Discover Movies

Film director Hitchcock discusses his life and career in long talks with Pia Lindstrom (newscaster and daughter of Hitchcock star Ingrid Berman) and with film historian William Everson. Excerpts from several films illustrate these interviews. Discussion topics include: what is fear?, method acting vs. film acting, the difference between the usual "Who Done It" mystery and what he considers to be real suspense. His choice of leading ladies and why (Bergman, Baxter, Kelly, Marie Saint, Leigh, etc.).

Educational film describing the exploits of American heroes such as Johnny Appleseed, Davy Crockett, Pecos Bill, and Casey Jones;

Writer and filmmaker Assia Djebar explores Algerian history, the psychological impact of war, and post-colonial female identity in this 1979 classic of film literature. Named for (and taking its structure from) a traditional song with five distinct movements, the film combines documentary-style observation with loose narrative form to tell the story of Lila, an Algerian expatriate returning to her country 15 years after independence has been won. In comparing her life with the lives and experiences of rural Algeriennes, Lila is able to put her childhood demons to rest and discover a new history -- one written in the ongoing strength of generations of women. Like much of Djebar's writing, the film has a strong subtext dealing with resistance to patriarchy and women's desire to appropriate the means of power and expression -- one of which, of course, is the filmmaker's camera.

This short film illustrates a day in the life at Forillon National Park. Situated on the Gaspé peninsula in Quebec, the park offers spectacular views of sea, mountain and forest. A monumental landscape not to be missed. A film without words.

A film-détournement biography of Mao Tse-tung in which the life of the recently deceased Great Helmsman is told in his own words, using quotes culled from various Red Guard publications. The rise to power of the film's namesake appears as the inevitable outcome of a dialectical logical. Or so the voice-over might lead one to believe. If the usual practice of détourned films is for the soundtrack to undermine the image, here the reverse occasionally takes place. The images critique Mao's words. They show that which, even in the official visual record of the times, the narrative elides. The film is dedicated to Li Yhi Zhe, the nominal author of a famous Democracy Wall critique of the Maoist state.

“In Search of Unreturned Soldiers was about former soldiers of the Japanese army who chose not to return to Japan after the war. I found several of them who had remained in Thailand. Two years later, I invited one of them to make his first return visit to Japan and documented it in Outlaw-Matsu Returns Home. During the filming, my subject Fujita asked me to buy him a cleaver so that he could kill his ‘vicious brother.’ I was shocked, and asked him to wait a day so that I could plan how to film the scene. By the next morning, to my relief, Fujita had calmed down and changed his mind about killing his brother. But I couldn’t have had a sharper insight into the ethical questions provoked by this kind of documentary filmmaking.” —Shôhei Imamura

We follow the rehearsals and the staging work of Bertold Brecht's play 'Dans la jungle des villes' in 1972 by the company Théâtre de l'Espérance. The three directors: Jean-Pierre Vincent, Jean Jourdheuil and André Engel discuss their joint work of staging and their vision of the play. Interviews with the actors (Gérard Desarthe, Maurice Bénichou, Hélène Vincent), whom we follow at different stages of the work (source: Média Scérén). The film was screened for the 1973 Directors' Fortnight, at the Cannes Festival.

Portrait film about Šarl Piel, a brigadier of builders who is demanding a lot both from himself and others and who is able to overcome the difficulties encountered at work.

As part of the process of political and social transformations undertaken by the military government, a new political model based on the election of corregimiento representatives (505 in total) popularly chosen and that will replace the former Assembly of Deputies controlled by political parties by political parties traditional The majority of the members of this new political experiment are peasants, indigenous, workers and community leaders.

Brass Tacks was a current affairs programme shown on BBC2 between 1977 and 1988. On this episode called Punk Rock, broadcast on 3rd August 1977, it focuses on the Manchester Punk scene, bands and its iconic club, The Electric Circus.

