One Continuous Take: Kay Mander's Life in Film (2001)

Mr. X

The image of a mysterious, solitary filmmaker - a cineaste maudit - who flees from both the media and the public, is unrelentingly bound to the figure of Leos Carax, in France. Elsewhere, the real focus is on his films and he is considered to be an icon of world cinema. Mr.X dives into the poetic and visionary world of an artist who was already a cult figure from his very first film. Punctuated by interviews and unseen footage, this documentary is most of all a fine-tuned exploration of the poetic and visionary world of Leos Carax, alias "Mr.X".

The Kingdom of Dreams and Madness

Follows the behind-the-scenes work of Studio Ghibli, focusing on the notable figures Hayao Miyazaki, Isao Takahata, and Toshio Suzuki.

Dixie Chicks: Shut Up and Sing

Shut Up and Sing is a documentary about the country band from Texas called the Dixie Chicks and how one tiny comment against President Bush dropped their number one hit off the charts and caused fans to hate them, destroy their CD’s, and protest at their concerts. A film about freedom of speech gone out of control and the three girls lives that were forever changed by a small anti-Bush comment

Dig!

A documentary on the once promising American rock bands The Brian Jonestown Massacre and The Dandy Warhols. The friendship between respective founders, Anton Newcombe and Courtney Taylor, escalated into bitter rivalry as the Dandy Warhols garnered major international success while the Brian Jonestown Massacre imploded in a haze of drugs.

In the Realms of the Unreal

In the Realms of the Unreal is a documentary about the reclusive Chicago-based artist Henry Darger. Henry Darger was so reclusive that when he died his neighbors were surprised to find a 15,145-page manuscript along with hundreds of paintings depicting The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What is Known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glodeco-Angelinnian War Storm, Cased by the Child Slave Rebellion.

The World's Most Famous Train

During its nine-month-long season, the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express makes over 60 journeys, covering 150,000 kilometres, with the majority of trips between London and Venice. The train is comprised of 17 unique 1920s carriages that have transported a host of elite individuals across Italy, Switzerland, and Turkey for more than a century. This documentary follows the stories of the staff and passengers as the train makes its way across Europe, with some customers having paid more than £2,000 for the privilege.

Olympia: Part One – Festival of the Nations

Commissioned to make a propaganda film about the 1936 Olympic Games in Germany, director Leni Riefenstahl created a celebration of the human form. This first half of her two-part film opens with a renowned introduction that compares modern Olympians to classical Greek heroes, then goes on to provide thrilling in-the-moment coverage of some of the games' most celebrated moments, including African-American athlete Jesse Owens winning a then-unprecedented four gold medals.

Olympia: Part Two – Festival of Beauty

Commissioned to make a propaganda film about the 1936 Olympic Games in Germany, director Leni Riefenstahl created a celebration of the human form. Where the two-part epic's first half, Festival of the Nations, focused on the international aspects of the 1936 Olympic Games held in Berlin, part two, The Festival of Beauty, concentrates on individual athletes such as equestrians, gymnasts, and swimmers, climaxing with American Glenn Morris' performance in the decathalon and the games' majestic closing ceremonies.

Hotel Nueva Isla

In the early twentieth century, the Hotel Nueva Isla was an emblematic luxury hotel. After the Cuban Revolution, it was confiscated by the State and became a shelter for homeless people. Located in Old Havana, today it is an imposing ruin. Jorge de los Rios, a retired clerk, is one of the few residents who remain there, along with La Flaca, his lover, and Waldo, a young itinerant. As the rest leave for safer places, Jorge clings to his dilapidated home and its buried treasures, slowly digging his way through its debris. The film speaks poignantly to a lost generation who fought in the Cuban Revolution and dreamed of a better society.

The Coca-Cola Case

Two lawyers and labor rights' activists, Daniel Kovalik of the United Steel Workers of America and Terry Collingsworth of the International Rights Advocates, and their partner Ray Rogers of Corporate Campaign firmly believe that US multinational corporations should be held accountable for the shabby practices of their business associates throughout the world. To lead their battle, they resort to a law dating back to the origin of the American Constitution - The Alien Tort Claims Act - which allows foreigners to file suit in the U.S. against Americans who violate international laws. The film tells the story of their fight against one of America's stellar icons: the Coca-Cola company.

