Sex, Sensations & Superstars: The History of Danish Silent Cinema (2020)

Clawing! A Journey Through the Spanish Horror

In the late sixties, Spanish cinema began to produce a huge amount of horror genre films: international markets were opened, the production was continuous, a small star-system was created, as well as a solid group of specialized directors. Although foreign trends were imitated, Spanish horror offered a particular approach to sex, blood and violence. It was an extremely unusual artistic movement in Franco's Spain.

Filmmakers for the Prosecution

In 1945, two young American soldiers, brothers Budd and Stuart Schulberg, are commissioned to collect filmed and recorded evidence of the horrors committed by the infamous Third Reich in order to prove Nazi war crimes during the Nuremberg trials (1945-46). The story of the making of Nuremberg: Its Lesson for Today, a paramount historic documentary, released in 1948.

Gena Rowlands: A Life on Film

An intimate portrait of the superb actress Gena Rowlands, icon of independent cinema. Together with her husband, legendary director John Cassavetes (1929-89), she lived an unusual life beyond the dream factory, a life in which reality and fiction were so perfectly intertwined that it made possible films that still today seem incredibly real.

The Méliès Mystery

A documentary that details the process of restoring 270 of the 520 lost films of pioneering director Georges Méliès, all orchestrated by a Franco-American collaboration between Lobster Films, the National Film Center, and the Library of Congress.

The Mystery of Marilyn Monroe: The Unheard Tapes

This documentary explores the mystery surrounding the death of movie icon Marilyn Monroe through previously unheard interviews with her inner circle.

In a Lion

On a particular day at a Danish zoo, a remarkable, mystic and unique attraction involving the body of a young lion awaits its spectator.

Talking About Myself Is Hard

Spanish actress Charo López finds it hard to talk about herself; but she only needs to start reminiscing to discover that her life has been truly exceptional. The story of a legendary actress told by herself.

Trespassing Bergman

In the sixties, Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman (1918-2007) built a house on the remote island of Fårö, located in the Baltic Sea, and left Stockholm to live there. When he died, the house was preserved. A group of very special film buffs, came from all over the world, travel to Fårö in search of the genius and his legacy. (An abridged version of Bergman's Video, 2012.)

1924, le Paris des Jeux olympiques

Plot unavailable

Alain Delon, l'ombre au tableau

Plot unavailable

Heirs of the Beast

The story of the making and subsequent success of The Day of the Beast, the Spanish cult film directed by Álex de la Iglesia and released in 1995.

The Green Fog

A tribute to a fascinating film shot by Alfred Hitchcock in 1958, starring James Stewart and Kim Novak, and to the city of San Francisco, California, where the magic was created; but also a challenge: how to pay homage to a masterpiece without using its footage; how to do it simply by gathering images from various sources, all of them haunted by the curse of a mysterious green fog that seems to cause irrepressible vertigo…

Hollywood rueda en España (1955-1980)

The turbulent history of the twenty-five years during which, in the midst of Franco's dictatorship, Spain was turned into an immense movie set on which many foreign production companies shot dozens of films, from westerns to historical epics.

Jean-Pierre Léaud: The Child of Cinema

A portrait of the legendary actor Jean-Pierre Léaud, icon of the French New Wave and closely linked to the work of François Truffaut and Jean-Luc Goddard.

Fluer i Kødbyen

In 1971 September met four young men in a garden in Gentofte. They wanted to make a band. And they soon found out that they could joke his way to one hit after another. A handful of years later had their playful approach made them Denmark's largest orchestra. But if success came easily to them, it was also their biggest problem. For besides they were hit by alcoholism and stage directing, they faced one overriding dilemma: Should they stick to the happy drengerøvs tone (young men who appear to be young, immature or inexperienced or who behave childishly), they had so much luck, or trying to become adults?

Flying Supersonic

Thundering across the sky on elegant white wings, the Concorde was an instant legend. But behind the glamour of jet setting at Mach 2 were stunning scientific innovations and political intrigue. Fifteen years after Concorde's final flight, this documentary takes you inside the historic international race to develop the first supersonic airliner. Hear stories from those inside the choreographed effort to design and build Concorde in two countries at once - and the crew members who flew her.

Cannes : Palmes, scandales et tapis rouge

How could the Cannes Film Festival become the biggest cinema event in the world? For 75 years, Cannes has succeeded in this prodigy of placing cinema, its sometimes paltry splendors but also its requirements of great modern art, at the center of everything, as if, for ten days in May, nothing was more important than it. This film tells how Cannes has become the largest film festival in the world by opening up to cinematic modernity while never forgetting that cinema remains a performing art, a popular art.