Relation Work is a 1979 anthology film that compiles 14 seminal performance art pieces created by Marina Abramović and Ulay between 1976 and 1978. The compilation features the following 14 chronological performances: Relation in Space (1976) Talking about Similarity (1976) Breathing in, Breathing out (1977) Imponderabilia (1977) Expansion in Space (1977) Relation in Movement (1977) Relation in Time (1977) Light/Dark (1977) Balance Proof (1977) AAA-AAA (1978) Incision (1978) Kaiserschnitt (1978) Charged Space (1978) Three (1978)

Long panoramic shots and tracking shots in the Louvre Museum, the Hôtel de Lauzun or the Petit Palais allow us to discover the works of Delacroix, Horace Vernet, David, Ingres, Courbet, Manet, etc. An actor reads excerpts from Baudelaire's Salons where he expresses admiration or detestation. (source: Canopé)

Mondo-style documentary in which a movie crew travels to newly independent Papua New Guinea to capture the customs and culture of the cannibal natives. Prepare yourself for death rituals, war costumery, crude tattoos, animal killings, and cannibalism.

In his warm snapshot of the Mississippi Delta, folklorist and filmmaker William Ferris sits down with music legend B.B. King and other denizens of the deep south to talk about the blues. Interviewing local musicians ranging from inmates at Parchman Prison to a virtuoso guitar-playing barber, Ferris finds the genre cannot be pinned down to a single definition or origin. The blues permeates the territory as an infectious feeling, heard in musical notes thrummed from impromptu instruments like broomsticks and axes, in addition to guitars.

The last months in the life of a Serbian philosopher and socialist activist Svetozar Marković and his exile by the government of the Serbian Princedom.

In advance of his fight with Al 'Blue' Lewis at Croke Park in Dublin, Cathal O'Shannon interviews Muhammad Ali about boxing, and his life outside the ring. When a fight is coming up Muhammad Ali (formally Cassius Marcellus Clay, junior) admits he deliberately intimidates his opponent. He does this because historically in America black people have always been taught to be subservient.

A short documentary depicting the daily lives of old country widows.

A documentary that follows Dr. Penny Patterson's current scientific study of Koko, a gorilla who communicates through American Sign Language.

The characters of this film are a ceramic artist from Latgale, Antons Šmulāns, and his little clay devils.

Older adults cannot believe the things younger people do, but they probably have forgotten they were the same way when they were younger.

A short 1977 documentary about the originator of the ragtime rhythm.

Florence is a contemplative study of light and shadows, textures and planes, that makes beautiful use of the tonal qualities of black and white film. (mubi.com)

Docu-drama about the earthquake in Romania, on March 4, 1977. In 1978 it was broadcast only in select cities in Romania for 1 week, being deemed "too harsh" by the government.

A short film about the exhibits of the Lviv Museum of Ethnography and Artistic Crafts, which were added to after an expedition to the villages of the Yavoriv district. The history of the Yavoriv region. A performance by the musical and ethnographic ensemble "Nova Yavorivshchyna" of the Yavoriv Mining and Chemical Combine. A story about the master of wooden children's toys, Vasyl Pryima, master carver Sava Melnyk, and woodcarver Mykhailo Kanarchyk.

Robert Mitchum narrates an anti drug propaganda film.

In the early 1970s, a group of young volunteers, the Free Youth Clinic of Winnipeg, operated a "crisis bus" to rescue young people experiencing bad drug trips, usually from LSD.

"The beautiful pulsating winter sun discovered by a single frame camera." - Filmmakers Co-operatives Catalogue of Independent Film.

An examination of mysteries of the ancient world and their connection to the possibility that aliens visited Earth.

The second of two coproductions by the British Broadcasting Corporation and the National Film Board of Canada, People of the Seal, Part 2: Eskimo Winter is compiled from some of the most vivid footage ever filmed of the life of the Netsilik Inuit in the Pelly Bay region of the Canadian Arctic. Together, the two films provide insight and understanding of a culture now almost vanished, as they show the incredible resourcefulness of the Netsilik (People of the Seal) who have adapted to one of the world's harshest environments. Part 2: Eskimo Winter shows how Inuit families gather in communities on the sea ice to harpoon seal as they come up through breating holes in the ice. Also seen is the mid-winter season, a time of intense socializing in the communal igloo, with games, contests and ceremonial activities.

