40 Days to Learn Film (2020)

Blow Up of 'Blow-Up'

Documentary about Michelangelo Antonioni's 1966 film.

Henri-Georges Clouzot's Inferno

In 1964, Henri-Georges Clouzot's production of L'Enfer came to a halt. Despite huge expectations, major studio backing and an unlimited budget, after three weeks the production collapsed. This documentary presents Inferno's incredible expressionistic original rushes, screen tests, and on-location footage, whilst also reconstructing Clouzot's original vision, and shedding light on the ill-fated endeavor through interviews, dramatizations of unfilmed scenes, and Clouzot's own notes.

The Incredible Mr. Piccoli

A captivating portrait of French actor Michel Piccoli, who has worked with the greatest filmmakers of his time and has built a dazzling career of remarkable merit and success, focusing on his work during the 1970s and his professional relationship with Claude Sautet, Romy Schneider, Marco Ferreri and Luis Buñuel.

Barbara Stanwyck: Fire and Desire

Actress Sally Field looks at the dramatic life and successful career of the superb actress Barbara Stanwyck (1907-90), a Hollywood legend.

Making Apes: The Artists Who Changed Film

Fifty years after its release, the special effects makeup team behind Planet of the Apes reflect on making the iconic film.

Fellinopolis

Ferruccio Castronuovo was the only authorized eye, between 1976 and 1986, to film the brilliant Italian filmmaker Federico Fellini (1920-1993) in his personal and creative intimacy, to capture the gears of his great circus, his fantastic lies and his crazy inventions.

Orchestrator of Storms: The Fantastique World of Jean Rollin

The story of French filmmaker Jean Rollin (1938-2010), one of the most singular voices of European cult cinema, deeply misunderstood and widely misrepresented.

Desperate Souls, Dark City and the Legend of Midnight Cowboy

This is not a documentary about the making of Midnight Cowboy. It is about a humane and groundbreaking masterpiece and the flawed but gifted people who made it. It is about a troubled era of cultural ferment, social and political change, about broken dreams and strivers, then and now. It is about an era that made a movie and a movie that made an era.

Sexo en el plató

How are the sex scenes filmed? What tricks are used to fake the desire? How do the interpreters prepare and feel? Spanish actors and directors talk about the most intimate side of acting, about the tricks and work methods when narrating exposed sex. In Spain the general rule is that there are no rules. Each film, each interpreter, faces it in very different ways.

QT8: The First Eight

A detailed account of the life and artistic career of legendary filmmaker Quentin Tarantino, from his early days as a video club manager to the scandalous fall in disgrace of producer Harvey Weinstein. A story about how to shoot eight great movies and become an icon of modern pop culture.

Visions of Europe

Twenty-five films from twenty-five European countries by twenty-five European directors.

Locations: Looking for Rusty James

A personal meditation on Rumble Fish, the legendary film directed by Francis Ford Coppola in 1983; the city of Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA, where it was shot; and its impact on the life of several people from Chile, Argentina and Uruguay related to film industry.

Steven Spielberg, the “New Hollywood” Prodigy

A new light on American filmmaker Steven Spielberg, Hollywood’s greatest director, offering a unique perspective on his work and digging into his personal influences.

Greetings From Planet Smurf

The Smurfs were created in 1958 by the Belgian comic author Peyo (Pierre Culliford, 1928-1992) and they are one of Belgium's most recognized exports. From Brussels to Los Angeles, via Dubai, a journey into the tiny world of the famous little blue people, from the story of the creation of the original comic to the account of their huge global commercial exploitation.

The 'Frankenstein' Files: How Hollywood Made a Monster

The history of Frankenstein's journey from novel to stage to screen to icon.

A Life for Movies: Lotte Eisner

Born in Berlin in 1896, Lotte Eisner became famous for her passionate involvement in the world of both German and French cinema. In 1936, together with Henri Langlois, she founded the Cinémathèque Française with the goal of saving from destruction films, costumes, sets, posters, and other treasures of the 7th Art. A Jew exiled in Paris, she became a pillar of the capital's cultural scene, where she promoted German cinema.

In Search of Tomorrow

A nostalgic journey through ’80s Sci-Fi-films, exploring their impact and relevance today, told by the artists who made them and by those who were inspired to turn their visions into reality.

Hitler's Hollywood

Film journalist and critic Rüdiger Suchsland examines German cinema from 1933, when the Nazis came into power, until 1945, when the Third Reich collapsed. (A sequel to From Caligari to Hitler, 2015.)

D'Emmanuelle à Emmanuelle

« Emmanuelle » was released 50 years ago. Its main character, played by the young Sylvia Kristel, delve freely into her sexuality, without taboo. This bold movie became one of the great success of french cinema in the 70s, and Emmanuelle became the face of sexual liberation. Through the gaze of a woman, the character is back on the screen in 2024. This new Emmanuelle, written by Audrey Diwan, go in quest of a lost pleasure.