Julia Sweeney - Letting Go of God

Julia Sweeney's third autobiographical monologue, Letting Go of God takes the audience through her Catholic upbringing and how personal events in her life and that of her family led her to a disbelief in a personal universal deity.

Deep Water: The Real Story

In the 1980s and 1990s a wave of murders bloodied the idyllic coastline of Sydney’s eastern suburbs. The victims: young gay men. Disturbing gang assaults were being carried out on coastal cliffs around Sydney, and mysterious deaths officially recorded as "suicide", "disappearance" and "misadventure". Individual stories are woven together by first person interviews and detailed re-enactments, piecing together the facts of these unsolved cases, decades later.

Advanced Style

Advanced Style examines the lives of seven unique New Yorkers whose eclectic personal style and vital spirit have guided their approach to aging. Based on Ari Seth Cohen’s famed blog of the same name, this film paints intimate and colorful portraits of independent, stylish women aged 62 to 95 who are challenging conventional ideas about beauty, aging, and Western’s culture’s increasing obsession with youth.

School of Babel

They just arrived in France. They are Irish, Serbs, Brazilians Tunisians, Chinese and Senegalese ... For a year, Julie Bertuccelli filmed talks, conflicts and joys of this group of students aged 11 to 15 years, together in the same class to learn French.

Here to Climb

Follow professional climber Sasha DiGiulian as she rises from child prodigy to a champion sport climber, and ultimately makes her mark by taking her talents to the biggest walls on the planet with a series of bold, first female ascents. Confronting both physical and mental obstacles head on, Sasha charts her own course in a sport where a path didn’t exist, enabling her passion to become a viable profession.

Prater

Vienna’s Prater is an amusement park and a desire machine. No mechanical invention, no novel idea or sensational innovation could escape incorporation into the Prater. The diverse story-telling in Ulrike Ottinger’s film “Prater” transforms this place of sensations into a modern cinema of attractions. The Prater’s history from the beginning to the present is told by its protagonists and those who have documented it, including contemporary cinematic images of the Prater, interviews with carnies, commentary by Austrians and visitors from abroad, film quotes, and photographic and written documentary materials. The meaning of the Prater, its status as a place of technological innovation, and its role as a cultural medium are reflected in texts by Elfriede Jelinek, Josef von Sternberg, Erich Kästner and Elias Canetti, as well as in music devoted to this amusement venue throughout the course of its history.

What the #$*! Do We (K)now!?

Amanda is a divorced woman who makes a living as a photographer. During the Fall of the year Amanda begins to see the world in new and different ways when she begins to question her role in life, her relationships with her career and men and what it all means. As the layers to her everyday experiences fall away insertions in the story with scientists, and philosophers and religious leaders impart information directly to an off-screen interviewer about academic issues, and Amanda begins to understand the basis to the quantum world beneath. During her epiphany as she considers the Great Questions raised by the host of inserted thinkers, she slowly comprehends the various inspirations and begins to see the world in a new way.

Bob Marley: The Making of a Legend

Based on footage shot in the early seventies and lost for more than thirty years, we see and hear the young Bob Marley before he was famous. The film shows us the Wailers' first rehearsal, when the idea of a Jamaican supergroup was still just a dream. Sit in as the albums of Bob Marley and the Wailers brought reggae music and Rasta consciousness to the world, starting a revolution that would change rock music and contemporary culture.

Ulysse

At the sea shore, a goat, a child, and a naked man. This is a photograph taken in 1954 by Agnès Varda. The goat was dead, the child was named Ulysses, and the man was naked. Starting from this frozen image, the film explores the real and the imaginary.

The 11th Hour

A look at the state of the global environment including visionary and practical solutions for restoring the planet's ecosystems. Featuring ongoing dialogues of experts from all over the world, including former Soviet Prime Minister Mikhail Gorbachev, renowned scientist Stephen Hawking, former head of the CIA R. James Woolse

The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks

Beyond her historic role in the Montgomery Bus Boycott, this comprehensive dive into Civil Rights icon Rosa Parks sheds light on her extensive organizing, radical politics, and lifelong dedication to activism.

The Occupation of the American Mind

Over the past few years, Israel's ongoing military occupation of Palestinian territory and repeated invasions of the Gaza strip have triggered a fierce backlash against Israeli policies virtually everywhere in the world—except the United States. This documentary takes an eye-opening look at this critical exception, zeroing in on pro-Israel public relations efforts within the U.S.

