Self-defense (2021)

Moments choisis des Histoire(s) du cinéma

A very personal look at the history of cinema directed, written and edited by Jean-Luc Godard in his Swiss residence in Rolle for ten years (1988-98); a monumental collage, constructed from film fragments, texts and quotations, photos and paintings, music and sound, and diverse readings; a critical, beautiful and melancholic vision of cinematographic art. (Abridged version of the original collection of eight short films).

By the Lake

Bokanowski returns to the complex - and mind-bending - optical array of pinholes, mirrors, prisms, and refractive substrates of his earlier film, La Plage to create the whimsical and playful Au bord du lac. The film is composed of mundane, everyday scenes of recreation and leisure on an idyllic, sunny day at a park that overlooks a lake - rowing a boat, playing a game of volleyball, rollerskating, bicycling, reading a newspaper, sunbathing, riding on horseback, or strolling on the promenade - shot through optical distortions to create fractured and knotted images that resemble embellished, gothic fairytale illustrations or appear to resolve into morphing, geometric patterns of fluid motion. Evoking the vibrant colors and sun-soaked palette of an invigorated Vincent van Gogh in Arles, Bokanowski transforms the quotidian into an infinitely mesmerizing dynamic kaleidoscope of shape-shifting textures and self-reconstituting objects of organic, abstract art.

The Role of Chance

"The Role of Chance" ("La part du hasard") focuses exclusively on drawing and painting techniques used by the painter Henri Dimier. Shot over several weeks in the same artist's studio, the film shows works in their different phases, processes rarely explained or little known. It also addresses many practical issues (choice of paper, pigment grinding, reports drawings, put the tiles, cliches, etc) as well as broader questions of method and inspiration (use of space, the role of contours, power of suggestion perspectives, use of random processes). Patrick Bokanowski sought with this film to restore the spirit of this teaching, showing how to bend a note or sometimes revealing an essential mystery of creation.

Reflections of Nature

Reflections of Nature is an experimental short film, touching on the relationship man has with mother nature, and how they coexist in this ever changing modern world.

Flammes

Memories split in the space.

The Angel

The climbing of an immense staircase made up of the most varied stairs- Symbolic scenes occur on different levels where characters seem to be prisoners of their deeds and of their own folly. The steep staircase leads little by little towards the zones of great light where human beings and nonhuman beings meet.

The Woman Who Powders Herself

A study of human anxieties about beauty, youth and objectification.

The Beach

Reworked and colored images of people playing at the seashore.

The Achalunés

Organic forms are beating and resorbing, reflections dance to the rhythm of Henk BADINGS 'music, circles of light flash like disturbing eyes, perpetual metamorphoses evoke a great living and throbbing organism.

Une visite au musée

Plot unavailable

Le Canard à l'orange

A housewife is preparing a duck à l'orange in her kitchen. But the reluctant bird tries to escape from her but the woman manages to recaptures it and plucks it savagely. Once the duck is put in the oven, an alligator unexpectedly appears in the kitchen, threatening the cook.

Un rêve

Experimental film by Patrick Bokanowski.

A Solar Dream

Behold the struggle between light and dark, the two principles that are at the very heart of the cinematic deed. A Solar Dream takes the seventh art’s ability to generate imaginary and phantasmagorical worlds to the limit, multiplied here by Michèle Bokanowski’s enveloping music. A precious plastic and sonic gem.

L'indomptable

2018 short film by Patrick Bokanowski

Breakfast

Relentlessly reworking ‘real’ images, using techniques borrowed from painting and animated film, Patrick Bokanowski is an author of stature, capable of creating an insane and cataclysmic universe of unquestionable beauty.

Soar

Choreography of an imaginary journey.

Janapada

Rudra has come back one morning, has return to his friend Saruar's home. He had disappeared from home leaving no cue, a year ago. Saruar first came to know about Rudra's disappearance in Rudra's mother's call. Then he had gone to Rudra's home and saw how his agitated parents and elder brother were tracing out reasons of his desertion. Rudra do not answer any of these questions of Saruar now. He become immutable and eloquent. He only replies that he is tired and cinema experience Rudra's exhaustion from this world's journey in a non-narrative way. Rudra's consciousness become aware of a bigger crisis. Rudra just express interest to go to sleep for a while.

