A Portrait of N. B. (2020)

Land Without Bread

An exploration —manipulated and staged— of life in Las Hurdes, in the province of Cáceres, in Extremadura, Spain, as it was in 1932. Insalubrity, misery and lack of opportunities provoke the emigration of young people and the solitude of those who remain in the desolation of one of the poorest and least developed Spanish regions at that time.

Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory

Working men and women leave through the main gate of the Lumière factory in Lyon, France. Filmed on 22 March 1895, it is often referred to as the first real motion picture ever made, although Louis Le Prince's 1888 Roundhay Garden Scene pre-dated it by seven years. Three separate versions of this film exist, which differ from one another in numerous ways. The first version features a carriage drawn by one horse, while in the second version the carriage is drawn by two horses, and there is no carriage at all in the third version. The clothing style is also different between the three versions, demonstrating the different seasons in which each was filmed. This film was made in the 35 mm format with an aspect ratio of 1.33:1, and at a speed of 16 frames per second. At that rate, the 17 meters of film length provided a duration of 46 seconds, holding a total of 800 frames.

The Man Who Defied Beijing

A portrait of Chinese writer Liu Xiaobo (1955-2017), a witness of the Tiananmen Square massacre (1989), a dissident, a woodpecker who tirelessly pecked the putrid brain of the Communist regime for decades, demanding democracy loudly and fearlessly. Silenced, arrested, convicted, imprisoned, dead. Nobel Peace Prize winner in 2010, alive forever. These are his last words.

Daybreak Express

Set to a classic Duke Ellington recording "Daybreak Express", this is a five-minute short of the soon-to-be-demolished Third Avenue elevated subway station in New York City.

Visions of Europe

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

Night and Fog

Filmmaker Alain Resnais documents the atrocities behind the walls of Hitler's concentration camps.

The Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat

A group of people are standing along the platform of a railway station in La Ciotat, waiting for a train. One is seen coming, at some distance, and eventually stops at the platform. Doors of the railway-cars open and attendants help passengers off and on. Popular legend has it that, when this film was shown, the first-night audience fled the café in terror, fearing being run over by the "approaching" train. This legend has since been identified as promotional embellishment, though there is evidence to suggest that people were astounded at the capabilities of the Lumières' cinématographe.

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.

The Joys and Sorrows of Young Yuguo

16-year-old Yuguo, who has a passion for Eastern European romantic poetry, makes a pilgrimage from his home in China to the foothills of Romania’s Carpathian Mountains.

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.

The Oceans Are the Real Continents

Having Cuba as a background, decadent and in crisis, in a black-and-white lacerated by the Caraibic swinging rain, Alex and Edith, a couple in their 30s, live their love story made of small daily gestures, stories from the past, nostalgia, and a deep intimacy.

Brigitte

An insight into the creative process of photographer Brigitte Lacombe, exploring her obsession with taking pictures and how her lens defines her relationship with her subjects and the world.

Madonna: Truth or Dare

From the rains of Japan, through threats of arrest for 'public indecency' in Canada, and a birthday tribute to her father in Detroit, this documentary follows Madonna on her 1990 'Blond Ambition' concert tour. Filmed in black and white, with the concert pieces in glittering MTV color, it is an intimate look at the work of the icon, from a prayer circle before each performance to bed games with the dance troupe afterwards.

No Crying at the Dinner Table

Filmmaker Carol Nguyen interviews her own family to craft an emotionally complex and meticulously composed portrait of intergenerational trauma, grief, and secrets in this cathartic documentary about things left unsaid.

The Tickle King

Featuring new, previously unseen footage documenting the bizarre and unsettling things that happened to filmmakers David Farrier and Dylan Reeve as Tickled premiered at film festivals and theaters in 2016. Lawsuits, private investigators, disrupted screenings and surprise appearances are just part of what they encounter along the way. Amidst new threats, the duo begins to answer questions that remained once the credits rolled on Tickled, including whether the disturbing behavior they uncovered will ever come to an end.

