Notes about identity

Land Without Bread

An exploration —manipulated and staged— of life in Las Hurdes, in the province of Cáceres, in Extremadura, Spain, as it was in 1932. Insalubrity, misery and lack of opportunities provoke the emigration of young people and the solitude of those who remain in the desolation of one of the poorest and least developed Spanish regions at that time.

Night and Fog

Filmmaker Alain Resnais documents the atrocities behind the walls of Hitler's concentration camps.

The Spirit of the Tsilqot'in People is Hovering over the Supreme Court

The Tŝilhqot’in Nation is represented by six communities in the stunningly beautiful interior of British Columbia. Surrounded by mountains and rivers, the Tŝilhqot’in People have cared for this territory for millennia. With increasing external pressures from natural-resource extraction companies, the communities mobilized in the early 21st century to assert their rightful title to their lands. Following a decision by the Supreme Court of British Columbia in 2007 that only partially acknowledged their claim, the Tŝilhqot’in Nation’s plight was heard in the Supreme Court of Canada. In a historic decision in 2014, the country’s highest court ruled what the Tŝilhqot’in have long asserted: that they alone have full title to their homelands.

Passing

A short documentary profiling the lives of three transgender Black men, exploring what life is like living as a Black man when no one knows you are transgender, and their journeys with gender in the years since they transitioned.

Daybreak Express

Set to a classic Duke Ellington recording "Daybreak Express", this is a five-minute short of the soon-to-be-demolished Third Avenue elevated subway station in New York City.

Lodz Symphony

A portrait of Łódź, Poland that exists in a time-warp of sad memory.

Fajr

In the Moroccan desert night dilutes forms and silence slides through sand. Dawn starts then to draw silhouettes of dunes while motionless figures punctuate landscape. From night´s abstraction, light returns its dimension to space and their volume to bodies. Stillness concentrates gaze and duration densify it. The adhan -muslim call to pray- sounds and immobility, that was condensing, begins to irradiate. And now the bodies are those which dissolves into the desert.

Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory

Working men and women leave through the main gate of the Lumière factory in Lyon, France. Filmed on 22 March 1895, it is often referred to as the first real motion picture ever made, although Louis Le Prince's 1888 Roundhay Garden Scene pre-dated it by seven years. Three separate versions of this film exist, which differ from one another in numerous ways. The first version features a carriage drawn by one horse, while in the second version the carriage is drawn by two horses, and there is no carriage at all in the third version. The clothing style is also different between the three versions, demonstrating the different seasons in which each was filmed. This film was made in the 35 mm format with an aspect ratio of 1.33:1, and at a speed of 16 frames per second. At that rate, the 17 meters of film length provided a duration of 46 seconds, holding a total of 800 frames.

The Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat

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.

Arabian Coffee

'Coffea arábiga' was sponsored as a propaganda documentary to show how to sow coffee around Havana. In fact, Guillén Landrián made a film critical of Castro, exhibited but banned as soon as the coffee plan collapsed.

Hi, How Are You Daniel Johnston?

Daniel Johnston stars in this psychedelic short film about an aging musician coming to terms with the dreams of yesteryear.

Kryptonite

Like a Spiral

Like a Spiral is a dialogue between Beirut and five women, migrant domestic workers, under the Kafala system. Expressing their belonging to a society in collapse, the women's voices rise through the film's grainy images to denounce their stolen freedom with an inalienable thirst for existence. Their memories dance in the rhythm of oppression. Caught within life's spiral, they lift themselves up to not sink into oblivion.

Flesh

Rare, medium rare, medium, medium well and well done. Through intimate and personal stories, five women share their experiences in relation to the body, from childhood to old age.

La marche

Cars Without a Home

Jan Schmidt and Pavel Juráček turn their attention to the problem of Czechoslovakia's unloved cars in this whimsical documentary short.