The Sacred Laptop

A man named Cukik trapped in a paradoxical dream about the man he is watching on his laptop. This madness was contagious even to the mysterious man in his dreams.

The Dream Machine

A woman experiments with a Dreamachine, hoping to escape trouble. Within the light and dark of the machine, violent emotions awaken.

Aniquilação

An experiment on language and its inability to contain reality, "Aniquilação" is a collage made with sounds, images and words. From a continuous pulse, noises and sound traces form a cadence that merges with landscapes and details of a world full of things, colors, phenomena and creatures. The language is represented by scraps of word-search magazines, of which words, crosswords and riddles insist on defining and conceptualizing the things, sounds and images, which creates a gradual saturation that leads to the complete abstraction of everything. Concept, images and editing by Xavier Braun, soundtrack and sound design by Victor Rodrigues – as QORPO. Brasil, 2021

Vers Syracuse

Dreamlike sea bathing and horse rides. Colors take the plunge, the horizon blazes, breaking waves pound endlessly. A strange journey through depths of sound and vision.

Solar Beats

Walking towards the fire. In a ceaseless stream of light, people, landscapes and objects lead us to mysterious regions. French filmmaker Patrick Bokanowski’s work is hard to classify - and all the richer for it. Together with his wife Michèle, whose musique concrète compositions form the basis of the sound design, Bokanowski offers a prolonged, dense and visually visceral experience of the kind that is rare in cinema today. Difficult to define and locate, its strangeness is quite unique.

Hum Drum

A painter in his studio: his pencils, brushes, tubes, table, easel and drawings set themselves in motion in an explosion of colors and flashes of light.

Living In a Daydream

A film about a person who is remembering the outside world when he is trapped in restrictions during the covid-19 outbreak.

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.

Palm Sugar Milk Coffee

In the last 1 year (2023-2024) the street coffee hangout culture in the city of Yogyakarta developed very quickly. Firman shaleh is one of the people who has a big influence in the development of the hangout culture, he opened one of the first street coffee in the kotabaru area and paved the way for other street coffee to open. Despite experiencing various obstacles, Firman and the periphery continue to inspire and impact various street coffee cultures in the city of Yogyakarta.

The Crazy Che

The incredible story of Bill Gaede, an Argentinian engineer, programmer… and Cold War spy.

Norrmalmstorgsdramat inifrån

"The Norrmalmstorgs drama from the inside" - For more than 30 years, the bank-robber Janne Olsson refused to talk about the noted bank-robbery at Norrmalmstorg, Stockholm, in 1973. This is the first interview with Olsson.

The Gap Year Paedophile

Reporter Bronagh Munro investigates how a teenage gap year student became one of Britain’s worst ever paedophiles.

Love, Cecil

A documentary about Academy Award-winning costume designer Cecil Beaton. A respected photographer, artist, and set designer, Beaton was best known for designing on award-winning films such as 'Gigi' (1958) and 'My Fair Lady' (1964). The film features archive footage and interviews with a number of models, artists, and filmmakers who worked closely with Beaton during his illustrious career.

Demi Lovato: Simply Complicated

A personal and intimate look into Demi Lovato's life as not only a regular 25 year old, but also one of the biggest pop stars in the world.

The Quest

Mike Fleiss, the producer of such reality television shows as The Bachelor and The Bachelorette, makes his feature film debut with The Quest, a reality-film that follows seven Colorado college students as they travel south of the border to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, for a week of spring-break debauchery. The title refers to the various sexual conquests of the young men as they immerse themselves in alcohol and bikini-clad women for seven days.

BLACKPINK: The Movie

In honor of their 5th anniversary, the immensely popular Korean girl group ‘BLACKPINK’ is releasing a worldwide theatrical event to their fans. It features never-before-seen footage and interviews, as well as clips from their shows to give the audience a unique concert-like experience.

Infinite Place

Loitz is one of those former GDR towns that still suffer from the effects of German reunification. For a year "Infinite Place" looks behind the gray facade of the seemingly dying town and questions concepts of home and identity through the perspective of its old and new inhabitants. The town’s vacancy and people’s urge for self-realization create a fruitful look into the future.

Shocking Schiaparelli!