The Corporation

Since the late 18th century American legal decision that the business corporation organizational model is legally a person, it has become a dominant economic, political and social force around the globe. This film takes an in-depth psychological examination of the organization model through various case studies. What the study illustrates is that in the its behaviour, this type of "person" typically acts like a dangerously destructive psychopath without conscience. Furthermore, we see the profound threat this psychopath has for our world and our future, but also how the people with courage, intelligence and determination can do to stop it.

I'm Going to Santiago

This black-and-white film is a loving portrait of Santiago de Cuba and its people. It provides a view of Cuba as a picturesque country, the product of an earthy mix of black and criollo cultures. The film uses historical images which portray the end of the eighteenth century when Haitian slave owners fled with their slaves to Cuba after the Haitian Revolution.

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.

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.

She's Beautiful When She's Angry

A documentary that resurrects the buried history of the outrageous, often brilliant women who founded the modern women's movement from 1966 to 1971.

Trouble the Water

"Trouble the Water" takes you inside Hurricane Katrina in a way never before seen on screen. The film opens the day before the storm makes landfall--just blocks away from the French Quarter but far from the New Orleans that most tourists knew. Kimberly Rivers Roberts, an aspiring rap artist, is turning her new video camera on herself and her Ninth Ward neighbors trapped in the city. Weaving an insider's view of Katrina with a mix of verité and in-your-face filmmaking, it is a redemptive tale of self-described street hustlers who become heroes--two unforgettable people who survive the storm and then seize a chance for a new beginning.

I Am Evidence

The modern criminal justice system is hindered by the fact that countless rape kits remain untested in police evidence storage facilities across the United States. Only eight states currently have laws requiring mandatory testing of rape kits.

The World According to Monsanto

Monsanto is the world leader in genetically modified organisms (GMOs), as well as one of the most controversial corporations in industrial history. This century-old empire has created some of the most toxic products ever sold, including polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and the herbicide Agent Orange. Based on a painstaking investigation, The World According to Monsanto puts together the pieces of the company’s history, calling on hitherto unpublished documents and numerous first-hand accounts.

Monk with a Camera

Nicholas Vreeland walked away from a worldly life of privilege to become a Tibetan Buddhist monk. Grandson of legendary Vogue editor Diana Vreeland and apprentice of photographer Irving Penn, Nicholas' life changed drastically upon meeting one of the Dalai Lama's teachers. Soon thereafter, he gave up his glamorous life to live in a monastery in India, ultimately returning to his roots in photography to help his fellow monks rebuild their monastery.

Riotsville, USA

An archival documentary about the U.S. military’s response to the political and racial injustices of the late 1960s: take a military base, build a mock inner-city set, cast soldiers to play rioters, burn the place down, and film it all.

Remembering the Artist: Robert De Niro, Sr.

Robert De Niro, Sr., was a celebrated painter obscured by the pop-art movement. His life and career are chronicled in the artist's own words by his contemporaries and, movingly, by his son, the actor Robert De Niro.

Town Bloody Hall

Norman Mailer and a panel of feminists — Jacqueline Ceballos, Germaine Greer, Jill Johnston, and Diana Trilling — debate the issue of Women's Liberation.

Who's Afraid of the Bogeyman

Portrait of a private coal company in East Berlin's Prenzlauer Berg district in 1988/89. The feisty woman boss runs the business with humour and understanding. Her seven male employees respect her. To the outside world, they are all tough guys, but as they describe their jobs and personal situations, above and beyond the hard manual labour, their vulnerability starts to come to light.

Jimi Plays Monterey

Jimi Hendrix's debut American set at 1967's Monterey Pop Festival is generally considered one of the most radical and legendary live shows ever. Virtually unknown to American audiences at the time, even though he was already an established entity in the UK, Hendrix and his two-piece Experience explode on stage, ripping through blues classics "Rock Me Baby" and Howlin' Wolf's "Killing Floor," interpreting and electrifying Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone," debuting songs from his yet-to-be-released first album and closing with the now historic sacrificing/burning of his guitar during an unhinged version of "Wild Thing" that even its writer Chip Taylor would never have imagined. Hendrix uses feedback and distortion to enhance the songs in whisper-to-scream intensity, blazing territory that had not been previously explored with as much soul-frazzled power.