Today Iranian cinema is one of the most highly regarded national cinemas in the world, regularly winning festival awards and critical acclaim for films which combine remarkable artistry and social relevance. Iran: A Cinematographic Revolution traces the development of this film industry, which has always been closely intertwined with the country's tumultuous political history, from the decades-long reign of Reza Shah Pahlevi and his son, the rise of Khomeini and the birth of the Islamic Republic, the seizure by militants of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, and the devastating war with Iraq.
This documentary recounts the life and work of one of most famous, and yet reviled, German film directors in history, Leni Riefenstahl. The film recounts the rise of her career from a dancer, to a movie actor to the most important film director in Nazi Germany who directed such famous propaganda films as Triumph of the Will and Olympiad. The film also explores her later activities after Nazi Germany's defeat in 1945 and her disgrace for being so associated with it which includes her amazingly active life over the age of 90.
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.
The Real Bruce Lee is a martial arts documentary. It begins with a brief biography of Bruce Lee, and shows scenes from four of his childhood films, Bad Boy, Orphan Sam, Kid Cheung, and The Carnival, each sepia-toned and dubbed to English. Next, there is a three-minute highlight reel of Lee imitator Bruce Li. Finally, there is a feature-length film starring Lee imitator Dragon Lee, which is obviously modeled after Bruce Lee's Fist of Fury.
Yael Hersonski's powerful documentary achieves a remarkable feat through its penetrating look at another film-the now-infamous Nazi-produced film about the Warsaw Ghetto. Discovered after the war, the unfinished work, with no soundtrack, quickly became a resource for historians seeking an authentic record, despite its elaborate propagandistic construction. The later discovery of a long-missing reel complicated earlier readings, showing the manipulations of camera crews in these "everyday" scenes. Well-heeled Jews attending elegant dinners and theatricals (while callously stepping over the dead bodies of compatriots) now appeared as unwilling, but complicit, actors, alternately fearful and in denial of their looming fate.
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.
Filmmaking icon Agnès Varda, the award-winning director regarded by many as the grandmother of the French new wave, turns the camera on herself with this unique autobiographical documentary. Composed of film excerpts and elaborate dramatic re-creations, Varda's self-portrait recounts the highs and lows of her professional career, the many friendships that affected her life and her longtime marriage to cinematic giant Jacques Demy.
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.
A Chadian film director who lives and works in France (Haroun) returns home upon the death of his mother. He is shocked at the degraded state of the country and the national cinema. The filmmaker decides to make a film dedicated to his mother entitled Bye Bye Africa but immediately encounters major problems. Cinemas have closed and financing is impossible to secure. The director reunites with an old girlfriend (Yelena), who was shunned by Chadians who could not distinguish between film and reality after appearing in one of his previous films as an HIV victim. Haroun learns about the destruction of the African cinema from directors in neighboring countries, but also finds Issa Serge Coelo shooting his first film, Daressalam. Things go badly and, convinced that it is impossible to make films in Africa, Haroun departs Chad in despair, leaving his film camera to a young boy who had been assisting him.
A documentary feature film that ties four narratives - from China, India, Scotland, and Tunisia - together with countless insights from venerable filmmakers and ordinary moviegoers. An aspiring actress in Mumbai battles to break into Bollywood; two friends in Scotland take a mobile film festival across the highlands; a young crew in Hong Kong embarks on the shooting of its first film; a Tunisian director anxiously anticipates the premiere of his controversial film at a major festival. These stories are woven together with scenes from video stores, projection booths, studios, cinemas, and slums into a vivid meditation on the power of cinema to shape our world.
In this filmed version of cult film director John Waters' popular one-man show, the Pink Flamingos and A Dirty Shame director takes the stage to discuss everything from his early influences, fondest career memories, and notorious struggles against the MPAA rating system. Part endearing memoir and part hilarious lecture, This Filthy World touches on everything from the insanity of contemporary pop culture to the director's unforgettable early collaborations with inimitable Pink Flamingos star Divine.
THE PERVERT'S GUIDE TO CINEMA takes the viewer on an exhilarating ride through some of the greatest movies ever made. Serving as presenter and guide is the charismatic Slavoj Žižek, the Slovenian philosopher and psychoanalyst. With his engaging and passionate approach to thinking, Žižek delves into the hidden language of cinema, uncovering what movies can tell us about ourselves.
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.
