Documentary

  • Raymundo Gleyzer & Jorge Preloran – Ocurrido en Hualfín AKA It Happened in Hualfin (1965)

    1961-1970ArgentinaDocumentaryEthnographic CinemaJorge PreloranRaymundo Gleyzer

    Quote:
    This three-part documentary on Indian peasant life in the Catamarca region of Argentina is an emotionally moving examination of the generational cycle of poverty in underdeveloped countries. Beautifully told through the eyes and voices of the people, this story of one family becomes the story of all the inhabitants of the valley of Hualfin. In Part I, Temistocles Figueroa, an 84-year-old former cane-cutter, recounts his life in the cane fields through words and song. Part 2 focuses on Justina, his sister-in-law, who is a potter. Her narrative on poverty and pottery mingles with questions, such as, “I’ve heard that in other places women don’t work. How can that be,” she says, “I don’t believe it.” Part 3 profiles Antonia, Justina’s daughter, and her own daughter, Elinda. Antonia toils day and night weaving blankets for sale or barter at the general store. Elinda is her mother’s hope because perhaps her daughter can become a school teacher and break out of the cycle of poverty, but it soon becomes clear that the little girl, too, is trapped, and the cycle will go on.Read More »

  • Raymundo Gleyzer – La tierra quema AKA The Land Burns (1964)

    Raymundo Gleyzer1961-1970ArgentinaDocumentaryShort Film

    Synopsis: In the northeast region of Brazil, the concentration of land and the droughts victimize a peasant family, which leaves once again in search of a place to survive.Read More »

  • Rima Yamazaki – Nakagin Capsule Tower: Japanese Metabolist Landmark on the Edge of Destruction (2010)

    2001-2010DocumentaryJapanRima Yamazaki

    The Nakagin Capsule Tower, designed by Kisho Kurokawa and completed in 1972, is an exemplary work of post-war Japanese architectural movement Metabolism. Today, however, this historic building is in danger of demolition. Why do we need to preserve a building? What are the difficulties of preservation? Is demolition a tragedy or a natural phenomenon for modern architecture? Tracing the history of postwar Japanese architecture and reviewing the characteristics of the Nakagin Capsule Tower, this documentary examines the meaning of preservation and demolition from various points of view. The documentary includes interviews with residents of the Nakagin Capsule Tower, an architectural historian, a former Kurokawa office architect who was in charge of the Nakagin Capsule Tower project, Kurokawa’s son, and leading architects Arata Isozaki and Toyo Ito.Read More »

  • Ryûsuke Hamaguchi & Kou Sakai – Utau hito AKA Storytellers (2013)

    Ryûsuke Hamaguchi2011-2020DocumentaryJapanKou Sakai

    Quote:
    Part of a trilogy focusing on the Tohoku region that is comprised of dialogues with victims of the Great East Japan Earthquake. Ideas on how to share experiences of the disaster with future generations, a challenge touched upon in the previous films The Sound of Waves and Voices from the Waves, is found in folk tales from the region.

    Folk storytellers Ito Masako, Sasaki Ken, and Sato Reiko gather at Kurikomayama in Miyagi Prefecture. Folklore scholar Ono Kazuko, founder of Miyagi Minwa no Kai, acts as interviewer as they tell a series of fantastic and outlandish tales, including the story of a girl who marries a monkey.Read More »

  • Errol Morris – Gates of Heaven (1978)

    Errol Morris1971-1980CultDocumentaryUSA

    Quote:
    Gates of Heaven is a documentary film by Errol Morris about the pet cemetery business. It was made when Morris was unknown and did much to launch his career.Read More »

  • Lech Kowalski – I PAY for YOUR STORY (2017)

    Lech Kowalski2011-2020DocumentaryTVUSA

    Lech Kowalski returns to Utica (New York), where he grew up. He decides to document the struggles of his fellow citizens by offering to pay to hear their stories.Read More »

  • Rosine Mfetgo Mbakam – Les prières de Delphine AKA Delphine’s Prayers (2021)

    2021-2030African CinemaCameroonDocumentaryRosine Mfetgo Mbakam

    Through interviews as intimate as they are disconcerting, we meet Delphine, a Cameroonian immigrant residing in Belgium who narrates her life for the camera of Rosine Mbakam, also originally from Cameroon. As in her previous feature film “At Jolie Coiffure” (awarded at Olhar ’19), concise elements become a cinematographic force based on the encounter between black women all at once close and distant. The protagonist’s confessional tone reveals her self-awareness as the conductor of her own story, dealing with patriarchal and colonial scars and striving to assert her own voice.Read More »

  • Emma Davie & Peter Mettler – Becoming Animal (2018)

    2011-2020DocumentaryEmma DavieExperimentalPeter MettlerSwitzerland

    Quote:
    Shot in Grand Teton National Park, this immersive film essay draws together the distinct sensibilities of filmmakers Peter Mettler and Emma Davie and philosopher David Abram to encounter the spaces where humans and animals meet. Images are overlaid with a soundscape of shivering leaves and animal murmurs, rushing rivers and electronic voices, insects and automobiles. In order to capture all this Becoming Animal embraces the sensory tools of cinema. Various tableaus of the wilderness and urbanity are set up: inquisitive antelope and digital billboards are seamlessly contrasted, Buffalo block traffic, moose clash antlers, and a snail’s body becomes a landscape of its own. Conscious of their own complicity with the animal world, the filmmakers invite us to explore this ‘more than human world’. The viewer is given permission to navigate this exquisitely intricate system in which everything is alive and expressive, humans, animals and landscapes are inextricably interdependent, and there is no such thing as empty space.Read More »

  • Maria Speth – Mr. Bachmann And His Class AKA Herr Bachmann Und Seine Klasse (2021)

    Maria Speth2021-2030DocumentaryGermany

    Mr. Bachmann and his pupils (aged between 12 and 14) live in Stadtallendorf, formerly the site of a secret Second World War munitions factory and now an industrial town that’s home to generations of economic migrants. The class is representative of this history, with several recent arrivals still struggling with the language of their new home. All the while, their sexagenarian, rock band T-shirt wearing teacher’s effortlessly egalitarian approach encourages students to develop empathy for one another through openness and listening. Shot over six months, Reinhold Vorschneider’s patient cinematography works with the spontaneity of the classroom environment to lend emotional weight to even the most fleeting moments. The pacing and observational method call to mind the work of Frederick Wiseman, yet Speth’s intimate approach creates an engaging and tender drama.

    Silver Bear Jury Prize and Audience Award (Berlin 2021)Read More »

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