The brutally entitled Don't Be Like Brenda (1973) is an eight-minute lecture to young women, telling them not to be sexually promiscuous like the film's hapless heroine – although heaven knows, the promiscuity hinted at here is tragically modest. Poor Brenda goes all the way with a boy who does not marry her. The film is stunningly without any useful educational content on contraception and makes it entirely clear that the woman, not the man, is to blame. The film even makes her poor unwanted child suffer from a heart defect, so that no one wants to adopt the poor little thing – just to hammer the point home. (from: http://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2009/feb/11/sex-education-films)

The Closing Of Winterland documents the Grateful Dead's landmark New Year's Eve 1978 concert that marked the end of the famed San Francisco Bay Area venue Winterland Aena. The Dead celebrated the closing as an approximately five-hour-long party (complete with breakfast with the audience at dawn) and invited some guests including guitarist John Cipollina of Quicksilver Messenger Service and Ken Kesey as well as actor Dan Aykroyd who provided the midnight countdown.

After becoming notorious world-wide for a bloody killing, Nguyen Ngoc Loan, former general and chief of the South Vietnamese police, moved to the United States and opened a restaurant outside of Washington, D.C. Contrasting images from these two phases of his life are intercut.

Produced for the Adults Learning series, this short film uses a conversation between a potential university dropout, a friend, and an observer to examine adult learning in the context of management–staff relations.

Documentary of a 1970 rock concert held in Rotterdam, The Netherlands.

The film is based on excerpts from the works of the great Russian thinker Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky. The consultants are Doctor of Philology B.I.Bursov, Honored Worker of Culture of the RSFSR V.M.Glinka.

The documentary Sin Telón celebrates the national artistic values of Teatro La Candelaria, recognized both nationally and internationally as one of the leading Latin American experimental theater groups. The film highlights the extensive career of Santiago García while also portraying the everyday life and unique working methods of this dedicated ensemble of artists from Teatro La Candelaria.

As filmmaker Jairo Ferreira shoots his life and friends in Super 8mm he also becomes the vampire of the Cinemateca Brasileira in São Paulo. In O VAMPIRO DA CINEMATECA Ferreira develops a poetic representation of his idea of “inventive cinema” without a plot in the classical sense. Ferreira mixes situations of everyday life in the streets of São Paulo with scenes from classics of film history, which he filmed from television or from a projection with his Super 8 camera. The author as a vampire sucks from various sources – not only in cinema, but also in poetry and music – and creates a portrait of his time.

Compilation of classic British comedy moments

The documentary illustrates the most exciting stages of the 14th Canoe and Kayak World Championships held in 1975 on rivers Radika and Treska in Macedonia. The sports event, passionate in its phases, constitutes a contribution of friendship between people.

Television documentary about German-born American director Douglas Sirk.

A staging of how a film is made. Explore the different techniques of cinematographic language, the camera, sound, editing, the photochemical laboratory and projection. It is a tribute to the artists, technicians and intellectuals of the national film industry.

Mondo Cane and the Schoolgirl Report series stand as obvious influences on this occasionally amusing but generally rather tedious exploitation film that alternates between documentary, fake documentary and docudrama. The theme is Satanism and the linking thread is a recreation of what is supposedly the real-life case of a murder and attempted murder of two Munich teenage men by a quartet of girls who had been dabbling in devil worship. During the ensuing trial, the lawyer resorts to dilatory tactics while the hearing is frequently interrupted by the girls breaking into incantation, temper tantrums or shivery fits ostensibly bearing on demonic possession. When the subject of the Manson killings is brought up, the most obnoxious of the defendants breaks in indignantly, claiming that Sharon Tate’s “execution” was justified as she posed dangers to the Satanic community.

