchen lives in a great house. Her mother, who always travels through the world more for public relation reasons than for the social tasks she pretends to fulfill, is never available to her as a mother. Anton, son of a single and sick mother in financial trouble, does his best to help her out of it by working late. Pünktchen decides to help her only friend (as nobody else would anyway) and starts singing in public places. Trouble arises when Anton can't resist stealing a golden lighter and Pünktchen's secret life is discovered by her parents. Two troubled families finally can see the need for actions to be taken.

The Young and the Damned

A group of juvenile delinquents live a violent life in the infamous slums of Mexico City; among them Pedro, whose morality is gradually corrupted and destroyed by the others.