Pretty as a Picture: The Art of David Lynch (1997)
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Documentary about the film maker Luis Bunuel. Surrealist master Luis Bunuel is a towering figure in the world of cinema history, directing such groundbreaking works as Un Chien Andalou, Exterminating Angels, and That Obscure Object of Desire, yet his personal life was clouded in myth and paradox. Though sexually diffident, he frequently worked in the erotic drama genre; though personally quite conservative, his films are florid, flamboyant, and utterly bizarre. This documentary, directed Jose Luis Lopez Linares, tries to illuminate some of these contradictions.
During his work as chief reporter for DDC-TV, a German-speaking television station in the USA, Dennis Mascarenas has met some pretty strange people and gotten into quite a few hairy situations. But when he is asked to make a film about the Germans' relationship to the moon, it is the beginning of the craziest and most unbelievable assignment of his career. 'The Moon Conspiracy' is like a glimpse into Pandora's Box: it takes Dennis and his audience on a surreal journey into hidden universes, only to end up at the frozen bottom of the German soul.
FIG TREES is a documentary opera about AIDS activists Tim McCaskell of Toronto and Zackie Achmat of Capetown as they fight for access to treatment drugs. Documentary interviews, speeches, press conferences and demonstrations are sampled, taken apart, and set to music, replayed this time as operatic scenes. A surreal fictional narrative is intercut with the stories of their struggles against government and the pharmaceutical industry. In this fictional world, Gertrude Stein decides to write a tragic opera about Tim and Zackie and their saint-like heroism. She kidnaps them, transports them to Niagara Falls, and forces them to sing a series of complicated avant-garde vocal compositions. However, when Zackie ends his treatment strike and starts taking his pills, Gertrude realizes that there will be no more tragedy, and thus, no more opera.
Filmed over a decade, Brief Encounters follows internationally renowned photographer Gregory Crewdsons quest to create his unique, surreal, and incredibly elaborate portraits of suburban life. He sets a house on fire, builds 90 foot sets with crews of sixty, shuts down city streets...all in the service of his haunted image of American life, and his own anxieties, dreams and inner desires. Brief Encounters is an intimate portrait of one of the most heralded image-makers of our time.
Hawkwind plays the final Peoples' Free Festival at Stonehenge during the Summer Solstice and this tiny snippet of film is an amazing yet important document of a time when there was still the free spirit of independence and nonconformity. Blasting its audience into deep space with their high-octane space rock and surreal theatrics of it lead-singer, it really is time to buckle your seat belts and take a trip into times' long gone past.
The bizarre story of Elliot "White Lightning" Scott, who plans on becoming Canada's first action hero with his low-budget karate epic, Blood Fight. This surreal documentary captures two years in the lives of a passionate amateur filmmaker, his supportive partner Linda Lum, and their cast and crew of outrageous dreamers - all striving to achieve success.
An urban mystery unfurls as one man pieces together the surreal meaning of hundreds of cryptic tiled messages that have been appearing in city streets across the U.S. and South America.
AMERICAN MOVIE is the story of filmmaker Mark Borchardt, his mission, and his dream. Spanning over two years of intense struggle with his film, his family, financial decline, and spiritual crisis, AMERICAN MOVIE is a portrayal of ambition, obsession, excess, and one man's quest for the American Dream.
This dryly funny mockumentary about the lost work of a pioneering New Zealand film genius is probably one of the best examples of the faux-documentary genre. In fact, it was so successful that when it originally aired on New Zealand television, hundreds of viewers bought the premise hook, line, and sinker. If you didn't know any better yourself, it's entirely possible you might be duped into believing the extremely tall tale of one Colin MacKenzie, an ambitious filmmaker who made the world's first talking movie (years before The Jazz Singer), invented color film, and created a huge biblical epic that would put Cecil B. DeMille and D.W. Griffith to shame. Filmmaker Peter Jackson (Heavenly Creatures) shrewdly inserts himself into the film via his documentation of the "discovery" of McKenzie's lost epic, which for years was preserved in a garden shed.
The War Game is a fictional, worst-case-scenario docudrama about nuclear war and its aftermath in and around a typical English city. Although it won an Oscar for Best Documentary, it is fiction. It was intended as an hour-long program to air on BBC 1, but it was deemed too intense and violent to broadcast. It went to theatrical distribution as a feature film instead. Low-budget and shot on location, it strives for and achieves convincing and unflinching realism.
A chronicle of the production problems â including bad weather, actors' health, war near the filming locations, and more â which plagued the filming of Apocalypse Now, increasing costs and nearly destroying the life and career of Francis Ford Coppola.