Fellini of the Spirits

2020 marks 100 years since the birth of Federico Fellini, the most prominent Italian director and one of the symbols of the insuperable cinematic heyday of mid-20th century. Fellini had always been a mysterious director, not only in his cryptic symbolism but also in his idiosyncratic, excessive mixture of psychoanalysis, Catholicism and faith in the mysterious. In this documentary, his relationship with the paranormal, luck and fate, alongside the coexistence of organized discourse and transcendence to the imaginary, is examined via friends, collaborators and distinguished fans (Friedkin, Gilliam, Chazelle). A great testimony to why rationalists and ideologists have a hard time with his work, ‘Fellini and the Spirits’ is an appropriate yet unexpected tribute.

Dickson Experimental Sound Film

William K.L. Dickson plays the violin while two men dance. This is the oldest surviving sound film where sound is recorded on the phonograph.

Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe

Directors Werner Herzog and Errol Morris make a bet which results in Herzog living up to his promise that he would eat his shoe if Errol Morris ever completed the film Gates of Heaven.

24 Frames per Century

This short piece by Athina Rachel Tsangari, commissioned for the seventieth edition of the Venice Film Festival in 2013, draws on Jean-Luc Godard's "Contempt" and functions as a meditation on the state of cinema, depicting two film projectors contemplating the uncertainty of their future.

Ballet Mécanique

A pulsing, kaleidoscope of images set to an energetic soundtrack. This is a world in motion, dominated by mechanical and repetitive images, with a few moments of solitude in a garden.

The Tree in a Test Tube

Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy are stopped by narrator Pete Smith for the purpose of showing the audience how much wood and wood by-products the average person carries.

Daniel Brühl: Breaking Bad

A portrait of the Spanish-German actor Daniel Brühl, a versatile performer capable of moving easily from the gentlest to the darkest role.

Bergman Island

The desolate and mysterious island of Fårö, Sweden, Baltic Sea, 2004. Swedish master filmmaker Ingmar Bergman (1918-2007) looks back on his personal and artistic life; a journey through more than sixty years devoted to film, plays and television programs. (An abridged version of Ingmar Bergman Complete, 2004; a collection of three thematic documentaries: Bergman and Film; Bergman and Theater; and Bergman and Fårö Island.)

Shotplayer

"Shotplayer" is an impressionistic journey into the mind of Wilfred Rose, one of New York City's most notorious pickpockets. As he returns to the subway for the first time in many years he reflects on a life of crime in a society that has left many of its citizens behind. "Shotplayer" asks, when is it ok to push back against that society? What does it mean to live as a criminal? What does it mean to live one’s life on an invisible plane? To live at all?

David Lynch: A Hollywood Enigma

Creator of absolute freedom, David Lynch constructed his work as an enigma to be deciphered between dream and reality. A cult director from his first films ("Eraserhead", "Elephant Man", "Blue Velvet"), Lynch forever changed the world of television with his series "Twin Peaks", before tackling the lies of Hollywood in "Mulholland Drive". Tracing the life of the most influential filmmaker of his generation, this documentary explores the hidden meaning of a relentlessly consistent filmography and delves beneath the dark, teeming surface of the American Dream.

Town Business

After a "diplomatic mission" into a neighboring town Kell returns to his town to see that his not so bright team of idiots have screwed up everything.

To the Arctic 3D

A journey into the lives of a mother polar bear and her two seven-month-old cubs as they navigate the changing Arctic wilderness they call home.

Joan Baez: I Am a Noise

Since her debut at the age of 18, musician, civil rights campaigner and activist Joan Baez has been on stage for over 60 years. For the now 82-year-old, the personal has always been political, and her friendship with Martin Luther King and her pacifism have shaped her commitment. In this biography that opens with her farewell tour, Baez takes stock in an unsparing fashion and confronts sometimes painful memories.

At the End of Nothing at All

Every morning, Marcel confides in his tape recorder. It is from his reflections on life that this film takes us into the wake of his story.

Omar Sharif: Citizen of the World

Several high-budget epic films became Omar Sharif (1932-2015) a film star. He was an actor, but also a bridge player, a womanizer, a bon vivant; he was a man full of contradictions, who enjoyed card games more than movies; he was an eternal nomad who spent half his life in a hotel.