This historical and critical look at slasher films, which includes dozens of clips, begins with "Halloween," "Friday the 13th," and "Prom Night." The films' directors, writers, producers, and special effects creators comment on the films' making and success. During the Reagan years, the films get gorier, budgets get smaller, and their appeal wanes. Then, "Nightmare on Elm Street" revives the genre. Jump to the late 90s, when "Scream" brings humor and TV stars into the mix. Although some criticize the genre as misogynistic (Siskel and Ebert), most of the talking heads celebrate the films: as long as there are teenagers, there will be slasher films, says one.
With commentary from Hollywood stars, outtakes from his movies and footage from his youth, this documentary looks at Stanley Kubrick's life and films. Director Jan Harlan, Kubrick's brother-in-law and sometime collaborator, interviews heavyweights like Jack Nicholson, Woody Allen and Sydney Pollack, who explain the influence of Kubrick classics like "Dr. Strangelove" and "2001: A Space Odyssey," and how he absorbed visual clues from disposable culture such as television commercials.
Covering over 100 years of cinema, this is a journey of discovering and exploring the magic of cinema from a personal perspective. Looking at the changes and developments of cinema Thomas explains how film has deeply affected his life as a person and a filmmaker.
As Australian cinema broke through to international audiences in the 1970s through respected art house films like Peter Weir's "Picnic At Hanging Rock," a new underground of low-budget exploitation filmmakers were turning out considerably less highbrow fare. Documentary filmmaker Mark Hartley explores this unbridled era of sex and violence, complete with clips from some of the scene's most outrageous flicks and interviews with the renegade filmmakers themselves.
Directors Nina Kusturica and Eva Testor followed Michael Haneke for a period of two and a half years. They accompanied him to film premieres and public appearances, radio interviews and photo shoots; they observed him as he scouted locations, directed actors on the set, and made final cuts in the editing room. In between, on long train and car rides, Haneke spoke candidly about his childhood, his transition to filmmaking, and his views on cinema, discussing films that inspired him and his own work (he counts The Seventh Continent and 71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance among his favorites). What emerges in this insightful documentary is a portrait of a dedicated filmmaker, a charming yet elusive figure in thrall to cinema and the constant perfection of his craft.
This highly personal film essay demonstrates that Chinese cinema has dealt with questions of gender and sexuality more frankly and provocatively than any other national cinema. Yang ± Yin examines male bonding and phallic imagery in the swordplay and kung fu movies of the '60s and '70s; homosexuality; same-sex bonding and physical intimacy; the continuing emphasis on women's grievances in melodramas; and the phenomenon of Yam Kim-Fai, a Hong Kong actress who spent her life portraying men on and off the screen.
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.
"I saw these movies. They had a powerful effect on me. You should see them." That's Martin Scorsese's message for this documentary. We meet his family on Elizabeth Street in New York; he's a third generation Italian with Sicilian roots. Starting in 1949, they watched movies on TV as well as in theaters, lots of Italian imports. Scorsese, with his narration giving a personal as well as a public context, shows extended clips of these movies. Films of Rossellini and De Sica fill part one; those of Visconti, Fellini, and Antonioni comprise part two. Scorsese takes time with emotion, style, staging, technique, political context, and cinematic influence. It's his movie family.
A full journey from the beginning of "Swordplay" movies in Shanghai, growth in Hong Kong cinemas in the 60's and 70's and Ang Lee's epic "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" in 2000. The series also features interviews with such luminaries including John Woo, Chu Yuen, Lau Ka Leung, Gordon Lau Ka Fai, Sammo Hung, David Chiang and Cheng Pei Pei.
Director Martin Scorsese speaks candidly and passionately about one of his formative filmmaking influences: the late Elia Kazan. Utilizing precisely chosen clips from Kazan's signature films including "On the Waterfront," "A Streetcar Named Desire," "Gentleman's Agreement," "Baby Doll," "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn," "A Face in the Crowd," "America, America," and "The Last Tycoon," and interview footage of the director himself, co-directors Scorsese and Kent Jones recount the director's tumultuous journey from the Group Theatre to the Hollywood A-list to the thicket of the blacklist. But most of all, they make a powerful case for Kazan as a profoundly personal artist working in a famously impersonal industry.
The aim: to select the ideal mode of transport for each leg of a pilgrimage from Venice, Italy to Pau in France â home to a legendary street circuit and the origins of Grand Prix racing. On the way we prepare by taking to the track at Monza â the home of Italian Formula One. We try to get noticed on the road course in Monaco in a Bugatti, a Lamborghini and a Model T Ford. After cruising the canals in Venice we take to the tarmac and things look good - thanks to the Ferrari F12 Berlinetta and Mercedes SLS Black. Throw in a Pagani Huayra, Porsche Cayman S and a GT3 as well as the Aston Martin Vanquish centenary edition, Bentley V8 convertible, Rolls Royce Phantom coupe and the face-bending BAC Mono all seems pretty perfect to us.
