This film chronicles how figure skater Katarina Witt fought for her future in socialist East Germany, how she faced the changes after the fall of the Berlin Wall and how she ended up both a beneficiary and victim of the East German regime.
Katarina Witt
as Herself
This film was shot during Easter 1985. It shows the preparation and staging of the Passion in the village of Norogachic, Mexico. The initiation rites of two Pascoleros, filmed for the first time, form the center of this document.
Rites of winter, rites of peyote. A creative documentary based on texts by Antonin Artaud read by Jean Rouch, and the words of the last shaman’s peyote, translated by Raymonde Carasco.
An investigation into accusations of teenagers being sexually abused within the film industry.
Africa's elephants are hurtling towards extinction to fuel the worldwide ivory trade. While conservationists howl and corrupt governments fail to address the ongoing slaughter, one brave family has been working for decades to stem the tide, one elephant at a time. Gardeners of Eden is a gripping, first-person experience inside the operations of Kenya's David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust. From the front lines of the crisis, we witness their heroic efforts to stop the poachers in the bush, rescue the orphans of slain elephants and raise them by hand, until one day, returning them to their home in the wild.
Abdul Rahman, an African prince who was sold into slavery, spent four decades in servitude before an amazing coincidence took him to the White House to meet President John Quincy Adams, where he was granted his freedom. Mos Def narrates this PBS documentary that includes reenactments of scenes from Rahman's life and interviews with historians who discuss the conditions faced by slaves in early America.
On a late-summer Sunday in 2011, a female director gathers a team of filmmakers, writers, musicians, artists, critics, and friends in an apartment to recreate a scene from Michael Curtiz's Depression-era drama The Cabin in the Cotton. Over plates of pasta and glasses of red wine, a round robin of non-professional actors take turns performing the same scene, again and again, In different permutations. With a freedom Influenced by pre--Code Hollywood, cameras, phones, and laptops are scattered around & set at almost every possible angle, documenting the action both in front of and behind the camera as it unfolds, from rehearsals to equipment adjustments to the banter between takes. An intimate. playful, and spontaneous look Into the collaborative cinematic process emerges. a snapshot of the filmmaker's perennial struggle to capture fleeting moments before the day (and light) slip away.
Field Notes is an experimental documentary about the ghosts embedded in the culture of Trinidad and Tobago. The film is structured as a visual and aural field guide to the ghosts spirits and jumbies througout the island. From personal tales about the soucouyant and lagahoo, to the ghosts of Trinidads past. Shot and finished on 16mm.
The film reflects on the nature of vacation, as it is a transformed version of reality, the fantastical counterpart to winter.
Four images on a tape by Breda Beban and Hrvoje Horvatić are four arbitrarily chosen samples of the physical world or four micro-geographies: the fluid structure of a puddle disturbed by raindrops, features of a remarkable man’s face, a fish’s head and granite cubes. The duration of fixation at each of the inserts and their free order (by association) transcends the iconic dimension of the videoclip and call for meditation.
A compilation of the Borghesia video clips (So Young, The Wild Bunch, He, Too Much Tension, Cindy, A.R., ZMR), issued in 1985 as the first video cassette by the FV Label. These are short, almost 'film-like' stories focused primarily on the iconography of the body in urban surroundings. One of the clips presents a pioneer use of computer graphics.
Made from a collection of home movies, news footage and photos gathered from a residency in Belgrade in memory of a country that no longer exists.
The award-winning Old Believers (2001), made over a period of five years, documents the life of a strongly religious community in the Danube Delta where time seems to stand still.
K2 is widely seen as the world's harshest mountain. Yet many indigenous porters make a living in its extreme conditions, carrying provisions for foreign climbing expeditions. Often risking their lives, they receive minimal pay for their efforts. Against a backdrop of breathtaking natural beauty, this doc explores the courage and sacrifice of the men who call the 'Savage Mountain' their home.
Hossein and Shaima have loved each other since childhood. As teenagers they were separated by war. They meet again in Kabul in the late 90s. Poverty forces Hossein to fight in the war. A shell splinter leaves him paralyzed. Shaima is sold into marriage with a man 40 years her senior and falls pregnant. Since Shaima's husband still owes half the dowry to her father he brings her back into the constraining patriarchal fold of the family, where she lives with her 5-year-old daughter. This situation doesn't prevent the two from seeing each other, even though this means going against their families' hard rules. In constant fear of revenge on the part of the male members of both families, they struggle to hold on to their love.
Nan Goldin's slide show “The Ballad of Sexual Dependency” converted, mixed and screened as a film by the artist, portraying the American underground culture, the no wave scene, post-Stonewall gay subculture, among others.
Elliott Leyton, the subject of this riveting documentary by filmmaker Barbara Doran, can't help but be fascinating; that's because Leyton, who teaches at the Memorial University in Newfoundland, is also a valuable ally for law enforcement officials who need his expertise in psychology and criminal behavior to catch some of the most heinous criminals: serial killers.