Uma Thurman: Hollywood's Silent Warrior

A portrait of American actress Uma Thurman, muse of legendary filmmaker Quentin Tarantino and courageous voice for the many victims of despotic producer Harvey Weinstein.

Danish Dynamite

The story about Danish national football (soccer) team, a traditional minnow until the mid-1980s when they improved dramatically and eventually went on to win the European championship in 1992.

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.

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.

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.

Das Boot Revisited: An Underwater Success Story

In 1981, a film about the misadventures of a German U-boat crew in 1941 becomes a worldwide hit almost four decades after the end of the World War II. Millions of viewers worldwide make Das Boot the most internationally successful German film of all time. But due to disputes over the script, accidents on the set, and voices accusing the makers of glorifying the war, the project was many times on the verge of being cancelled.

Kim Novak: Hollywood's Golden Age Rebel

Kim Novak never dreamed on being a star, but she became one. Most famous for her enigmatic performance in Hitchcock’s Vertigo (1958), the Chicago-born actress never quite fitted into the Hollywood mould and wanted to do things her own way.

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.)

The Enigmatic Charlotte Rampling

Screen icon Charlotte Rampling has fascinated the world of cinema, fashion and photography with her mysterious and almost inaccessible beauty. A major figure in genre and auteur films, she is unclassifiable: between presence and absence, shyness and audacity, she's always hypnotic, magnetic and fascinating. From her film debut in the mid-1960s in England, to her unconventional career path, through the tragic loss suicide of her older sister that will irremediably mark her acting, this film is a dive into the existential quest of a complex actress, whose every facet is discovered through her roles. Through a conversation with the actress herself, along with personal archives and extracts from her films, this documentary raws a dazzling portrait of her life and career.

Aurora's Sunrise

The story of how Aurora Mardiganian (1901-94), a survivor of the Armenian genocide perpetrated by the Ottoman Empire (1915-17), became a Hollywood silent film star.

Alain Delon, a unique portrait

Biography of a star and figure study : This fascinating portrait is for anyone who wants to know more about the man behind the mask. By the end of the film, you will view this famous French icon in a totally different light. Delon speaks in a series of surprising interviews, spanning nearly 50 years.

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.

Scandinavia: Norway, Sweden, Denmark

This film provides contrasts and similarities among the three countries. In Norway, Deneen visits with a fishing family from the small city of Alesund, in Denmark, with a farm family, and in Sweden, with the family of a glassworker. The countries are contrasted in terms of natural resources and reliance on trade.

The One, the Only, the Real Tarzan

The glorious and tragic story of American athlete and actor Johnny Weissmuller (1904-84), Olympic swimmer, water polo player and the only true Tarzan, an archetypal character and myth of cinema, that of the original Hollywood blockbusters (1932-48).

Herbarium

Plot unavailable

Michel Gondry: Do It Yourself

A portrait of French filmmaker Michel Gondry, creator, for three decades, of an imperfect, astonishing, fascinating, damaged and poetic work.

Senses of Cinema

As notions of civil rights transformed across the world, so was the screen landscape reformed by the ascension of grassroots film movements seeking to challenge the mainstream. Some aspired to push form to its limit; others worked to destabilise what they saw as a homogenous industry, or to provoke questions around gender, sexuality, migration and race.

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.

Robert Redford: The Golden Look

More than anyone in the cynical film industry, legendary artist Robert Redford embodies the United States' brightest side: perseverance, independence, idealism, and integrity. A champion of active environmentalism and the right to openly criticize any institutional abuse, he has put his artistic work at the service of his political commitments, whether as an actor, director, producer, or founder of the Sundance Festival, a formidable forum for his struggles since 1985.

Romy Schneider & Alain Delon: An Enduring Passion

Austrian actress Romy Schneider (1938) and French actor Alain Delon (1935), once fervent lovers in the early sixties, maintained a close friendship and a certain working relationship after their breakup until her death in 1984: a universal and eternal love.

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.

Las cinéphilas

Six elderly retired women, two from Buenos Aires, Argentina; two from Montevideo, Uruguay; and two from Madrid, Spain, have something in common, despite their different interests and lives: they go to the movies almost every day.