A feature length documentary on the acclaimed work and eclectic career of maverick filmmaker Larry Cohen (BLACK CAESAR, GOD TOLD ME TO, Q THE WINGED SERPENT, THE STUFF, PHONE BOOTH)
The eagerly awaited sequel to Patrick Keiller's London and Robinson in Space is a beautifully photographed cinematic essay on our current environmental and economic predicament, narrated by Vanessa Redgrave. Timely, provocative and studded with surreal humour, Robinson in Ruins reveals hidden histories and surprising visions (from the opium poppy fields of Oxfordshire to what seems to be a talking post box), making us consider the world around us afresh.
A 1988 documentary film directed by Alexander Sokurov, about the later life and death of Soviet Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky. The film was originally intended to mark the 50th birthday of Tarkovsky in 1982, which would have been before his death. Controversy with Soviet authorities about the film's style and content led to significant delays in the production.
Unlike the films "World Trade Center" and "United 93", which are dramatizations of the events of September 11, this is an on-the-scene documentary following the events of September 11 from an insider's view, through the lens of two French filmmakers who were in Manhattan on that fateful day. Filmmakers James Hanlon and Jules and Gedeon Naudet were filming a documentary about a rookie New York City firefighter when they noticed a plane fly overhead and hit the World Trade Center. Being with those firefighters who where the first to respond to the tragedy, James Hanlon and the Naudets accompanied them and continued filming from the firemen's perspective. It later became known that their presence allowed them to capture the only known footage of the first plane strike, and from inside the Twin Towers.
In this crazy, chaotic gospel of chance, aspiring filmmakers Chris Stamp and Kit Lambert set out to search for a subject for their underground movie, leading them to discover, mentor, and manage the iconic band known as The Who and create rock 'n' roll history.
In this biographical drama, Selena Quintanilla is born into a musical Mexican-American family in Texas. Her father, Abraham, realizes that his young daughter is talented and begins performing with her at small venues. She finds success and falls for her guitarist, Chris Perez, who draws the ire of her father. Seeking mainstream stardom, Selena begins recording an English-language album which, tragically, she would never complete.
Since the invention of cinema, the standard format for recording moving images has been film. Over the past two decades, a new form of digital filmmaking has emerged, creating a groundbreaking evolution in the medium. Keanu Reeves explores the development of cinema and the impact of digital filmmaking via in-depth interviews with Hollywood masters, such as James Cameron, David Fincher, David Lynch, Christopher Nolan, Martin Scorsese, George Lucas, Steven Soderbergh, and many more.
Biography of the legendary filmmaker directed by his son.
"Touring makes you crazy," Frank Zappa says, explaining that the idea for this film came to him while the Mothers of Invention were touring. The story, interspersed with performances by the Mothers and the Royal Symphony Orchestra, is a tale of life on the road. The band members' main concerns are the search for groupies and the desire to get paid.
Documentary about the life of avant-garde filmmaker Maya Deren, who led the independent film movement of the 1940s.
Biographical documentary of Lee Miller (aka Elizabeth Miller, 1907-1977), her early years in USA under her father's influence, later became a model turned artist and celebrated photographer, including her photojournalism during WWII, and her second marriage to British surrealism painter Roland Penrose postwar. Film is told through interviews with Miller's son, Antony Penrose.
Take a trip back to a time when New York City wasn't all glitz and glamour as filmmaker Celine Danhier offers a look at the birth of "No Wave Cinema" and the vibrant art scene that exploded out of the East Village in the late '70s. In the years before Ronald Reagan took office, Manhattan was in ruins. But true art has never come from comfort, and it was precisely those dire circumstances that inspired artists like Jim Jarmusch, Lizzy Borden, and Amos Poe to produce some of their best works. Taking their cues from punk rock and new wave music, these young maverick filmmakers confronted viewers with a stark reality that stood in powerful contrast to the escapist product being churned out by Hollywood. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
A revolutionary film about the cinematic genius of North Korea's late Dear Leader Kim Jung-IL, with a groundbreaking experiment at its heart - a propaganda film, made according to the rules of his 1987 manifesto. Through the shared love of cinema, AIM HIGH IN CREATION! forges an astonishing new bond between the hidden filmmakers of North Korea and their Free World collaborators. Revealing an unexpected truth about the most isolated nation on earth: filmmakers, no matter where they live, are family.