Zoran Popovic and his friends in Edinburgh and surrounding area, around July and August of 1973.

Documentary wich tries to capture the iconoclastic spirit of the 1922 Week of Modern Art, to tell about the beginning of cinema made in the city of São Paulo.

A few months after the incident of April 13, 1975, during which Palestinian civilians were machine-gunned by Phalangist militiamen, the toll is most tragic: six thousand dead, twenty thousand wounded, incessant kidnappings, a semi-destroyed capital. This film traces the origins of the Lebanese conflict, the perception of a society that goes to war while singing. A unique document on the Lebanese civil war. Beyond the religious war, the painting of a social and political reality that has not changed much, more than four decades later.

A scientific film essay, narrated by Phil Morrison. A set of pictures of two picnickers in a park, with the area of each frame one-tenth the size of the one before. Starting from a view of the entire known universe, the camera gradually zooms in until we are viewing the subatomic particles on a man's hand.

Spectator is one of the early masterpieces by Zwartjes. The film explicitly shows one of Frans Zwartjes’ main themes: the relationship between husband and wife. It is a relationship that is strongly marked by power and domination, sexual attraction and repulsion. It manifests itself in humiliation and abuse (such Pentimento), but also in cool eroticism or natural physicality. Zwartjes’ goal is not to explain or designate this relationship. Rather it is the subject that Zwartjes uses to describe his world. In an article on Zwartjes, filmmaker and student George Schouten compares Zwartjes to the Italian writer Alberto Moravia. For both, sex is their way of dealing with reality. It is the subject by which they define their world. And for Zwartjes, it is also the subject with which he can display and develop his cinematic talent. (eyefilm.nl)

John Wayne hosts this film which was produced during the Vietnam War when the Communist threat was at its height.

Part documentary/part dramatization, this film details several of the highest-profile unsolved cases of disappearances, mysterious changes in personality and other strange occurrences related to the Bermuda Triangle.

An Iranian man and a French woman stroll around the city of Isfahan, Iran and find that their love is mirrored perfectly in the architecture and mosaics of the city's mosques.

Shots from Hamlet's rehearsals at the National Theatre in 1970, directed by Adam Hanuszkiewicz, performed by Daniel Olbrychski. The film presents various stages of the preparations – from trying on the costumes and memorizing lines to the final staging.

Propaganda film from the Argentine radical political organization 'Montoneros', analyzing the 20th-century history of its country and explaining the present tactical decisions of the organization.

Mai Zetterling explores Swedish cultural canon in a Canadian TV-production called “Cities”. Zetterling herself play all the prominent roles.

This documentary follows the recording process, circa 1978-1979, of Nick Lowe, Dave Edmunds & Rockpile. It gives great insight into the process of recording and "getting" the right sound for radio. If you've never had any studio experience before, this video will give you that fly on the wall experience. Cameos by Graham Parker, Albert Lee and Huey Lewis.

Boston. In those distant times, when virgin forests were still rustling on the site of today's Washington, when proud and free Indians gathered at the wigwams, on the site of which New York and Chicago, Atlanta and San Francisco are now piled, a settlement already existed here on the Atlantic coast of America. called by the people who founded it - Boston.

The sea as a determining factor in the life and history of the port of Callao.

A highly unusual look into the world of exotic pets and their owners in a large city. It is a film of love, comedy, ego and tragedy. The film begins on a humorous note, as the viewer is swept along, enjoying the fun of seeing and listening to people who keep monkeys, ocelots, lion cubs, possums, tarantulas, and every kind of exotic pet imaginable. Along with the careful, concerned people we meet, we also see some who are not quite so responsible. We witness the effects of some of the owners' neglect and lack of sensitivity to the needs of these animals from the wild. Some owners also describe their pets as exhibiting almost human traits, but is it good for animals to lose their own traits and characteristics, and acquire those of human beings?