Fulci Talks

Rome, Italy, June 1993. Antonietta De Lillo and Marcello Garofalo interview legendary Italian film director Lucio Fulci (1927-96).

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.

Indiana Jones: The Search for the Lost Golden Age

Hawaii, May 1977. After the success of Star Wars, George Lucas and Steven Spielberg meet to find a new project to work on together, the former as producer, the latter as director. The story of how the charismatic archaeologist Indiana Jones was born and how his first adventure, released in 1981, triumphed at box offices around the world.

Zombies in the Sugar Cane Field: The Documentary

Tucumán, Argentina, 1965. Three years before George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead was released, director Ofelio Linares Montt shot Zombies in the Sugar Cane Field, which turned out to be both a horror film and a political statement. It was a success in the US, but could not be shown in Argentina due to Juan Carlos Onganía's dictatorship, and was eventually lost. Writer and researcher Luciano Saracino embarks on the search for the origins of this cursed work.

Forman vs. Forman

A moving account, in his own words, of the personal life and work of the brilliant Czech filmmaker Miloš Forman (1932-2018): his tragic childhood, his major contribution to the cultural movement known as the Czech New Wave, his exile in Paris, his troubled days in New York, his rise to stardom in Hollywood; a complete existence in the service of cinema.

What Is a Good Tax?

Too high, misused, unfair... a large part of the French and Europeans criticize taxes. From tax-rascal to tax revolt, the movement of yellow vests in France has returned to the center of attention the question of consent to tax. How to explain a different resistance to taxes from one country to another without tax pressure being an explanation? Is there a "good" tax? Jean Quatremer takes us on a journey to the tax center across Europe, to meet those who pay it, those who decide it, those who study it... or those who allow to avoid it.

24 Memories per Second

At the National Archive of the Moving Images in Portugal, archivists discuss the powerful bond between people and a machine that preserves a very delicate medium.

The Devil's Share

Quebec, on the cusp of the 1960s. The province is on the brink of momentous change. Deftly selecting clips from nearly 200 films from the National Film Board of Canada archives, director Luc Bourdon reinterprets the historical record, offering us a new and distinctive perspective on the Quiet Revolution.

Burden of Dreams

The Amazon rain forest, 1979. The crew of Fitzcarraldo (1982), a film directed by German director Werner Herzog, soon finds itself with problems related to casting, tribal struggles and accidents, among many other setbacks; but nothing compared to dragging a huge steamboat up a mountain, while Herzog embraces the path of a certain madness to make his vision come true.

The Dawn of Kaiju Eiga

Japan, 1954. A legend emerges from the ashes of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, devastated by atomic bombs in 1945. The creature's name is Godzilla. The film that tells its story is the first of kaiju eiga, the giant monster movies.

Satan's Blood: recuerdos de «Escalofrío»

The story of the shooting of Satan's Blood (Escalofrío), a film directed by Carlos Puerto in 1978.

Stories of Our Cinema

In Spain, on May 11, 1896, at the Price circus, the first moving images ever shown in the country are projected. From that event, the Spanish actor Antonio Resines intends to compile a series of anecdotes to shape the amazing history of Spanish cinema, holding several conversations with prominent figures of the Spanish film industry.

Maria by Callas

Told through performances, TV interviews, home movies, family photographs, private letters and unpublished memoirs, the film reveals the essence of an extraordinary woman who rose from humble beginnings in New York City to become a glamorous international superstar and one of the greatest artists of all time.

Beyond Tragedies

Recalling his childhood and relationship with his mother, a film student tries to understand the origin of his love for cinema and tragedies.

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.

We Were Once Kids

In the early nineties, before the massive gentrification of many of New York's then slums, several young people from very disparate backgrounds left their broken homes and ventured onto the brutal streets of the city. United by their love of skateboarding, they formed a family and built a unique lifestyle that eventually inspired Kids, a groundbreaking and outrageous film directed by photographer Larry Clark and released in 1995.

The Cyberpunk Educator

A 2003 documentary study of mainstream Cyberpunk films of the 1980s created by director Andrew J. Holden. The film uses the structure of literary theorist Northrop Frye to describe the common, repeating stories in Western culture, and how Cyberpunk can be defined and understood according to that analysis, with a focus toward American film industry portrayal of race, gender, and government.

Hitler: A Career

A keen chronicle of the unlikely rise to power of Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) and a dissection of the Third Reich (1933-1945), but also an analysis of mass psychology and how the desperate crowd can be deceived and shepherded to the slaughterhouse.