Documentary

  • Iván Osnovikoff & Bettina Perut – Los Reyes AKA The Kings (2018)

    2011-2020Bettina PerutChileDocumentaryIván Osnovikoff

    Quote:
    Los Reyes (“The Kings”) is the oldest skatepark in the Chilean capital of Santiago. This story is about the real kings here: Football and Chola, two stray dogs that have made their home in this open space full of hurtling skateboards and rowdy teenagers. The energetic Chola loves to play with the balls she finds lying around. She positions them at the edge of the bowls where the skaters show off their tricks and tries to catch them just before they fall down. The older dog, Football, looks on impatiently and barks at Chola until she finally drops the balls. The teenagers around them come from very different, sometimes troubled backgrounds. They each have their own story, which they recount to us in voiceover. In this almost fairy-tale-like film, the phenomenal, dreamlike camerawork centers almost entirely on the subtle interaction between the two dogs, as they play with a ball, a stick, a stone and each other.Read More »

  • John Pilger – The Coming War on China (2016)

    2011-2020DocumentaryHiroshima at 75John PilgerPoliticsUSA

    Quote:
    When the United States, the world’s biggest military power, decided that China, the second largest economic power, was a threat to its imperial dominance, two-thirds of US naval forces were transferred to Asia and the Pacific. This was the ‘pivot to Asia’, announced by President Barack Obama in 2011. China, which in the space of a generation had risen from the chaos of Mao Zedong’s ‘Cultural Revolution’ to an economic prosperity that has seen more than 500 million people lifted out of poverty, was suddenly the United States’s new enemy.Read More »

  • Alberto Grifi & Massimo Sarchielli – Anna (1975)

    1971-1980Alberto GrifiDocumentaryItalyMassimo Sarchielli

    Quote:
    Shot in 1972, first shown in 1975, and newly restored by the Cineteca di Bologna, Alberto Grifi and massimo Sarchielli’s ANNA is an astonishing nearly four-hour documentary about a 16-year-old homeless junkie, eight months pregnant, whom the filmmakers discovered in Rome’s Piazza Navona. Mainly shot on then-newfangled video (which at times gives the black-and-white images a ghostly translucence), it documents the interactions between the beautiful, clearly damaged, often dazed teenager and the directors, who take her in partly out of compassion and partly because she’s a fascinating subject for a film. Read More »

  • Stefan Jarl – Det sociala arvet AKA Misfits to Yuppies (1993)

    1991-2000CultDocumentaryStefan JarlSweden

    Quote:
    This documentary is the third in a trilogy about a group of Swedish nonconformists. It tells the stories of two young men, Kenta and Stoffe.Read More »

  • Sergey Loznitsa – Peyzazh (2003)

    2001-2010ArthouseDocumentaryRussiaSergei Loznitsa

    Quote:
    A Russian town where people are waiting at a bus stop. We get to know some of them from fragments of their conversations.Read More »

  • Patsy Asch & Timothy Asch & Linda Conner – A Balinese Trance Seance (1981)

    1981-1990DocumentaryIndonesiaLinda ConnerPatsy AschTimothy Asch

    A Balinese Trance Seance
    Bringing offerings of rice, flowers, and woven coconut leaves, clients visit Jero in her household shrine to determine the cause of their son’s death. Jero lights an incense brazier, sprinkles holy water, and recites mantras as preliminaries to trance. Several ancestors and finally the young son speak through her voice, revealing the nature of his premature death (witchcraft) and his wishes for cremation. In contrast to other films about Balinese trance which focus on spectacular, community performances, this film provides an intimate view of a fascinating process of communication between Jero, the spirits, and her clients who are at one point moved to tears.Read More »

  • Harun Farocki – Wie man sieht AKA As You See (1986)

    1981-1990DocumentaryGermanyHarun FarockiPhilosophy on Screen

    Quote:
    My film As You See is an action-filled feature film. It reflects upon girls in porn magazines to whom names are ascribed and about the nameless dead in mass graves, upon machines that are so ugly that coverings have to be used to protect the workers’ eyes, upon engines that are too beautiful to be hidden under the hoods of cars, upon labor techniques that either cling to the notion of the hand and the brain working together or want to do away with it.Read More »

  • Kidlat Tahimik – Turumba (1981)

    1981-1990ComedyDocumentaryKidlat TahimikPhilippines

    J. Hoberman, The Village Voice:

    Set in a tiny Philippine village, the inimitable Kidlat Tahimik’s film focuses on a family that makes papier-mache animals to sell during the traditional Turumba festivities. One year, a German department store buyer purchases all their stock. When she returns with an order for 500 more (this time with the word “Oktoberfest” painted on them), the family’s seasonal occupation becomes year-round alienated labor. Increased production, however creates inflated needs. Soon, virtually the whole village has gone to work on a jungle assembly line, turning out papier-mache mascots for the Munich Olympics. Long before the town band learns to play “Deutschland Uber Alles”, the fabric of village life has been torn asunder. Read More »

  • Tolomush Okeev – Boom (1969)

    1961-1970DocumentaryKrygyzstanShort FilmTolomush Okeev

    During World Word II, the difficult construction of a railroad through the Boom ravine at Kant-Rybachie. One of the construction workers then takes a train ride along the road he helped build.Read More »

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