From the explorers / filmmakers of Amazon Trek and Whales of Atlantis Join two men on their expeditions to new frontiers, from the Abyss to Outer Space... Explorers takes off from the compelling visions imagined by one of the worlds most widely read novelists, pioneer science-fiction writer Jules Verne, author of 20,000 Leagues under the Sea and From the Earth to the Moon. Discover the unbelievable journeys of two legendary explorers: Buzz Aldrin, who, along with Neil Armstrong, became the first men to set foot on the Moon during the Apollo 11 Mission; and James Cameron, multiple Academy Award winning filmmaker, who since completing his epic movie Titanic, has undertaken the exploration of the oceans mysteries utilizing revolutionary submarines and 3D cameras of his own design. Jean-Jules Verne opens his great-grandfathers novels and sends us on our journey with two men who actualize the fantastic dreams of Jules Verne.
American: The Bill Hicks Story is a biographical documentary film on the life of comedian Bill Hicks. The film was produced by Matt Harlock and Paul Thomas, and features archival footage and interviews with family and friends, including Kevin Booth. The filmmakers used a cut-and-paste animation technique to add movement to a large collection of still pictures used to document events in Hicks' life. The film made its North American premiere at the 2010 South by Southwest Film Festival. The film was nominated for a 2010 Grierson British Documentary Award for the "Most Entertaining Documentary" category. It was also nominated for Best Graphics and Animation category in the 2011 Cinema Eye Awards. Awards won include The Dallas Film Festivals Texas Filmmaker Award, at Little Rock The Oxford American's Best Southern Film Award, and Best Documentary at the Downtown LA Film Festival. On Rotten Tomatoes, 81% of the first 47 reviews counted were rated positive.
Who is Jean Rollin? A man who has spent his childhood in the middle of some of the greatest intellectuals of the twentieth century. An artist who has worked with Maguerite Duras for his first film. A director's career singular and unique in French cinema, with films overtly fantastic, surreal, poetic - disconcerting. A filmmaker has always murdered by the critics but starting, finally, to enjoy some recognition in France, while many fans worship him already in Europe and the United States. Jean Rollin signs a marginal and unknown work marked by death and nostalgia, and whose main obsession is the time, that of the wandering and dreams. Jean Rollin died in December 2010 at the age of 72. This documentary is the portrait of a real artist, the last surrealist, a poet who created his very own dreamworld. A tribute for a unique director, with testimonials from his closest collaborators.
Hugo Chavez, Elected president of Venezuela in 1998, is a colorful, unpredictable folk hero, beloved by his nationâs working class â and a tough-as-nails, quixotic opponent to the power structure that would see him deposed. Two independent filmmakers were inside the presidential palace on April 11, 2002, when he was forcibly removed from office.
SEDUCED AND ABANDONED combines acting legend Alec Baldwin with director James Toback as they lead us on a troublesome and often hilarious journey of raising financing for their next feature film. Moving from director to financier to star actor, the two players provide us with a unique look behind the curtain at the world's biggest and most glamourous film festival, shining a light on the bitter-sweet relationship filmmakers have with Cannes and the film business. Featuring insights from directors Martin Scorsese, 'Bernando Bertolucci' and Roman Polanski; actors Ryan Gosling and Jessica Chastain and a host of film distribution luminaries.
Two filmmakers try to create a film venturing on the life of Jose Rizal. Before they do that, they try to investigate on the heroism of the Philippine national hero. Of particular focus is his supposed retraction of his views against the Roman Catholic Church during the Spanish regime in the Philippines which he expressed primarily through his two novels Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo. The investigation was done mainly by "interviewing" key individuals in the life of Rizal such as his mother Teodora Alonso, his siblings Paciano, Trinidad, and Narcisa, his love interest and supposed wife Josephine Bracken, and the Jesuit priest who supposedly witnessed Rizal's retraction, Fr. Balaguer. Eventually, the two filmmakers would end up "interviewing" Rizal himself to get to the bottom of the issue.
An intimate conversation between filmmakers, chronicling De Palmaâs 55-year career, his life, and his filmmaking process, with revealing anecdotes and, of course, a wealth of film clips.
With Taiwan remaining in the grip of martial law in 1982, a group of filmmakers from that country set out to establish a cultural identity through cinema and to share it with the world. This engaging documentary looks at the movement's legacy.
