Jeff Wall: Retrospective (2007)

Soviet Bus Stops

“There’s a bus stop I want to photograph.” This may sound like a parody of an esoteric festival film, but Canadian Christopher Herwig’s photography project is entirely in earnest, and likely you will be won over by his passion for this unusual subject within the first five minutes. Soviet architecture of the 1960s and 70s was by and large utilitarian, regimented, and mass-produced. Yet the bus stops Herwig discovers on his journeys criss-crossing the vast former Soviet Bloc are something else entirely: whimsical, eccentric, flamboyantly artistic, audacious, colourful. They speak of individualism and locality, concepts anathema to the Communist doctrine. Herwig wants to know how this came to pass and tracks down some of the original unsung designers, but above all he wants to capture these exceptional roadside way stations on film before they disappear.

Rwanda & Juliet

A feature documentary set in Kigali, Rwanda, the epicenter of the genocide that left a million dead two decades earlier. The film follows eccentric retired Dartmouth Professor Emeritus, Andrew Garrod, as he mounts Romeo and Juliet with college students from both Hutu and Tutsi backgrounds. Hopes, expectations, pasts, personalities and cultures collide as opening night approaches.

Through a Lens Darkly: Black Photographers and the Emergence of a People

The film explores the role of photography, since its rudimentary beginnings in the 1840s, in shaping the identity, aspirations, and social emergence of African Americans from slavery to the present. The dramatic arch is developed as a visual narrative that flows through the past 160 years to reveal black photography as an instrument for social change, an African American point-of-view on American history, and a particularized aesthetic vision.

Cormorant

A 16mm experimental short film loosely following a cormorant as it attempts to dry its wings.

ACT

Several fragments of one day in Leningrad in the autumn of 1989, refracted in the imagination of the artist.

Quicker'n a Wink

In this Pete Smith Specialty short, Dr. Harold E. Edgerton demonstrates stroboscopic photography, which he helped develop. This process allows us to see in slow motion what happens during events that occur too fast to be seen by the naked eye. Examples shown here include a bullet in flight as it shatters a light bulb, the moment of impact when a kicker kicks a football, and the motion of a hummingbird's wings as it hovers.

Bob Ross: The Happy Painter

A behind-the-scenes look at the beloved public television personality's journey from humble beginnings to an American pop-culture icon. "The Happy Painter" reveals the public and private sides of Bob Ross through loving accounts from close friends and family, childhood photographs and rare archival footage. Interviewees recount his gentle, mild-mannered demeanor and unwavering dedication to wildlife, and disclose little-known facts about his hair, his fascination with fast cars and more. Film clips feature Bob Ross with mentor William Alexander and the rough-cut of the first "Joy of Painting" episode from 1982. Famous Bob Ross enthusiasts, including talk-show pioneer Phil Donahue, film stars Jane Seymour and Terrence Howard, chef Duff Goldman and country music favorites Brad Paisley and Jerrod Niemann, provide fascinating insights into the man, the artist and his legacy.

Bibis of 14

Through a film letter, Lara communicates with her great-grandfather Paco, whom she barely knew. She explains to him what has happened since he died.

Galaxie

In March and April of 1966, Markopoulos created this filmic portrait of writers and artists from his New York circle, including Parker Tyler, W. H. Auden, Jasper Johns, Susan Sontag, Storm De Hirsch, Jonas Mekas, Allen Ginsberg, and George and Mike Kuchar, most observed in their homes or studios. Filmed in vibrant color, Galaxie pulses with life. It is a masterpiece of in-camera composition and editing, and stands as a vibrant response to Andy Warhol's contemporary Screen Tests. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2001.

Mur Murs

Venturing from Venice Beach to Watts, Varda looks at the murals of LA as backdrop to and mirror of the city’s many cultures. She casts a curious eye on graffiti and photorealism, roller disco & gang violence, evangelical Christians, Hare Krishnas, artists, angels and ordinary Angelenos.

Meyerhold's theatre and biomechanics

Russian actor and pedagogue, Gennadi Bogdanov, presents the most important etudes and principles of Vsevolod Meyerhold's Biomechanics. Includes archival photographs and film of Meyerhold's original work and also recent scenic work from Europe and the U.S. developed on the principles of bio-mechanics.

Decease

Spring comes every year and brings us hope for recovery and development. But time is inexorable and fleeting. Not for everyone will come next spring ...

The Autumn Alley

A docudrama about art and creativity; based on modern art gallery in Tehran and its founder Jazeh Tabatabai.

Standard Operating Procedure

Errol Morris examines the incidents of abuse and torture of suspected terrorists at the hands of U.S. forces at the Abu Ghraib prison.

Black President

Exiled, yet internationally celebrated Zimbabwean artist Kudzanai Chiurai's demons come to life as he tries to flee South Africa following increasingly fractious experiences on the Johannesburg art scene. His greatest demon “Black Guilt” is one he can never shake off, this burden of having to speak for his people. But Is this responsibility really a burden at all, or is it actually a superpower? Either way, will Kudzi ever be President of His Own State of Being?

A Morte de Narciso

Documentary about the work of photographer Alair Gomes, one of the first artists to introduce male nudity in Brazilian photography.

Michael Palin In Wyeth's World

Michael Palin heads for rural Pennsylvania and Maine to explore the extraordinary life and work of one of America's most popular and controversial painters, Andrew Wyeth. Fascinated by his iconic painting Christina's World, Palin goes in search of the real life stories that inspired this and Wyeth's other depictions of the American landscape and its hard grafting inhabitants. Tracking down the farmers, friends and family featured in Wyeth's magically real work, Palin builds a picture of an eccentric, enigmatic and driven painter. He also gets a rare interview with Helga, the woman who put Wyeth back in the headlines when the press discovered he had been painting her nude, compulsively but secretly for 15 years.

Thomas Hirschhorn – Gramsci Monument

Thomas Hirschhorn, one of the few Swiss artists of world renown, often touches on social wounds with his provocative works. In 2013, Hirschhorn built a monument for Italian philosopher and communist Antonio Gramsci in a public housing project in the Bronx. The contentious artist collaborated with neighborhood residents whose everyday life is impacted by poverty, unemployment and crime. Conflicts and misunderstandings are bound to arise as Hirschhorn’s absolute devotion to art is confronted with the resident’s lack of prospects and fatalistic outlooks. The «Gramsci Monument» becomes a summer-long experiment where diverse worlds collide: blacks and whites, the art elite and street kids, party people and poets, politicians and philosophers. A nuanced film about art, politics and passion.

Revela la Ausencia

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