Hong Kong cinemas had a wide range of glamorous female stars during the golden age of the 60's and 70's. The series will take the audience on a sentimental journey to the good old days and once again look at the expansive epic costume dramas and huangmei operas in which actresses played both the male and female roles. Rare interviews with Sir Run Run Shaw, stars Ivy Ling Po, Shaw Yin Yin, Tanny Tie Ni and Cheng Pei Pei are also featured.
Indian documentary about Indian film history and P. K. Nair, the founder of the National Film Archive of India and guardian of Indian cinema. He built the archive can by can in a country where the archiving of cinema was considered unimportant.
Steve McQueen: The Man & Le Mans interweaves stunning newly discovered footage and voice recordings with original interviews. It is the true story of how a cinema legend would risk almost everything in pursuit of his dream.
The âdigital revolutionâ reached the cinema late and was chiefly styled as a technological advancement. Today, in an era where analog celluloid strips are disappearing, and given the diversity of digital moving picture formats, there is much more at stake: Are the worldâs film archives on the brink of a dark age? Are we facing the massive loss of collective audiovisual memory? Is film dying, or just changing? CINEMA FUTURES travels to international locations and, together with renowned filmmakers, museum curators, historians and engineers, dramatizes the future of film and the cinema in the age of digital moving pictures.
On the 20th anniversary of Federico Felliniâs death, Ettore Scola, a devoted admirer of the incomparable maestro, commemorates the lesser-known aspects of Felliniâs personality, employing interviews, photographs, behind-the-scenes footage as well as Felliniâs drawings and film clips.
Two decades on from Cinema of Unease, Tim Wongâs ambitious film essay contemplates the prevailing image of a national cinema while privileging some of the images and image-makers displaced by the popular view of filmmaking in New Zealand. Narrated by Eleanor Catton.
A biography of the Portuguese-Brazilian singer Carmen Miranda, whose most distinctive feature was her tutti frutti hat. She came to the US as the "Brazilian Bombshell" and was a Broadway and Hollywood star in the 1940s.
This unauthorized documentary flashes back to the incarnation of Marilyn Manson and the Spooky Kids and chronicles their controversial trials and tribulations. Included are shocking, first-hand testimonials and outrageous home video from those who were closest to Brian Warner (a.k.a. Marilyn Manson) in his local band-based town of Ft. Lauderdale. This title carries a parental advisory.
One Minute to Nine is a 2007 documentary film written and directed by Tommy Davis and produced by Quinto Malo Films. It was later re-edited and screened on HBO as Every F---ing Day of My Life. The film chronicles the last five days of Wendy Maldonado before she and her son are sentenced for the manslaughter of her husband and the years of domestic abuse the family experienced prior to his death.
The film builds up a portrait of a great Sudanese film-maker, Gadalla Gubara. At eighty-seven, he is one of the pioneers of cinema in Africa. He has recently lost his sight but still continues to film life in Sudan as no one before him. Through his oeuvre, Gadalla reveals to us a Sudan both mysterious and misunderstood. Despite censorship and lack of financial support over sixty years, he has produced cinema that is independent and unique in a country where freedom of expression is a rare luxury.
This portrait of the French film theorist and avant-garde director Jean Epstein (1897-1953) concentrates on the period when he filmed in Brittany, the spot where he became inspired by the sea. Using rare archive footage, Jean Epstein, Young Oceans of Cinema also looks at Epsteinâs views on the specificity of the film medium.
The artistry, triumph and lifelong friendship of the great cinematographers Laszlo Kovacs and Vilmos Zsigmond. With film school equipment, they shoot the Soviet crackdown of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. As refugees they struggle in Hollywood, finally breaking into the mainstream with their pivotal contribution to the "American New Wave."
In 2001 Jack Cardiff (1914-2009) became the first director of photography in the history of the Academy Awards to win an Honorary Oscar. But the first time he clasped the famous statuette in his hand was a half-century earlier when his Technicolor camerawork was awarded for Powell and Pressburger's Black Narcissus. Beyond John Huston's The African Queen and King Vidor's War and Peace, the films of the British-Hungarian creative duo (The Red Shoes and A Matter of Life and Death too) guaranteed immortality for the renowned cameraman whose career spanned seventy years.
A look at the story behind Marvel Studios and the Marvel Cinematic Universe, featuring interviews and behind-the-scenes footage from all of the Marvel films, the Marvel One-Shots and "Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D."
