Making Dances: Seven Post-Modern Choreographers (1980)

Bobbi Jene

A love story, portraying the dilemmas and inevitable consequences of ambition. It is a film about a woman's fight for independence, a woman trying to succeed with her own art in the extremely competitive world of dance.

Like It Is

This documentary on the "youth movement" of the late 1960s focuses on the hippie pot smoking/free love culture in the San Francisco Bay area.

Tonite Let's All Make Love in London

Peter Whitehead’s disjointed Swinging London documentary, subtitled “A Pop Concerto,” comprises a number of different “movements,” each depicting a different theme underscored by music: A early version of Pink Floyd’s “Interstellar Overdrive” plays behind some arty nightclub scenes, while Chris Farlowe’s rendition of the Rolling Stones’ “Out of Time” accompanies a young woman’s description of London nightlife and the vacuousness of her own existence. In another segment, the Marquess of Kensington (Robert Wace) croons the nostalgic “Changing of the Guard” to shots of Buckingham Palace’s changing of the guard, and recording act Vashti are seen at work in the studio. Sandwiched between are clips of Mick Jagger (discussing revolution), Andrew Loog Oldham (discussing his future) – and Julie Christie, Michael Caine, Lee Marvin, and novelist Edna O’Brien (each discussing sex). The best part is footage of the riot that interrupted the Stones’ 1966 Royal Albert Hall concert.

Ingmar Bergman Through the Choreographer's Eye

Four of Sweden's most innovative choreographers travel to Ingmar Bergman's home on Fårö to explore and get inspired. The result is a unique contemporary dance film.The renowned Swedish choreographers Alexander Ekman, Pär Isberg, Pontus Lidberg and Joakim Stephenson, with principal dancers Jenny Nilson, Nathalie Nordquist, Oscar Salomonsson and Nadja Sellrup from the Royal Swedish Ballet, interpret Ingmar Bergman through four unique dance performances reflecting on human relations and intense feelings. The dances are linked together with images of the epic natural beauty of Fårö and Bergman's poetic home Hammars, including the voice of the master himself - Ingmar Bergman - revealing his thoughts about movements and music.

Gallant Indies

Stéphane Lissner, director of the Paris Opera, entrusts the staging of the opera-ballet Les Indes galantes to the visual artist Clément Cogitore. Based on the experience of his short film Les Indes galantes, the artist updates Jean-Philippe Rameau's baroque masterpiece (1735) by bringing together lyric song and urban dance. The choreography is entrusted to Bintou Dembélé who supervises dancers from krump, popping, voguing or even experimental hip hop. From rehearsals to the Premiere, Philippe Béziat films the meeting of urban dancers with the lyric institution and invites the spectator to share a human and artistic experience.

A Dancer's World

A glimpse into the world and methodology of dancer Martha Graham.

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.

One Day Pina Asked...

Chantal Akerman followed famous Choreographer Pina Bausch and her company of dancers, The Tanzteater Wuppertal, for five weeks while they were on tour in Germany, Italy and France. Her objective was to capture Pina Bausch's unparalleled art not only on stage by behind the scenes.

Appalachian Spring

A filmed version of Aaron Copland's most famous ballet, with its original star, who also choreographed.

Pina

Pina is a feature-length dance film in 3D with the ensemble of the Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch, featuring the unique and inspiring art of the great German choreographer, who died in the summer of 2009.

If the Dancer Dances

Filmmaker Maia Wechsler follows choreographer Stephen Petronio as he prepares dancers to restage the 1968 production of "RainForest."

Boundless Life

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Text Messages from the Universe

A film that immerses its audience in subjective states of consciousness they might experience when they die, imagining what they can see and think and hear in a seamless but fragmentary flow of poetic images, words and music. The viewer undertakes a journey into their own interior world of dreams and projections in which time and space, and cause and effect logic, are turned on their heads. Text Messages from the Universe is inspired by The Tibetan Book of the Dead, a text which guides souls on their journey of 49 days through the 'Bardo', or intermediate state, between dying and rebirth.

Plutocracy I: Divide and Rule

History of US labor movements and their suppression. It includes sections on the American Constitution; the Civil War draft riots; Reconstruction; Industrialization; the evolution of the police; the robber barons; early American labor unions; and major mid-to-late 19th Century labor events including the uprising of 1877, the Haymarket Affair, the Homestead strike and the New Orleans General Strike. The introduction examines the West Virginian coal wars of the early 20th Century, culminating in the Battle of Blair Mountain.

Breath - with each breath you take you choose life

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Plató

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Night and Day

When his first stage show fails, songwriter Cole Porter goes off to fight in WWI until, injured, he lands in a hospital. He impresses nurse Linda Lee with his creativity, but their budding romance must wait as Cole heads home. Back in New York, he mounts a series of popular shows, and when his work brings him back to Europe, he eventually marries Linda. But success doesn't spare him from marital complications or bad news about a beloved relative.

Fröken Julie

A well-composed psychological dance drama of a completely different kind from the usual romantic and sometimes superficial ballets. And an intrusive interpretation of August Strindberg's play.