Thierry Mugler, Vivienne Westwood, Alexander McQueen… The elite world of high fashion loves a crazy rule breaker. But the biggest, most bad-ass trend setter was Elsa Schiaparelli. Brilliant, free-spirited, irreverent, and fiery rival of Coco Chanel, Schiaparelli’s friends and creative collaborators included the surrealists Salvador Dali, Man Ray, Elsa Triolet and Jean Cocteau. Now for the first time, discover how history’s most radical fashion designer was forgotten despite trailblazing the path for countless designers around the world, and leaving behind an out-sized influence that lives on to this day.

The Silk Flower

The word “Manshin” refers to a shaman who are considered an intermediary between gods and humans. Kim Keum-hwa, Korea’s most famous shaman, is also a world-renowned Korean traditional dancer and a religious figure respected by the Vatican. The documentary tells the story of her fascinating life journey from a girl forced to take a job she never asked for to becoming a living national treasure.

Drop Everything

Matchstick Productions – the powerhouse that brought you award-winning classics like CLAIM, THE WAY I SEE IT, and DAYS OF MY YOUTH – is proud to introduce the funniest, most action-packed ski movie of 2017: DROP EVERYTHING, presented by Under Armour. Following an artful, narrative-driven 2016 film release, the team at Matchstick took a decidedly more lighthearted approach that returns the focus to the featured athletes and world-class action. DROP EVERYTHING features the world’s preeminent freeskiers along with quick-hitting comedy, stunning locations, a potent soundtrack, and stellar cinematography. DROP EVERYTHING is an unexpected, fun-filled adventure through the world of freeskiing – join Matchstick Productions for the ride along with Mark Abma, Markus Eder, Eric Hjorleifson, Michelle Parker, Sammy Carlson, Cody Townsend, Elyse Saugstad, Tanner Rainville, Chris Rubens, Aaron Blunck, Sander Hadley, Connery Lundin, and more!

The Gutenberg Enigma

A portrait of the inventor of the letterpress, who was a key figure in the history of mankind, but also an enthusiastic inventor, a daring businessman, a tenacious troublemaker: the life of Johannes Gutenberg (circa 1400-68).

Cinecittà Babilonia: Sex, Drugs and Black Shirts

The story of Italian cinema under Fascism, a sophisticated film industry built around the founding of the Cinecittà studios and the successful birth of a domestic star system, populated by very peculiar artists among whom stood out several beautiful, magnetic, special actresses; a dark story of war, drugs, sex, censorship and tragedy.

Homecoming: The Road to Mullingar

Niall Horan left his hometown of Mullingar at 16 to join one of the biggest boybands of all time. Now, 12 years later, Niall is coming home - and he's bringing his best friend Lewis Capaldi along for the ride. In this exclusive film, the two global superstars embark on an epic Irish road trip before they wrap up their travels with a once in a lifetime gig in Mullingar. Expect standout performances, laugh out loud moments and a whole lot of Irish charm. It's time to see two of the biggest singer songwriters on the planet like you've never seen them before.

It Came from Kuchar

It Came from Kuchar is the definitive, feature documentary about the legendary, underground filmmaking twins, the Kuchar brothers. George and Mike Kuchar have inspired two generations of filmmakers, actors, musicians, and artists with their zany, "no budget" films and with their uniquely enchanting spirits.

Catapult

Norbert Witte, once the king of the only amusement park of the former GDR, today he is behind bars in Germany. When fleeing bankruptcy in Berlin, Norbert Witte and his family secretly shipped their rollercoasters to Peru. Things went wrong here too. In a desperate attempt, Norbert tried to smuggle cocaine to Germany. Three years later his 23 years old son Marcel was sentenced to 20 years in a Peruvian prison. Now the father is doing everything he can in order to free his son.

Visual Acoustics

Visual Acoustics celebrates the life and career of Julius Shulman, the world's greatest architectural photographer, whose images brought modern architecture to the American mainstream. Shulman, who passed away this year, captured the work of nearly every modern and progressive architect since the 1930s including Frank Lloyd Wright, Richard Neutra, John Lautner and Frank Gehry. His images epitomized the singular beauty of Southern California's modernist movement and brought its iconic structures to the attention of the general public. This unique film is both a testament to the evolution of modern architecture and a joyful portrait of the magnetic, whip-smart gentleman who chronicled it with his unforgettable images.