The stand-up comedian is a special breed, both an artist and an artisan. They work by painstakingly developing a persona, scripting and editing an act, and revising it on the spot to suit the energy of a given audience. If the audience does not grasp the countless hours crafting the routine, and the empathic micro-calculations, then the act was a success... well, as long as it was funny.
Thom Andersen's remarkable and sadly neglected hour-long documentary adroitly combines biography, history, film theory, and philosophical reflection. Muybridge's photographic studies of animal locomotion in the 1870s were a major forerunner of movies; even more interesting are his subsequent studies of diverse people, photographed against neutral backgrounds.
A semi-documentary experimental 1930 German silent film created by amateurs with a small budget. With authentic scenes of the metropolis city of Berlin, it's the first film from the later famous screenwriters/directors Billy Wilder and Fred Zinnemann.
Documentary about the National Film Registry, featuring clips of films that have been included in the registry, as well as interviews with members of the National Film Registry Board.
This documentary of the Rolling Stones' 1969 US tour has become a legendary, harrowing symbol of the tragic demise of the "Peace and Love" era. After a successful tour across the US, the Rolling Stones gave a free December concert at Altamont Speedway in California with the Grateful Dead, Ike and Tina Turner, Jefferson Airplane, and the Flying Burrito Brothers. The band unwisely selected the Hells Angels to provide security, and the bikers resorted to violence to keep the stoned, restless, and often naked crowd in line. The result: dozens of injuries and the on-screen stabbing of a young black man (during "Sympathy for the Devil") by one of the concert's staff security. In a manipulative but effective move, the Maysles brothers filmed Mick Jagger in the editing room witnessing the on-camera murder for the first time. The film also works as a rock-and-roll document, capturing the band at their most relaxed, intoxicating, and electrifying.
The Story of Film: An Odyssey, written and directed by award-winning film-maker Mark Cousins, is the story of international cinema told through the history of cinematic innovation. Five years in the making, The Story of Film: An Odyssey covers six continents and 12 decades, showing how film-makers are influenced both by the historical events of their times, and by each other. It provides a worldwide guided tour of the greatest movies ever made; an epic tale that starts in nickelodeons and ends as a multi-billion-dollar globalised digital industry. Described as a love letter to the movies, Cousins visits the key sites in the history of cinema; from Hollywood to Mumbai; from Hitchcock s London to the village where Pather Panchali was shot, and features interviews with legendary filmmakers and actors including Stanley Donen, Kyoko Kagawa, Gus van Sant, Lars Von Trier, Claire Denis, Bernardo Bertolucci, Robert Towne, Jane Campion and Claudia Cardinale.
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
Balkan Baroque is a real and imaginary biography of the Yugoslavian performance artist Marina Abramovic. Rather than a mechanical reproduction of the artist's work, the film tries to create a new reality by translating the performances into cinematographic images that intensify the fictional context of the film. Abramovic plays herself, but ,appearing in multiple forms, blurs her own identity. Memories and fantasies intermingle with day to day rituals. The chronological narrative often breaks to reflect the interior voyage of the protagonist from the present to the past and back to the present. The result is a visually impressive film. Balkan Baroque had its world premiere at the International Film Festival Rotterdam, 1999.
Chronicles the six-decade career of the U.S. film industry's most diverse, dogged and resourceful low-budget producer-director-entrepeneur, painting the soft-spoken Roger Corman as an indie cinema trailbrazer as well as an extraordinary conduit for new talent.
Singer, songwriter, business man, family man, civil rights activist: Sam Cooke transcends all barriers of race, faith and talent. This first-ever biography of the definitive soul singer looks at his extraordinary career and personal life - from his gospel-singing roots through his R&B and pop music career.
Shot in France, England, Switzerland and the United States, this documentary covers director Alejandro Jodorowsky (El Topo, Holy Mountain, Santa Sangre) and his 1974 Quixotic attempt to adapt the seminal sci-fi novel Dune into a feature film. After spending 2 years and millions of dollars, the massive undertaking eventually fell apart, but the artists Jodorowsky assembled for the legendary project continued to work together. This group of artists, or his âwarriorsâ as Jodorowsky named them, went on to define modern sci-fi cinema with such films as Alien, Blade Runner, Star Wars and Total Recall.
Malegaon, a small town tucked away near the heart of India geographically, is fraught with communal tension and under severe economic depression. To escape the harsh reality of their world, its people seek refuge in the fantastical world of cinema. This passion for cinema has spurred a group of cinema enthusiasts to make their own films-quirky, low budget, socially aware and notoriously funny spoofs of Bollywood films.
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