Documentary

After Flamenco (1995) and Tango (1998) – nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, in 2005 Carlos Saura completes his trilogy on modern urban song with Fados. After over two years of research into the subject, Carlos Saura takes an enormous step forward in his approximation to music. If, in his earlier musicals, Iberia, Flamenco, Tango…, he based his work on dancing, in Fados he makes a special effort with the plot and image to reflect the birth of a suburban, dockland music which is in itself a synthesis of all of the music born towards the end of the 19th century.
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In China, in the foothills of the Himalayas, a non-violent egalitarian society has for millennia offered proof that a harmonious and peaceful life is still possible. On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the United Nations the Mosuo were recognized as a “model society”. On what basis does this community of about 50,000 people function? Above all, for how much longer can it resist the pressures of a market economy engendered by strategically organized mass tourism? In a landscape of outstanding beauty, encounters and testimonies draw us closer to the traditional values cherished by this ethnic group confronted by a crucial challenge: how to safeguard the essence of its identity from destruction and not succumb, as have so many other societies, to the impact of unconstrained globalization.
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The Dead Class (1975), by Tadeusz Kantor and the Cricot 2 company, is considered one of the most innovative and influential works of twentieth-century theatre. The breakthrough first version of the production – performed to great critical acclaim, but only rarely seen live by audiences outside Poland – was documented on film in 1976 by the Oscar-winning director Andrzej Wajda.
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In the summer of 1971, Philip Zimbardo, Craig Haney, and Curtis Banks carried out a psychological experiment to test a simple question. What happens when you put good people in an evil place-does humanity win over evil, or does evil triumph? To explore this question, college student volunteers were pretested and randomly assigned to play the role of prisoner or guard in a simulated prison at Stanford University. Although the students were mentally healthy and knew they were taking part in an experiment, some guards soon because sadistic and the prisoners showed signs of acute stress and depression. After only six days, the planned two-week study spun out of control and had to be ended to prevent further abuse of the prisoners. This dramatic demonstration of the power of social situations is relevant to many institutional settings, such as the Abu Ghraib Prison in Iraq.
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The Emperor’s Naked Army Marches On is a brilliant exploration of memory and war guilt, a subject often ignored in modern Japan. In this controversial documentary, Kazuo Hara follows Kenzo Okuzaki in his real-life struggle against Emperor Hirohito. He proudly declares that he shot BBs at the Royal Palace, distributed pornographic images of the Emperor, and once killed a man for the sake of his strange crusade. As the film progresses, Okuzaki reveals a gruesome mystery: why were some Japanese officers killing their own soldiers during WWII? What happened to their bodies? Okuzaki begs, cajoles, and occasionally beats the story out of elderly veterans. When these old men do break down and talk, their testimonies are some of the most chilling, riveting descriptions of wartime desperation ever committed to film. In his desire to unearth these horrors, Okuzaki’s behavior grows increasingly extreme and bizarre. By the film’s end, Hara seems to ask whether the terrible nature of this buried incident is worth the violence of Okuzaki’s methods.
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In 1983, photographer Gocho Shigeo met an early death at the young age of 36. The view we see reflected in Gocho’s photographic images has become more profound over time since his death and has struck a chord in people’s hearts. While focusing on Gocho’s collection of photographs Self and Others, the film also visits places associated with him, creating a collage with the manuscripts, letters, photographs and voice recordings remaining in an attempt to capture “one more gesture”—a theme pursued by Gocho through photographic expression. This film is neither a critical biography nor a monograph on the photographer. Rather, we are offered a new perception. As if mesmerized, the photographs Gocho left behind captivate us in their gaze.
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This visually magnificent and poetic city symphony of Paris in the late 1920s earned Sauvage the admiration of Jean Renoir and Jean Vigo. Sauvage maps the metropolis through its street life, monuments, ports, and automobile traffic.
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With unerring curiousity and sensitivity, director Philbert portrays the difficulties and joys of being deaf, offering vivid portraits of people of all ages coping with and surmounting their challenges.
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An analysis of the style and vision of Abbas Kiarostami, the world’s most iconic Iranian filmmaker, through the lens of his earliest work, including his first short film (Bread & Alley, 1970) and, particularly, his first feature, The Report. This early example of Kiarostami’s work gives insight into his poetic, humanistic tendencies, combining allegorical storytelling with a documentary, neo-realist sensibility, and often exploring the very nature of film as fiction, that have pervaded his work ever since, including such recent international sensations as A Taste of Cherry and Certified Copy. Exclusive interviews with film critics, historians and scholars (including the late great Andrew Sarris) and those directly involved in the making of The Report provide a look at how the career of this master independent auteur began and was shaped.
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A rare gem of cinematic storytelling that weaves docudrama, fictional reenactment, and experimental photography into a powerful, reflective work on the early days of German cinema. The film tells the story of the Skladanowsky Brothers, the German-born duo responsible for inventing the “bioskop”, an early version of the film projector.
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