Sand

The grandmother figure in the story is an “artistic speaker” who performs in town but seems enigmatic to her own granddaughter. Over the course of the narrative, the granddaughter realizes that, far from succumbing to despair in old age, her grandmother is full of “young laughter that has found its way back to an old body.”

Mari

Modern dance is an evocative narrative tool in Georgia Parris' debut, which investigates a young woman's identity and the complex relationship she has with her mother and sister.

Eifman Ballet: The Brothers Karamazov

The Brothers Karamazov novel is the epitome of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s creative work, the acme of the philosophic investigation carried out by this colossal and restless mind throughout his life. World renowned choreographer Boris Eifman offers a remarkable vision of the core ideas within the novel, expanding upon them though body language as a way of exploring the origins of the moral devastation of the Karamazovs; creating through choreographic art an equivalent of what Dostoyevsky investigated so masterfully in his book, the excruciating burden of destructive passions and evil heredity. This ballet production is also known and performed as Beyond Sin.

Center Stage: On Pointe

Jonathan Reeves is tasked with infusing more contemporary styles and modernism into the American Ballet Academy, and enlists his top choreographers Charlie, Cooper and Tommy to recruit dancers to compete at a camp where the winners will be selected to join the Academy. Bella Parker, who has always lived in the shadow of her hugely successful sister Kate, finally gets her chance to step into the limelight as one of the dancers recruited for the camp.

Play Hard

Nate, a workaholic drummer, spends all his time practicing, always striving for perfection. After he meets Yazmine, a like-minded, dedicated modern dancer, he realizes that the key to success isn't just to work hard – sometimes it requires you to play hard.

Fröken Julie

Birgit Cullberg's 1950 dance adaptation of Miss Julie was the breakthrough for modern dance in Sweden. 30 years later one of her sons plays the role of Jean in this adaptation for TV.

Soultribe: A Dance of Life

Three families struggle to find their true selves and their soulmates in a world full of expectations, pressure and obstacles. Inspired by real events, this film shows how they pursue their dreams and potential without losing themselves.

The Very Eye of Night

Dancers, shown in photographic negative, perform a series of ballet moves, solos, pas de deux, larger groupings. The dancers glide and rotate untroubled by gravity against a slowly changing starfield background. Their movements are accompanied by music scored for a small ensemble of woodwind and percussion.

Free Noir Papillon

A short dance film about a mother’s relationship to her pregnancy, as she deals with fear and hope about bringing a black baby boy into the world in 2020.

Fibonacci

A human flock runs across the landscape of fields. Thirteen performers in a teardrop formation form a single organism, guided by collective intelligence or intuition. It flows across the landscape of geometric patterns over terrain waves, flows around copses, divides, regroupes, and reunites. It stops at the horizon, rests, and runs on. The contrast between lively movement and the immobile geometry of the landscape. A hunter enters this magical moment. He walks across the field, climbs into a hunting blind, and loads his shotgun. The unsuspecting flock continues its light-footed, aimless journey.

The Man With Modern Nerves

A pyramid, by no means static, is instead brought to ever-increasing movement by the use of camera motion, cuts and fades. The cinematic illusion jumbles the individual elements and unites them in a symbolic sketch of Adolf Loos' dynamic thought processes. A High Speed Journey through the spinal cord of this revolutionary architect.

Resurrecting Hassan

Traces the lives of the Hartings, a blind Montreal family of three who make their living singing in the city's subway stations. The Hartings lost their only sighted child Hassan in a tragic drowning accident, and have since turned to the teachings of Russian mystic Grigori Grabovoi, hoping to resurrect their son. Resurrecting Hassan is an exploration of this family's legacy of grief, tragedy and abuse; the film will follow them on their path to redemption.

Just Eat It: A Food Waste Story

We all love food. As a society, we devour countless cooking shows, culinary magazines and foodie blogs. So how could we possibly be throwing nearly 50% of it in the trash? Filmmakers and food lovers Jen and Grant dive into the issue of waste from farm, through retail, all the way to the back of their own fridge. After catching a glimpse of the billions of dollars of good food that is tossed each year in North America, they pledge to quit grocery shopping and survive only on discarded food. What they find is truly shocking.

Keep On Keepin’ On

Eighty-nine year old trumpeting legend Clark Terry has mentored jazz wonders like Miles Davis and Quincy Jones, but Terry’s most unlikely friendship is with Justin Kauflin, a 23-year-old blind piano player with uncanny talent, but debilitating nerves. As Justin prepares for the most pivotal moment in his budding career, Terry’s ailing health threatens to end his own.

Kismet

Turkish soap operas have taken the world by storm, conquering the hearts of millions of viewers in the Middle East, North Africa, the Balkans and Asia. With unprecedented access to the industry’s most glamorous actors and creative talent, Kismet unravels the secrets of this phenomenal success that transcends religion and culture. From the lavish production sets of the most popular Turkish soap operas, the film travels to streets and homes in Cairo, Abu Dhabi, Istanbul, Athens, Sofia and Mostar, to discover how these taboo-breaking soaps are helping women across the region to claim their rights and transform their lives.

Asaltar los cielos

Documentary about the killer of Trotsky

Kurosawa's Way

Eleven major film makers from Europe, America and Asia talk about Akira Kurosawa and discover surprising influences on their own work.