Isabella Rossellini, Kyle MacLachlan, Dennis Hopper, Laura Dern and producer Fred Caruso are all interviewed for this 68-minute documentary that takes a look at David Lynch's Blue Velvet
From Bedrooms to Billions is a 2014 documentary film by British filmmakers Anthony Caulfield and Nicola Caulfield that tells the story of the British video games industry from 1979 to the present day. The film focuses on how the creativity and vision of a relatively small number of individuals allowed the UK to play a key, pioneering role in the shaping of the billion dollar video games industry which today dominates the modern world's entertainment landscape. The film features interviews with major British game designers, journalists and musicians from across the last 30 years.
Filmmakers investigate 2001 anthrax attacks and uncover a nightmare world.
The story of a race against time to help preserve the untouched forests of Burma and its wildlife. For the first time in over 50 years, a team of wildlife filmmakers from the BBC's Natural History Unit and scientists from the world renowned Smithsonian Institution has been granted access to venture deep into Burma's impenetrable jungles. Their mission is to discover whether these forests are home to iconic animals, rapidly disappearing from the rest of the world.
This fiction-documentary hybrid uses a sensational real-life eventâthe arrest of a young man on charges that he fraudulently impersonated the well-known filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbafâas the basis for a stunning, multilayered investigation into movies, identity, artistic creation, and existence, in which the real people from the case play themselves.
Juan âAccidentesâ Dominguez is on his biggest case ever. On behalf of twelve Nicaraguan banana workers he is tackling Dole Food in a ground-breaking legal battle for their use of a banned pesticide that was known by the company to cause sterility. Can he beat the giant, or will the corporation get away with it? In the suspenseful documentary BANANAS!*, filmmaker Fredrik Gertten sheds new light on the global politics of food.
Footage shot by a group of Swedish journalists documenting the Black Power Movement in the United States is edited together by a contemporary Swedish filmmaker.
Part drama, part documentary, The Road to Guantánamo focuses on the Tipton Three, a trio of British Muslims who were held in Guantanamo Bay for two years until they were released without charge.
Billy Yeager produces films, has written and recorded over 2400 songs and has been discovered many times by several well known artist. Turning his back on the music and film industry, Yeager retreats into the Mojave Desert to make his films and create his music. Collectors from all over the world search for the lost recordings of Billy Yeager. He threw away over 1400 recorded songs in 2001 and now his record albums, handmade CDs and cassette tapes sell for some of the highest prices listed on "on-line auctions". The extremely rare "Jaco Pastorius / Billy Yeager" recordings are also highly sought after, but if it can't change the world, the artist wants no part of it. Yeager is not interested in money and fame; the filmmakers find him in the desert.
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.
In the Name of the People is a 1985 documentary film directed by Frank Christopher about the Salvadoran Civil War. The film follows four filmmakers who secretly entered El Salvador, marched with guerrillas across the country, and followed them into combat against government forces in San Salvador. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.
In 1955, Tobias Schneebaum disappeared into the depths of the Peruvian Amazon. He had no guide, no map, and only the vaguest of instructions: Keep the river on your right. A year later Schneebaum emerged from the jungleâ¦naked, covered in body paint, and a modern-day cannibal. Titled after Schneebaumâs 1969 cult classic memoir about his formative experiences living in the Amazon, Keep The River On Your Right is the extraordinary stranger-than-fiction story of Schneebaumâs return to the jungle, 45 years after his original visit, to reunite with the very tribesmen he loved and who gave him nightmares for nearly half a century. A deeply affecting and searing portrait, sibling filmmakers Laurie and David Shapiro capture a man in utter conflict, a fearless adventurer, and one of the most charming, enigmatic, and perplexing men ever captured on screen.
At the instigation of the filmmakers, the young men of the Ile-aux-Coudres in the middle of the St-Lawrence River try as a memorial to their ancestors to revive the fishing of the belugas interrupted in 1924.
In 2005, a small group of scientists and filmmakers agreed to leave everything behind for more than a year to sail to the Antarctic and live in isolation. Following in the path of the greatest explorers, expedition leader Jean Lemire and the crew of the Sedna IV dedicated themselves completely to measuring the threat posed by global warming in a place where Earth is particularly vulnerable. The resulting film, is a record of their incredible 430-day journey that inspires equal measures of fear and admiration. Alternating between captivating images of beauty and serenity, and spine-tingling sequences where the ship's crew finds itself on the edge of catastrophe, this is an expedition where danger and wonder are inextricably linked.
In 1999, filmmakers Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson turned the camera on themselves and began filming their five-year-old son, Idris, and his best friend, Seun, as they started kindergarten at the prestigious Dalton School just as the private institution was committing to diversify its student body. Their cameras continued to follow both families for another 12 years as the paths of the two boys divergedâone continued private school while the other pursued a very different route through the public education system.