Innovations in Film: 65mm Black and White Film in Oppenheimer

FotoKem gives in-depth tour of the new scientific and artistic workflows that had to be invented in order to realize Christopher Nolan's unique vision of using both color and black & white 65mm film in the same motion picture

Private Life: Kyle Ross

Welcome to the Private Life of Kyle Ross. In this intimate documentary, you'll get to know the boy behind the star. From his corporate gig at Helix Studios to the dissolution of his high profile relationship, nothing is off the table. Intent on bending stereotypes and gracefully aging in an industry that celebrates youth, Kyle shares the work that goes into maintaining an image while simultaneously shedding it. After all, he's always enjoyed a contradiction.

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.

A Diary for Timothy

A narrator recounts the state of Great Britain near the end of WWII via a visual diary for the titular baby boy born in September 1944.

Welcome to Sherwood! The Story of 'The Adventures of Robin Hood'

Film historians examines the making of the 1938 "The Adventures of Robin Hood."

Agatha Christie, the Queen of Crime

British author Agatha Christie (1890-1976) is the world's most translated author: her heroes, private detective Hercule Poirot and amateur sleuth Miss Marple, are known the world over. But who is the woman behind her bestsellers? A biographical search for clues, the unraveling of an iridescent personality whose existence and works were shaped by the tragic history of the 20th century: the eventful life of the Queen of Crime.

Very Nice, Very Nice

Arthur Lipsett's first film is an avant-garde blend of photography and sound. It looks behind the business-as-usual face we put on life and shows anxieties we want to forget. It is made of dozens of pictures that seem familiar, with fragments of speech heard in passing and, between times, a voice saying, "Very nice, very nice." The film was nominated for an Oscar for Best Live Action Short Film.

Searching for Ingmar Bergman

A meaningful account of the personal and professional life of the great Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman (1918-2007) that explores his film legacy, with interviews with his closest collaborators and a new generation of filmmakers.

Blood of the Beasts

An early example of ultra-realism, this movie contrasts the quiet, bucolic life in the outskirts of Paris with the harsh, gory conditions inside the nearby slaughterhouses. Describes the fate of the animals and that of the workers in graphic detail.

Period. End of Sentence.

In an effort to improve feminine hygiene, a machine that creates low-cost biodegradable sanitary pads is installed in a rural village in Northern India. Using the machine, a group of local women is employed to produce and sell pads, offering them newfound independence and helping to destigmatize menstruation for all.

Ripple

Rae Ripple, a welder from the outskirts of West Texas transforms neglected metal into works of art and in the process finds healing from her traumatic past.

Demonic

During the 1980s, claims of satanic ritual abuse ran rife throughout the western world, uncovered by hypnotic therapists and perpetuated throughout the media, including high-rating television talk shows. In Demonic, filmmaker Pia Borg delves into this bizarre chapter of history, examining the elusive line between fact, fiction and the persuasive power of the media.

Broadway by Light

An experimental meditation on Times Square's marquees and iconic advertising that captures the concurrently seedy and dazzling aspects of New York's Great White Way.

Sylvia Plath: Inside The Bell Jar

The story of the making of The Bell Jar, the unique, semi-autobiographical novel written by American writer Sylvia Plath (1932-63), published in February 1963, shortly before her death.

How We Get Free

In Denver, an intrepid activist runs for office with the aim of eliminating cash bail.

FLOAT!

With depth, intimacy, and humor, FLOAT! captures filmmaker Azza Cohen's magnetic grandma’s life-affirming journey learning to swim at 82, inspiring audiences to defy societal expectations of aging and to boldly look forward at every stage.

Auschwitz

Auschwitz is synonymous with the Holocaust, but it’s also a place on the map with a surprising history preceding World War II. Narrated by Meryl Streep, this short documentary tells the story of Auschwitz, from its construction to its infamy.

Hair Piece: A Film for Nappy Headed People

An animated satire on the question of self-image for African American women living in a society where beautiful hair is viewed as hair that blows in the wind and lets you be free. Lively tunes and witty narration accompany a quick-paced inventory of relaxers, gels, and curlers. This short film has become essential for discussions of racism, African American cinema, and empowerment.

Vampir Cuadecuc

An atmospheric essay, which is an alternative version of Count Dracula, a film directed by Jess Franco in 1970; a ghostly narration between fiction and reality.