In the Intense Now

A personal essay which analyses and compares images of the political upheavals of the 1960s. From the military coup in Brazil to China's Cultural Revolution, from the student uprisings in Paris to the end of the Prague Spring.

King Hu: 1932-1997

Documentary about Chinese film director King Hu.

To Stay Alive: A Method

Iggy Pop reads and recites Michel Houellebecq’s manifesto. The documentary features real people from Houellebecq’s life with the text based on their life stories.

Boundless

As Hong Kong's foremost filmmaker, Johnnie To himself becomes the protagonist of this painstaking documentary exploring him and his Boundless world of film. A film student from Beijing and avid Johnnie To fan, Ferris Lin boldly approached To with a proposal to document the master director for his graduation thesis. To agreed immediately and Lin's camera closely followed him for over two years, capturing the man behind the movies and the myths. The result is Boundless, a candid profile of one of Hong Kong's greatest directors and a heartfelt love letter to Hong Kong cinema.

The Case of Bruno Lüdke

The incredible story of Bruno Lüdke (1908-44), the alleged worst mass murderer in German criminal history; or actually, a story of forged files and fake news that takes place during the darkest years of the Third Reich, when the principles of criminal justice, subjected to the yoke of a totalitarian system that is beginning to collapse, mean absolutely nothing.

Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched: A History of Folk Horror

An exploration of the cinematic history of the folk horror, from its beginnings in the UK in the late sixties; through its proliferation on British television in the seventies and its many manifestations, culturally specific, in other countries; to its resurgence in the last decade.

The Pixar Story

A look at the first years of Pixar Animation Studios - from the success of "Toy Story" and Pixar's promotion of talented people, to the building of its East Bay campus, the company's relationship with Disney, and its remarkable initial string of eight hits. The contributions of John Lasseter, Ed Catmull and Steve Jobs are profiled. The decline of two-dimensional animation is chronicled as three-dimensional animation rises. Hard work and creativity seem to share the screen in equal proportions.

His Name Was Jason: 30 Years of Friday the 13th

A retrospective documentary about the groundbreaking horror series, Friday the 13th, featuring interviews with cast and crew from the twelve films spanning 3 decades.

La Cicciolina: Godmother of Scandal

The personal and professional story of Ilona Staller, known as Cicciolina, is probably unique: she left communist Hungary and moved to Italy, where she found a fertile environment for a life dedicated to scandal.

Aznavour by Charles

In 1948, French singer Charles Aznavour (1924-2018) receives a Paillard Bolex, his first camera. Until 1982, he will shoot hours of footage, his filmed diary. Wherever he goes, he carries his camera with him. He films his life and lives as he films: places, moments, friends, loves, misfortunes.

Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse

A chronicle of the production problems — including bad weather, actors' health, war near the filming locations, and more — which plagued the filming of Apocalypse Now, increasing costs and nearly destroying the life and career of Francis Ford Coppola.

Straight to VHS

Act of Violence Upon a Young Journalist is a film shot in 1988 and released on VHS in 1989; a mysterious cult work of Uruguayan cinema surrounded by strange theories about Manuel Lamas, its unknown creator. Until now.

Babenco: Tell Me When I Die

Besieged by cancer and nearing the end, the genius Argentine-Brazilian filmmaker Héctor Babenco (1946-2016) asks Bárbara Paz, his wife, for one last wish: to be the protagonist of his own death.

Andrey Tarkovsky. A Cinema Prayer

An account of the life and work of Russian filmmaker Andrey Tarkovsky (1932-86) in his own words: his memories, his vision of art and his reflections on the fate of the artist and the meaning of human existence; through extremely rare audio recordings that allow a complete understanding of his inner life and the mysterious world existing behind his complex cinematic imagery.

Parallel Lives

Born June 8, 1964, Frank Matter films four "twins", born the same day as him, but in other latitudes. Interweaving their life stories with rich archival material, the filmmaker links these Parallel Lives with elements from his own biography, to compose a fascinating fresco where intimate trajectories are part of the advent of the global village.

Catherine Deneuve, in the eye of the camera

She worked with the world’s greatest actors and directors: Buñuel, Mastroianni, Lellouche, Depardieu... The film guides us throughout her career with the filmmakers with whom she invented herself not to be a “cold blonde actress”, thanks to great interviews of many artists who crossed her path.

King Cohen: The Wild World of Filmmaker Larry Cohen

A feature-length documentary focusing on the acclaimed work and eclectic career of maverick filmmaker Larry Cohen, writer-director of "Black Caesar," "It's Alive," "God Told Me To," "Q," "The Stuff," and many more.