This documentary depicts the filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky talking about his life, his loves, his career as a filmmaker, graphic novelist, and workshop leader, and his eccentricities including tarot reader and theatrical director during The Panic Movement. Directed by Louis Mouchet, La Constellation Jodorowsky includes a lengthy on-camera interview with Jodorowsky in Spanish with subtitles. Marcel Marceau, Fernando Arrabal, Peter Gabriel, Jean "Moebius" Giraud, and Jean Pierre Vignau make appearances discussing their various projects with the director. In addition to the interview and film clips, Mouchet features some bizarre footage from Jodorowskyâs absurdist plays in which topless women splattered with paint writhe around the stage in a theatrical production meant to represent The Panic Movement, i.e., an artistic expression in which reason cannot fully express the human experience.
A girl haunted by traumatic events takes us on a mesmerising journey through 100 years of horror cinema to explore how filmmakers scare us â and why we let them.
A documentary detailing the making of the cult favorite movie "Plan 9 From Outer Space," and interviews with cast members and prominent filmmakers about the film and its creator, Edward D. Wood Jr.
Using original interviews with director John Carpenter, stars Jamie Lee Curtis and P.J. Soles, and crew members, Halloween: A Cut Above The Rest unveils the production of the horror classic and how the ingenuity of Carpenter and his team, coupled with the shoestring budget of $325,000, drove the filmmakers to create one of the most influential horror films of all time.
In a place where killers are celebrated as heroes, these filmmakers challenge unrepentant death-squad leaders to dramatize their role in genocide. The result is a surreal, cinematic journey, not only into the memories and imaginations of mass murderers, but also into a frighteningly banal regime of corruption and impunity.
How do you reconcile a commitment to non-violence when faced with violence? Why do the poor often seem happier than the rich? Must a society lose its traditions in order to move into the future? These are some of the questions posed to His Holiness the Dalai Lama by filmmaker and explorer Rick Ray. Ray examines some of the fundamental questions of our time by weaving together observations from his own journeys throughout India and the Middle East, and the wisdom of an extraordinary spiritual leader. This is his story, as told and filmed by Rick Ray during a private visit to his monastery in Dharamsala, India over the course of several months. Also included is rare historical footage as well as footage supplied by individuals who at great personal risk, filmed with hidden cameras within Tibet.
Political commentator, author and filmmaker Dinesh D'Souza puts forth the notion that America's history is being replaced by another version in which plunder and exploitation are the defining characteristics. D'Souza also posits that the way the country understands the past will determine the future. Using historic re-enactments, D'Souza explores the lives and sacrifices of some of America's greatest heroes, including George Washington and Frederick Douglass.
Texas filmmaker Kevin Booth delves into a world of deceit and corruption controlled by a drug dealing government who's only allegiance is to its corporate masters.
A filmmaker trying to memorialize his murdered friend discovers that the woman who killed him was pregnant with his late friend's son.
Beat Takeshi lives the busy and sometimes surreal life of a showbiz celebrity. One day he meets his blond lookalike named Kitano, a shy convenience store cashier, who, still an unknown actor, is waiting for his big break. After their paths cross, Kitano seems to begin hallucinating about becoming Beat.
Disheartened when his story about Canadian snipers possibly mutilating corpses in Afghanistan is buried, Luke (Nick Stahl) quits his job but is even more determined to return to Afghanistan to get the real story. With his offbeat buddy, Tom (Nicolas Wright), tagging along, Luke returns to Afghanistan and intends to gather enough evidence to get his old story into print. But he soon finds that the country is an even more dangerous place than when he left. To make matters worse, his old friend and fixer, Mateen (Stephen Lobo) has been hired away by Luke's journalistic nemesis, Imran Sahar (Vik Sahay). Soon the trip for Luke and Tom in Afghanistan turns into a surreal and perilous adventure, a journey into an alternate reality, filtered through a haze of gun smoke.
A ten year old boy gets tired of life with abusive parents and cashes in his piggy bank and steals a Mustang. He rides off into a surreal America playing "Motorama," a game sponsored by Chimera Gas Company. He has various encounters with different people, and eventually reaches the Chimera Gas Company where he finds they are not playing by the rules of the game.
In Jan NÄmecâs surreal fable, a picnic is rudely transformed into a lesson in political hierarchy when a handful of mysterious authority figures show up. This allegory about oppression and conformity was banned in its home country but became an international success after it premiered at the New York Film Festival.
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