A journey into the mind of French actor and director Jean-Pierre Mocky (1929-2019), author of films both playful and profound, of an impressive richness.
Jean-Pierre Mocky
as Various Roles (archive footage)
France, 1974. The erotic film Emmanuelle, directed by Just Jaeckin, breaks all records for cinema attendance: the story of the creation of a sensual epic that marked a turning point in the struggle for sexual emancipation.
A film crew follows three grieving participants of Miami’s annual T Ball, where folks assemble to model R.I.P. t-shirts and innovative costumes designed in honor of their dead.
At the Philadelphia abortion helpline, counselors field nonstop calls from women and teens who are seeking to end a pregnancy but can’t afford to, illustrating how economic stigma and cruel laws determine who has access to abortion in America.
A reporter uncovers a file that reveals a shocking series of child abuse allegations in Idaho's Boy Scouts, which rattle the community and implicate the Mormon church. The story reveals long-running crimes that threaten to bankrupt the Boy Scouts.
While the space and arms races are Cold War common knowledge, few know about the United States and Soviet Union's race to dig the deepest hole. This is particularly surprising since Hell may have been inadvertently discovered in the process.
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.
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.
The original documentary on the Wigstock festival, back in the day when it was a much smaller affair in Thompkins Square Park. A full day of peace, love, and wigs…
The Kabul National Museum, once known as the "face of Afghanistan," was destroyed in 1993. We filmed the most important cultural treasures of the still-intact museum in 1988: ancient Greco-Roman art and antiquitied of Hellenistic civilization, as well as Buddhist sculpture that was said to have mythology--the art of Gandhara, Bamiyan, and Shotorak among them. After the fall of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan in 1992, some seventy percent of the contents of the museum was destroyed, stolen, or smuggled overseas to Japan and other countries. The movement to return these items is also touched upon. The footage in this video represents that only film documentation of the Kabul Museum ever made.
Fantasy drama Rachel's Dream was set sometime in the future when the world is besieged by technology, young Rachel discovers that through a large bank of video screens in her sister's apartment, her wishes can come true when she brings to life the image on an anti-pollution poster. This new friend helps her to make up her mind about her own future.
In this animated short, a terrible curse deprives Balthasar's kingdom of its stories. Taking the unicorn's horn back into The Belly of the Earth is the solution. Poppety will lead an expedition, by chance uncovering a hitherto closely guarded family secret.
A Calling to Care is the inspiring story of 55 year-old Grace Stanley, a Canadian nurse who left her home and prestigious career behind to answer a calling halfway around the world in Karachi, Pakistan. Teaching nursing to local women in a strict Muslim culture that forbids them to even to touch men is a formidable task. However, Grace challenges her own values and belief systems to find common ground with her students, helping them to excel and feel respect for themselves in a culture that doesn't respect them. Whether it is getting her hands painted with henna, swimming fully-clothed in the ocean, or marching bravely with them on International Women's Day, Grace bonds with her students in a very special way, and ultimately discovers how the West can learn a lot more from the Third World than she ever thought.
The city of Madrid as it appears in the Spanish films of the 1950s. A small tribute to all those who filmed and portrayed Madrid despite the dictatorship, censorship and the critical situation of industry and society.
Short film about the formation and extraction of petroleum
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.
The Smurfs were created in 1958 by the Belgian comic author Peyo (Pierre Culliford, 1928-1992) and they are one of Belgium's most recognized exports. From Brussels to Los Angeles, via Dubai, a journey into the tiny world of the famous little blue people, from the story of the creation of the original comic to the account of their huge global commercial exploitation.
A documentary about the possible ties between H.P.LOVECRAFT and the Polesine region (Italy), stimulated by the casual discovery of a mysterious manuscript attributed to the great American horror writer died in 1937.
Short film about the Manzanar Japanese American internment camp. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2011.